These are the final lines from The Glass Menagerie, delivered by Tom Wingfield, the narator and protagonist of the play:
TOM: 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.
There is a lot going on in this monologue. Certainly, our main character is lamenting his inability to forget his frail sister (and perhaps forgive himself for leaving her). But Tennessee Williams is baring his soul, for the mentally fragile Laura is a thinly veiled version of the playwright's real life sister. Learn more about The Glass Menagerie, the play the is part fiction, part memory.
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