The Glass Menagerie

     


I am reading the book The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. The story takes place in the 1930 when the American working class were still reeling from effects of the Great Depression.
Amanda Wingfield is the mother of Laura and Tom. All Amanda wants is the best for her children, but she fails to understand what her children wants most. Amanda does gear her whole life toward their happiness because she doesn’t want them to make the mistake that she made and yet in devoting herself to them, she has made herself overbearing and nagging. Amanda refuses to see that her children are quite different from her cause her many uncomfortable moments. She cannot understand why Laura cannot develop charm and gaiety but Amanda’s idea of charm differs vastly from of Laura’s idea. Amanda can, at any moment turn on a volley a chatter, be exceptionally lively and gay; Laura, on the other hand lives in quiet, sensitive world. Amanda can recall “One Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain your mother received-seventeen! – gentlemen callers! Why, some-times weren’t chairs enough to accommodate them all (‘The Glass Menagerie’).  Her daughter Laura is so much different she knows that she will not be like her mother. “How many do you suppose we’re going to entertain this afternoon? I don’t believe we’re going to receive any, Mother” (‘The Glass Menagerie’).
      While reading this book I wondered if Amanda even missed her husband. Even though Amanda doesn’t seem to attached much emotional value to marriage, she confesses to Tom that she did loved his father. In father, she spends a lot of her stage directions just looking at his portrait. You sort of have to read between the lines on this one, because Amanda never explicitly tells us much about the guy. You know he peaced out,  that he had no regrets, that he was good-looking, charming, and liked his alcohol.But Amanda is pretty controlled about him abandoning her as though it doesn’t hurt, when clearly, for woman of Southern tradition, being left by her husband is pretty awful ordeal. She shows considerable strength which you might alternatively call denial with the situation.
We would love to blame Amanda for some of her ridiculous stereotyped projections of gender roles, and the way she forces certain plans of the future onto her children. But, honestly the women has a point.   She was raised in the 1900s. Her mother is just looking out for her. Tom does need tosupport them or they will starve.