Exploring Amanda of The Glass Menagerie
Tennessee Williams has a gift for character. Not many playwrights do, and even fewer possess the unique ability to craft a character as paradoxical and complex as Amanda Wingfield. In The Glass Menagerie, Amanda is a very difficult character to understand because of her psychological disposition. Williams realizes this and provides the reader with a character description in hopes of making the character more accessible to meticulous analysis.
AMANDA WINGFIELD the mother. A little woman of great but confused vitality clinging frantically to another time and place. Her characterization must be carefully created, not copied from type. She is not paranoiac, but her life is paranoia. There is much to admire in Amanda, and as much to love and pity as there is to laugh at. Certainly she has endurance and a kind of heroism, and though her foolishness makes her unwittingly cruel at times, there is tenderness in her slight person. (Williams 781)
“Before the first lines are spoken Amanda's complexity is established”(Falk 126) by the nuances a...
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A self-destruction Suicide is the act or an instance of intentionally killing oneself. Suicide is applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result. Suicide is a rarely ever a spur of the moment thing. The Susceptibility to suicide is lowest among those who have strong community ties. Today people continue to commit suicide for a variety of reasons: Love, insanity an...
African Americans face a multidimensional health care crisis that affects the young or old, rich or poor. Too many African Americans are uninsured or underinsured. The elderly cannot afford long-term health care leaving the family to care for them. Health care cost is constantly rising and are out of control, reform is the only way out.
Suicide). Suicidal behaviors occur as a response to a situation that the person views as
Severe mood swings, violent rages, memory loss—each of these problems were a part of my family life during the past two or three years. These problems are the result of alcoholism. Recently, a member of my family realized his abuse of alcohol was a major problem to not only himself, but also to those around him. He would lose control of his temper and often would not even remember doing it the next day. Alcohol became a part of his daily life including work, home, and any other activities. His problem was that of a "hidden" and "high-society" alcoholism. When he was threatened with the loss of his job and the possibility of losing his family, this man knew it was time to get help. After he reached his lowest point, he took the first step towards recovery—admitting his problem.
Suicide is the intentional act of killing oneself. Typically individuals who commit suicide act out of despair. Common suicide triggers are mental disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and alcoholism and drug abuse. Personal issues such as financial problems or poor interpersonal relationships play a significant role in the cause of suicide (Gross, 2006).In the U.S suicide is the 6th cause of death. Suicide is also the leading cause of death among teenagers and young adults, more men commit suicide than women (Gelder et al, 2005).Leenar and Lester article mention important information about the general knowledge about suicide in college students. However relevant information is missing.
Individuals in society experience many changes that can make them feel overwhelm or feel accepted by their friends, family members and the rest of society. But there is times when people feel that they do not fit or feel welcome in their social group. Many people face their difficulties and achieve success others are do not have such luck. The individuals that are not lucky finishes their life committing suicide. Suicide is an act of taking one’s own life voluntarily and intentionally that affects not only immediate family and friends but indicates factors in society that are influencing individuals to commit this act. Is important to understand what aspects in society are making individuals to take their own live? And if
In Williams, Tennessee’s play The Glass Menagerie, Amanda’s image of the southern lady is a very impressive. Facing the cruel reality, she depends on ever memories of the past as a powerful spiritual to look forward to the future, although her glory and beautiful time had become the past, she was the victim of the social change and the Great Depression, but she was a faithful of wife and a great mother’s image cannot be denied.
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is a touching play about the lost dreams of a southern family and their struggle to escape reality. The play is a memory play and therefore very poetic in mood, setting, and dialogue. Tom Wingfield serves as the narrator as well as a character in the play. Tom lives with his Southern belle mother, Amanda, and his painfully shy sister, Laura. The action of the play revolves around Amanda's search to find Laura a "gentleman caller. The Glass Menagerie's plot closely mirrors actual events in the author's life. Because Williams related so well to the characters and situations, he was able to beautifully portray the play's theme through his creative use of symbolism.
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. In Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, 4th ed. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995. 1519-1568.
Amanda Wingfield in the play, The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams, was portrayed as a distraught southern belle trying to control the lives of her children. In The Glass Menagerie Amanda is the matriarch of her small family who appears at first to be a woman who cared about her children’s futures- that is before she becomes so overbearing that she started to hinder her children’s future. Amanda was a single mother who could never grasp reality. The Glass Menagerie was a memory play that told of a family trapped in destructive patterns. After being abandoned by her husband sixteen years prior, Amanda became trapped between two completely different worlds; worlds of illusion and reality. It seemed like when the world became too harsh or hard for Amanda, she would just simply close her eyes and pretend like nothing was wrong. When the real world became to overbearing for Amanda, she would recall the days of her youth and how great they were. This was simply just a way for Amanda to stay optimistic and stay out of reality. Amanda made the relationship between her and her children very difficult because she never tried to understand her children’s different personalities. Amanda was stuck on trying to mold her children’s lives the way she wanted them, rather than letting her children choose and lead their own lives. Amanda’s way of helping the children did not let her connect with them the way that each of them needed. Due to her one minded opinion, she didn’t see that Laura was a shy girl with low self esteem and needed a mother to show her how to act around the public and that Tom just simply needed to switch jobs and have someone to talk to. Tom eventually left the house because he realized his weak relati...
The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams, is a complex work that encompasses many thematic ideas. The play details the life of a dysfunctional family living in St. Louis during the 1930s. The family has many problems and have created their own version of reality to cope with and avoid the truth of their situation. Illusion reigns supreme and prevents the family from moving forward. In The Glass Menagerie, Williams explores how one can create their own warped version of reality based on memories of the past, visions of the future, or a distorted perception of the present and how that can prevent one from moving forward in their life.
Tennessee Williams of Columbus, Mississippi, and author of the play The Glass Menagerie creates a well-rounded character by the name of Tom Wingfield. The author reveals many aspects of this character throughout the play, which focuses on the memories of the three main characters that live in a St. Louis apartment in the late 1930s. As the story progresses, the reader observes how each of the characters unravel and unfold to their needs and wants. Tom is displayed as a character who lives in a world that is different from reality, so, therefore, he behaves in a fashion that makes him seem falsely selfish, creative, and adventurous.
Suicide has become one of the many means that problematic individuals take into consideration to exempt from an unpleasant or oppressive situation. Suicide can be generally defined as the act of causing one’s death usually out of despair. People who are likely to commit suicide are those who suffer from severe mental illnesses and are involved with alcohol and drugs. Other than that, individuals who are experiencing unemployment and divorce can also be possible victims to commit such act. Based on the study done in the year 1997, an average of fifteen-percent who are clinically depressed ended up committing suicide. Furthermore, suicide was the eighth leading cause of death in the US (“Suicide”). It is prevalent for depressed individuals to consider suicide when major issues in life do not work out well. The big question is, what makes a person thinks that ending his or her life can help oneself to escape from the reality when life has so much more to offer?