“attempting to find in motion what was lost in space”

“attempting to find in motion what was lost in space” is Tom Wingfield’s description of the flight that cannot free him from his sister Laura Wingfield. The phrase first accompanies his departure from the Wingfield apartment; in his closing speech, it returns as the governing paradox of his travels: movement takes him away from home, but cannot restore what was lost there.

First Use: Escape and Its Cost

The phrase appears in an account of the Wingfield family’s recurring escapes. Mr. Wingfield, a telephone man drawn to long distances, has already abandoned his family. Tom’s own departure follows his father’s example: after vicarious adventures at the movies, he leaves by the fire escape for the Merchant Marines. Yet the escape is not simply a victory over confinement. Tom’s departure leaves Amanda Wingfield and Laura further confined to their respective worlds of jonquils and glass unicorns, making his pursuit of freedom inseparable from the family he leaves behind.

The formulation gives that departure a pointed direction. Tom seeks through motion what the family’s broken life has denied him, but the movement is a search, not a recovery. The commentary connects his restless escape to his father’s flight while distinguishing its emotional cost: unlike the father’s smiling photograph and “Hello––Goodbye!” postcard, Tom’s departure remains bound to the knowledge of those left behind.

The Phrase in Tom’s Closing Speech

At the play’s close, Tom revisits the phrase in his account of what followed. He says he did not go to the moon but went further, because time is the longest distance between two places. Fired for writing a poem on a shoe-box lid, he left Saint Louis, descended the fire-escape steps for the last time, and followed his father’s footsteps. He traveled widely, with cities sweeping around him like brightly colored leaves torn from their branches.

The journey does not bring release. Something pursues Tom and catches him unawares: perhaps a familiar piece of music, perhaps a piece of transparent glass. He imagines passing a shop window filled with colored glass and delicate perfume bottles, like fragments of a shattered rainbow, when Laura suddenly touches his shoulder. The image turns the phrase’s abstract contrast between motion and loss into a recurring encounter: travel carries him through strange cities, but a reminder of Laura makes the absent family present again.

Meaning and Dramatic Function

The phrase’s return transforms escape from a single act into an unresolved condition. Tom can leave the apartment and travel widely, yet cannot leave Laura behind in memory. His attempts to evade that memory—crossing the street, running into movies or a bar, buying a drink, or speaking to a stranger—are set against its repeated arrival. The phrase therefore holds freedom and attachment in the same motion: Tom has escaped the household, but not the bond or guilt that follows him.

Its recurrence also frames the play’s ending. As Tom speaks, Amanda appears to comfort Laura; Laura finally lifts her head to smile at her mother, and at the close she blows out the candles. Tom’s final confession that he is more faithful to Laura than he intended gives the phrase its fullest force: movement has carried him away, while memory keeps returning him to the sister whose candles he cannot extinguish. The line distills the play’s escape motif into an image of pursuit, distance, and enduring attachment.