Mistakes
Jim O'Connor tells Laura that he went to the Chicago World's Fair "the summer before last." However, the Chicago World's Fair closed in 1934, meaning the action of the play takes place no later than the Summer of 1936. Tom makes a couple of references to Guernica in his soliloquies; the event happened in April 1937. The play is usually referenced as happening in spring of 1937. However, as the play is a memory play, Tom could be narrating in the spring of 1937 events that occurred in years previous to 1936.
When Amanda asks Jim to take the candelabra and wine glass out to Laura, she asks if he can manage both. In the original script Jim says, "Sure, I'm Superman." The Superman character did not appear in comics until 1938's Action Comics #1. The phrase already existed from English translations of ubermensch in works by Nietzsche, whom Williams often references in his plays. The line is altered in the Acting Edition to "Well, I can try."
The evening of scene 6, Amanda describes the moon as a "little silver slipper." Tom says it is "rising over Garfinkel's Delicatessen." An evening crescent moon would be setting, not rising.
These could be considered lapses in memory on Tom's part, or artistic license on Williams' part.
Read more about this topic: The Glass Menagerie
Famous quotes containing the word mistakes:
“... the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we’re so fond of it.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“So long as a person who has made mistakes ... honestly and sincerely wishes to be cured and to mend his ways, we should welcome him and cure his sickness so that he can become a good comrade. We can never succeed if we just let ourselves go and lash at him.”
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976)