Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The glass menagerie as a tragedy
the glass menagerie critical essay
The glass menagerie as a tragedy
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The glass menagerie as a tragedy
In The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams Amanda’s actions make it clear to the reader that she is an over domineering character. When it came to her children, she would constantly be putting them down and making them feel as if they’re inferior and couldn’t do anything right lead to them being innovation to what their future can open up to. Amanda would always make her children’s decisions for them, not allowing them to be independent for their age. Lastly, has demonstrated that she is irresponsible and puts all her responsibility as a mother to her son Tom. Ultimately Amanda only cared about herself rather than her children. One of Amanda’s strongest characteristics is being domineering. She focuses mainly on their defaults and errors rather than focusing on how to be supportive and properly guide them as a mother. Any achievement her children would accomplish Laura wouldn’t recognize how skilled and their positive traits they can overcome. Amanda was being pessimistic about Laura’s future when Laura dropped business school and planned her future without hesitating to ask her but instantly assumed she was going to end up being an old maid. She didn’t think about any possibilities her daughter can become successful on her own, but instead she fails to recognize that both Laura and Tom can have a second chance to succeed on what their own plans for themselves can become if their mother wasn’t so over controlling. If someone weren’t doing something by choice like Laura it would be difficult and hopeless especially if he was always coerced into doing it. If Amanda’s decisions weren’t concurred the way she wanted it she would always be upset because her children wouldn’t stick to what she had told them to do and wouldn’t be ... ... middle of paper ... ...d intentions for Laura and Tom, she tried to go all about everything in the wrong way. Being a good mother isn’t always about loving your children. But having to encourage them for the best for themselves, their happiness comes first, working hard to maintain them, and letting them follow their dreams. Amanda didn’t possessed in neither of these qualities as a good mother. Amanda was just an old woman wanting to be in a young women’s body, she obviously wasn’t successful in her life so she was lost in her past and what she could have been. She was an irresponsible mother who didn’t let her children to make their own choices in their lives. The best way to describe Amanda is Domineering, to summarize it all up, Amanda Wingfeild was not such a good mother, expecting to much. Not just accepting her children for who they were and loving them for being all they could be.
Her low self-esteem makes it difficult for Laura to interact in society causing her to be more comfortable living in her imagination. John takes note of his sister diffident personality and tries to make Amanda understand, "[…]in the eyes of others-strangers-she 's terribly shy and lives in a world of her own and those things make her seem a little peculiar to people outside the house"(Williams 47). Being so self conscious about her disability, Laura allowed herself to become distant from the world around her. Laura creates this distance by escaping “[...] into a world of glass and music. Her father 's old phonograph records provide her with escape that the unfamiliar new tunes can 't provide”(). Laura finds comfort in what she is familiar with which is why she flees into her world of imagination and memory. When Laura is unable to deal with real life issues and duties she seeks tranquility in her delicate glass figurines and the remains of her father before he choose to elude the
Laura was born into a prominent, upper class family, the Courtlands. Her mother, Mary, in particular is a kind and generous woman who instinctively knows when she has "a duty to perform" and acts on it (164). Laura seems to have inherited this determined and honorable manner. She has higher standards than the society she lives in. Regarding love, she realizes that true love is about loving what is on the inside and is not based on looks, class, or wealth. She says, "How happy must those women be who are poor and friendless, and plain, when some true heart comes and says 'I wish to marry you!''' (165). Laura is, as the saying goes, "...
...something she discovered was useless. They both put emphasis on something that had brought them nothing but pain and suffering and it is this entrapment that makes Amanda and Willy most unlikable. Rather than learning from their mistakes and teaching their children to avoid making the same ones, Amanda and Willy lead their children down the same path to failure, a path that Amanda found to have a dead end, a path to which Willy found no end at all.
As Winfield 's wife, Amanda is worthy of love and respect. Amanda is a southern lady, when she was young, she had an attractive appearance and graceful in manner, and her families were also quite rich. These favorable conditions made her the admiration of many men. Still, her final choice was a poor boy. She did not hesitate and bravely to choose her own love. Though her marriage was not as good as she had imagined the happiness of life, and the husband, Winfield meager income also drinking heavily, finally abandoned Amanda and two young children, but she still remembered and loved her husband. Her husband 's weakness did not make Amanda fall down; instead, she was brave enough to support the family, raising and educating of their two young children. Daughter Laura was a disability to close her fantasy world, and she was collection of a pile of glass small animals as partners. Amanda knew Laura sensitive, fragile, she was always in the care and encourages her daughter. Because of her shortcomings, Laura sometimes frustrated and Amanda immediately replied that "I 've told you never, never to use that word. Why, you 're not crippled, you just have a little defect". Amanda for the care of the children was more reflected a mother 's strong from the play that Amanda paid money to send Laura to typing school. She hoped daughter have a better future and married a good man to take care of the family, and encouraged her daughter, prompting her to go out of the glass menagerie to experience her real life, but Amanda placed more expectations for his son Tom because her husband left home, Tom is the only man and the mainstay of the family. She wanted Tom to realize that is a kind of family responsibility, also is a kind of essential social
...rning her children and her lacking maternity, it seems unlikely that she will “remember the children” and allow herself to fulfill the role of mother when mothering her children will possess and consume her.
Without a husband to support her, Amanda tries to raise her children like upper class children. Unlike Amanda, Carrie Meeber, the protagonist of a naturalist novel Sister Carrie, starts out very poor, and after meeting two significant men, Drouet and Hurstwood, Carrie’s morals decline, but her finances increase exponentially. Amanda’s assets increase while she is with her husband, but when he abandons her, she struggles economically. Without a man like Tom to help her, Amanda and Laura would be hopeless. Following the standards of naturalism, Amanda reacts accordingly, and teaches her children to behave like members of the upper class. She strictly enforces proper manners; the importance of a well-rounded education, and the décor in her home is simulating value. In her regard, upper class members are often treated better, and she ...
In The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, we embark on the task of seeing a family living in the post WWII era. The mother is Amanda, living in her own world and wanting only the best for her son, Tom. Tom, a dreamer, tired of Amanda’s overbearing and constant pursuit of him taking care of the family, wants to pursue his own goals of becoming a poet. He is constantly criticized and bombarded by his mother for being unsuccessful. This drives him to drinking and lying about his whereabouts, and eventually at the end of the play, he ends up leaving. An example of Amanda and Tom’s quarrel I when he quotes, “I haven’t enjoyed one bit of this dinner because of your constant directions on how to eat it. It’s you that makes me rush through meals with your hawklike attention to every bit I take.”(302) Laura, on the other hand, is shy and out of touch with reality because of a slight disability, in which she is comfort...
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.
...from the liability that his father had left for him. The constant bickering between Tom and Amanda that is driving Laura into the nervous state she is in, could be mitigated if Mr. Wingfield were there to alleviate some of the stress off of Tom and Amanda. Mr. Wingfield leaving the way he did has impacted every member of his family, and has potentially ruined the lives of his wife and children.
The Glass Menagerie, written by Tennessee Williams in 1944, tells a tale of a young man imprisoned by his family. Following in the footsteps of his father, Tom Wingfield is deeply unhappy and eventually leaves his mother and sister behind so he may pursue his own ambitions. Throughout the play, the reader or audience is shown several reasons why Tom, a brother to Laura and son to Amanda, is unhappy and wishes to leave his family. However, the last scene describes Tom’s breaking point in which he leaves for the last time. Amanda tells Tom to “go to the moon,” because he is a “selfish dreamer.” (7. Amanda and Tom) The reasonings for Tom’s departure are due to his mother’s constant nagging, hatred for
Amanda is also well characterized by the glass menagerie. The glass sits in a case, open for display and inspection for all. Amanda try’s to portray herself as a loving mother, doing everything she can for her children, and caring nothing for herself, when in fact, she is quite selfish and demanding. Amanda claims that she devotes her life to her children, and that she would do anything for them, but is very suspicious of Tom’s activities, and continually pressures Tom, trying to force him in finding a gentleman caller for Laura, believing that Laura is lonely and needs a companion, perhaps to get married. Like the glass, her schemes are very transparent, and people can see straight through them to the other side, where ...
Laura suffers from an "inferiority complex," much like how Jim described. She feels burdened with
Amanda, somehow, finds a way to be both selfish and selfless when it comes to Laura. Amanda wants Laura to be happy and successful, but does not understand that Laura is too shy and unmotivated to be either. When Amanda discovers that Laura has stopped going to typing class she is beyond disappointing. When discovered Amanda yells at her daughter saying, “Fifty dollars’ tuition, all our plans- my hopes and ambitions for you- just gone up the spout, just gone up the spout like that.” Laura quit something as simple as learning how to type; this realization struck Amanda because if she cannot do that there is no way Laura could provide for herself without a husband. Mrs. Wingfield’s worst nightmare is is for her children to become dependent on relatives and not being able to take care of themselves. After Laura drops out of typing school Amanda says, “What is there left but dependency all our lives? I know so well what becomes of unmarried women who aren’t prepared to occupy a position. I’ve seen such pitiful cases in the South—barely tolerated spinsters living upon the grudging patronage of sister’s husband or brother’s wife!—stuck away in some little mousetrap of a room—encouraged by one in-law to visit another—little birdlike women without any nest—eating the crust of humility all their life!. Amanda had always wanted for Laura to find a nice husband, but then the situation became desperate when the younger women
Amanda Wingfield (mother) is the most unrealistic of all the characters. She clings desperately to the past as she repeatedly relives the memories of receivin...
Laura Tavares was born in 1995. Since the day she was brought into this world she was verbally abused by her mother. Being the first child, one would have thought, “she would be the most loved”. By the age of seven, there was a new baby in the house, Samuel. He was born premature, and aside from the verbal abuse, Laura started to get neglected. By age 10, she was obese and dressed like a middle aged woman. Her mother made sure that Laura knew her place as the slave in the family, waiting on Sammy hand and foot. Evidently Laura knew she was not the favorite, and she made it her goal to change that. She became a straight A student, and was know as the best dancer at our school. She lost weight, and got a job where she made over $1000 a week. Meanwhile cleaning a house that would outshine the sun if she cleaned it anymore, all to gain the love of her mother. “I need a mother”- She