田纳西·威廉姆斯的《玻璃动物园》常被称为记忆剧。我们了解到一个美国小家庭，这可能被认为是相当正常或普通的家庭。该剧也很受欢迎，因为它有自传体的成分。

第一场

"In memory everything seems to happen to music."

汤姆·温菲尔德以叙述者的身份发言。有一种有趣的品质，似乎没有记忆就联想到它自己。有时，我们感觉就像是在观看（在舞台上）发生在我们面前的事件，或是观看一部重播的、由音乐改编的别人生活的电影。它看起来并不总是真实的。而且，即使我们知道这件事发生了，也会有一种感觉，我们都是某个巨大但非常人造的动物园里的走卒。

"Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion."

在第一场中，汤姆·温菲尔德以叙述者的身份发言。他是剧中的角色之一，但他也是魔术师概念的转折点。

场景2

"Mother, when you're disappointed, you get that awful suffering look on your face, like the picture of Jesus' mother in the museum."

劳拉·温菲尔德正在和她的母亲（阿曼达）谈话。这种相互作用可以说是相当典型的母女交换。

"I know so well what becomes of unmarried women who aren't prepared to occupy a position. I've seen such pitiful cases in the South—barely tolerated spinsters living upon the grudging patronage of sister's husband or brother's wife!—stuck away in some little mousetrap of a room—encouraged by one in-law to visit another—little birdlike women without any nest—eating the crust of humility all their life! Is that the future that we've mapped out for ourselves?"

阿曼达·温菲尔德将自己与孩子们的命运（以及未来的好坏）联系在一起，这也解释了她对孩子们的操纵心理。

"Why you're not crippled, you just have a little defect—hardly noticeable, even! When people have some slight disadvantage like that, they cultivate other things to make up for it—develop charm—and vivacity—and—charm!

注意：阿曼达·温菲尔德正在操纵她的女儿劳拉。

"Girls that aren't cut out for business careers usually wind up married to some nice man."

阿曼达·温菲尔德得知她的女儿劳拉已从商学院退学。

场景3

"I took that horrible novel back to the library—yes! That hideous book by that insane Mr. Lawrence. I cannot control the output of diseased minds or people who cater to them—BUT I WON'T ALLOW SUCH FILTH BROUGHT INTO MY HOUSE! No, no, no, no, no!"

阿曼达

"Every time you come in yelling that Goddamn "Rise and Shine! Rise and Shine!" I say to myself, "How lucky dead people are!" But I get up. I go! For sixty-five dollars a month I give up all that I dream of doing and being ever! And you say self—self's all I ever think of. Why, listen, if self is what I though of, Mother, I'd be where he is GONE!"

汤姆

场景4

"I know your ambitions do not lie in the warehouse, that like everybody in the whole wide world—you've had to—make sacrifices, but—Tom—Tom—life's not easy, it calls for—Spartan endurance!"

阿曼达

"Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter, and none of those instincts are given much play at the warehouse!"

汤姆和母亲阿曼达就自己的事业争论不休

"This was the compensation for lives that passed like mine, without any change or adventure. Adventure and change were imminent in this year. They were waiting around the corner for all these kids."

汤姆

场景5

"You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present becomes the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don't plan for it!"

阿曼达对汤姆说

"No girl can do worse than put herself at the mercy of a handsome appearance. The Glass Menagerie Amanda, referring to the bad choice she made in marrying a handsome man, Scene 5. She lives in a world of her own—a world of—little glass ornaments."

汤姆，关于劳拉。

场景6

"He was shooting with such velocity through his adolescence that you would logically expect him to arrive at nothing short of the White House by the time he was thirty."

汤姆对吉姆·奥康纳的印象，当他们都在高中的时候

"All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be."

这是现代主义婚姻和关系观的完美体现。阿曼达正试图让她的女儿劳拉尽可能有魅力。它厌倦了，似乎没有“爱”的概念作为等式的一部分。

"People go to the movies instead of moving! Hollywood characters are supposed to have all the adventures for everybody in America, while everybody in America sits in a dark room and watches them have them! Yes, until there's a war. That's when adventure becomes available to the masses."

汤姆

"I know I seem dreamy, but inside—well, I'm boiling! Whenever I pick up a shoe, I shudder a little thinking how short life is and what I am doing! Whatever that means, I know it doesn't mean shoes - except as something to wear on a traveler's feet!"

汤姆

"All of my gentlemen callers were sons of planters and so of course I assumed that I would be married to one and raise my family on a large piece of land with plenty of servants. But man proposes—and woman accepts the proposal! To vary that old, old saying a bit-I married no planter! I married a man who worked for the telephone company!"

这是阿曼达的一个例子，她的品牌南方美女多愁善感和魅力在数量上高而繁盛。

场景7

"People are not so dreadful when you get to know them."

吉姆正在给他妹妹讲一些智慧的话（帮助她克服害羞）。

"You think of yourself as having the only problems, as being the only one who is disappointed. But just look around you and you will see lots of people as disappointed as you are."

吉姆对劳拉说

"I believe in the future of television! I wish to be ready to go up right along with it. Therefore I'm planning to get in on the ground floor. In fact I've already made the right connections and all that remains is for the industry itself to get under way! Full steam—Knowledge—Zzzzzp! Money—Zzzzzp!—Power! That's the cycle democracy is built on."

吉姆

"Most of them are little animals made out of glass, the tiniest little animals in the world. Mother calls them a glass menagerie! Here's an example of one, if you'd like to see it! ... Oh, be careful—if you breathe, it breaks! ... Hold him over the light, he loves the light! You see how the light shines through him?"

这是劳拉和吉姆之间互动的一部分，他们在跳舞时不小心撞到了桌子。玻璃独角兽破了。

"Glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you are."

劳拉正在和吉姆说话，但这是对劳拉（和她全家）的讽刺。它们都是脆弱的，会破碎。

"I wish that you were my sister. I'd teach you to have some confidence in yourself. The different people are not like other people, but being different is nothing to be ashamed of. Because other people are not such wonderful people. They're one hundred times one thousand. You're one times one! They walk all over the earth. You just stay here. They're common as—weeds, but—you—well, you're—Blue Roses!"

吉姆正在和劳拉说话

"Things have a way of turning out so badly."

阿曼达是一个悲观的自我，在任何情况下都会想最坏的事情！

"You don't know things anywhere! You live in a dream; you manufacture illusions!"

阿曼达又在批评汤姆了。事实上，他比她对现实有更好、更坚定的把握。她生活在一个她自己制作的玻璃动物园里，想要控制它的每一个方面。

"That's right, now that you've had us make such fools of ourselves. The effort, the preparations, all the expense! The new floor lamp, the rug, the clothes for Laura! all for what? To entertain some other girl's fiancé! Go to the movies, go! Don't think about us, a mother deserted, an unmarried sister who's crippled and has no job! Don't let anything interfere with your selfish pleasure I just go, go, go—to the movies!"

阿曼达

"I didn't go to the moon, I went much further—for time is the longest distance between two places."

汤姆

"I left Saint Louis. I descended the steps of this fire escape for a last time and followed, from then on, in my father's footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space. . . . I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. . . . I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow. Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger—anything that can blow your candles out!—for nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles Laura—and so goodbye."

这是该剧的最后一幕。汤姆正在介绍他生活中发生的最新情况，在这几年里。