The Glass Menagerie--some topics

Here is some brainstorming I've been doing in preparation for tomorrow's in-class essay. I've narrowed down the essay I'll ask you to write to three possibilities:

• All of the characters in The Glass Menagerie (TGM) are equally portrayed as pathetic and living a life of illusion separate from reality. Explain each of their illusions and argue which of them, if any, are left at the end of the play still living in their illusions.
• Critic Benjamin Nelson said, "When Tom leaves he escapes from a trap, a situation which is plainly unendurable, but there is nothing heroic or even positive and challenging in his departure...His departure is little more than a snap of a twig in the wind." Explain what Nelson means about Tom.
  
• According to Amanda, Mr. Wingfield, her husband, was a true gentleman. What does this mean? How does the father play into the story as a significant character? And how does the notion of a "good man" get distorted by Williams through the presentation of Wingfield in this play?