The difference between appearance and reality creates an ironic gap in the play The Glass Menagerie. Many of the characters live in the fantasy world of their own. They cage themselves in a different world where things are different and that they control to protect and to keep themselves away from reality/truth. This is because for all the characters in the Glass Menagerie, the truth/ reality hurts, and they all want to escape from what is real to them so they run from reality which creates the ironic gap in the play. Amanda, Laura, and Tom all have their own ways of protecting themselves from reality and fight against their appearance and how they act and what is really happening.
Amanda, the mother, takes herself to her