Amanda Wingfield’s Obsession with the Past Responsible for the Doomed Present in The Glass Menagerie
Amanda is a deserted wife. Her husband had
deserted her sixteen years ago leaving her to raise two small children. She has
to live in the past, because her present life is miserable. She uses various
escape mechanisms in' order to endure her present position in life. When her
present life becomes unbearable, she recalls the days of her youth when she lived
at Blue Mountain and had seventeen gentlemen callers in one Sunday afternoon.
She wants Tom and Laura to bring her the happiness that her husband failed to
give her. In the process of her dreaming and scheming, she totally ignores the
wants and needs of her children, never understands them. When they fail to live
up to her expectations, she nags them and criticizes them unmercifully.
Amanda is obviously a frustrated woman. Because
of her obsession with the past, she fails to understand Tom. Tom works in a
shoe factory which he does not like. He is a poet by nature. He feels that man
should live by his feelings and by his/instinct. He seeks love, adventure, and
romance. But Amanda views instinct as something bestial and vulgar. She wants a
comfortable life within the bounds of prescribed propriety. He wants a life of
adventures. But her mother urges him to shine in life. She is frustrated
with his lack of ambition and refusal to take college courses. The way she
treats Tom is a reaction to the family’s desertion by her husband. In Tom’s
restlessness, she sees echoes of desertion and is afraid that Tom is going to
leave her as well. This causes her to cling" harder to her son, and her
clinging turns into an attempt to micromanage his life. Her attitude triggers
Tom’s decision to enact his escape to the Merchant Marine.
Amanda’s relationship with Laura is much the
same as her relationship with Tom. She refuses to accept the fact that Laura is
different. She indulges in playful games so as to escape the drudgery of
everyday living. She tells Laura, “You be the lady this time and I’ll be the
darky.” She refuses to acknowledge that Laura is crippled and instead refers to
her as having only a slight physical defect. Even she tries to pretend that it
is not so strange that her daughter spends all of her time with her glass
menagerie. She is concerned about what will happen to Laura. She doesn’t Want
Laura to be reduced to relying on the grudging kindness of relatives in orderto
survive. She wants Laura to have a secure home and family of her own. Because
of her illusions she foolishly believes that Jim O’Connor will marry her
daughter, thus providing for the girl’s future.
But she is unable to live forever in this world
of illusion. When she comes to know that Jim is engaged to another girl her
illusion is shattered. All the time she tries to relive her own life but fails
to understand the different personalities that her children possessed and ended
up driving Tom away from home leaving Amanda and Laura to fend for themselves.
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