Tennessee Williams
In an earlier scene, Tom implicitly compared his father to a magician who can escape a coffin without removing a nail. In this scene, Tom's abandonment and neglected bill payments reinforce his analogy between his family and a coffin. However, the idea that abandoning his family could be done without removing any nails was disproved.
Even though Tom's father seemingly escaped without regret, doing so left the family falling apart. First of all, abandoning Amanda made her paranoid, vengeful, and controlling. Almost every scene of the play includes Amanda's recollection of her Blue Mountain days in which she met her future husband. Here, Amanda's desire to find success in her daughter's love life led to extreme heartbreak and disappointment. Most significantly, the escape act emboldened Tom and inspired him to seek the same thing. The only nails holding family together seemed to have been ripped out by the father.
Additionally, Tom found that his escape would not be without complications for him. Tom believed that, once he escaped his situation, like a magician, he could simply take a bow and go on to adventure. However, he never truly escaped his family: "Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!" (Williams, 1289). Unfortunately for Tom, like when he remorsefully helped Laura pick up the pieces of glass he broke, ultimately desired to protect his sister.
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