Scene 3-The Glass Menagerie

Tennessee Williams utilizes an apparent hyperbole in Scene 3 while Amanda and Tom are arguing.  Amanda is exhausted by the fact that Tom keeps going to the movies.  He finally loses it with her constant nagging.  Though he has actually been going to the movies, he exaggerates and says "I'm going to opium dens!...I've joined the Hogan gang, I'm a hire assassin, I carry a tommy-gun in a violin case!" (Williams, 1247).  This situation points out the unusual nature of how often Tom attends the movies.  The movies, for Tom, is another form of escape.  He goes there to find something that missing in his own life: adventure.  Tom is bored with the fact that his sister is too "fragile" to actually live an exciting life.  His mother is too obsessed with her past to even put the thought of her son's individual future into her mind.  All of this contributes to his envy/admiration of his father.  Tom, too, wants to escape and not have to look back ever.