When Tom returns from the movies, he emphasizes his desire to escape by talking about the magician who was nailed in a coffin and got out. He then compares his apartment and his situation in life to that of the magician climbing into a coffin—now the question is: how can he get out of his coffin?
Notice that Laura trips on the outside fire escape, a device used to suggest her fear of the outside world.
As soon as Tom apologizes to his mother, she maintains theatrically that her devotion has made her a witch and hateful to her children. There is a great deal of truth in this statement. Her overzealous devotion causes her to nag and almost persecute them.
The quarrel has hardly cooled off before Amanda returns to her old nagging self. She immediately begins to direct Tom as to how he should drink his coffee and what he should eat.
The difference between Amanda and Tom is most clearly seen in this scene in their discussion of instinct. Tom is the poet and feels that man should live by his feelings and by his instinct. He feels that he is being destroyed as an individual by being forced to live all cramped up in the apartment and in the city. He seeks love, adventure, and romance. But these are the very qualities that Amanda’s husband possessed and one day he followed his instincts and left home. Thus, Amanda views instinct as something bestial and vulgar. She wants a comfortable life within the bounds of prescribed propriety. Furthermore, Amanda refuses to recognize that her children have views different from hers.
Amanda here is realist enough to know that Tom is reaching a point of desperation. She tells him that he can leave anytime after Laura is taken care of. Thus she returns to the theme of the gentleman caller and wants Tom to bring one home with the hopes that Laura can find some place of her own.
