Who is Laura Wingfield you might ask? Without the knowledge of her age one might assume Laura is quite young the little sister. However she is not, Laura is almost 24 and is someone who didn’t want to be treated like a child but just became complacent with her status. Furthermore, Laura is unemployed which creates one of the main conflicts in the play, and her response to this problem highlights Laura’s attempt at ignoring reality by lying to her mother. The entirety of the play takes place in Saint Louis and Laura’s family apartment. Highlighting, why Laura’s has a clear inability to accept change since Laura has lived in Saint Louis, Missouri her whole life. Similarly, Laura has also lived her entire life in the same apartment located in …show more content…
Demonstrated, by her praying when her mother asks her and attending church as well. Furthermore, in combination with references to slavery from Amanda and a few derogatory terms from Tom one can assume Laura and her family are Caucasian American. Moreover, it can be assumed that the play was written for a time period before it was published in 1944. Shown by the play also making references to the Second World War, and the Spanish civil War, presumably meaning the play took place some time in the late 1930’s. In the play the super-objective of Laura is to protect the alternate reality she has created where she feels far less crippled, and far more accepted. However, Laura faces the obstacle of real life, and her issues with her mother and her brother. The importance of protecting this alternate reality is extremely high to Laura because it is the only thing that has protected her from feeling confusion, pain, and anger towards the problems she faces. Meaning, it’s her only defence against something she has no control over (her illness, her families problems, feeling accepted). This is highlighted through the fact that Laura rarely speaks about herself but when she does her self doubt, and fears are quite …show more content…
For example the line, “I—can’t dance!” or “Please don’t stare at me, Mother.” Even the line, “I had to walk in front of all those people. My seat was in the back row. I had to go clumping all way up the aisle with everyone watching.” or “ I-I never had much luck at—making friends.” Moreover, even when Laura attempts to accept herself shown with the line, “Lately, I have been spending most of my afternoons in the Jewel-box, that big glass house where they raise the tropical flowers.” and “I’m all right. I slipped, but I’m alright,” or even, “It isn’t a flood, it’s not a tornado, Mother. I’m just not popular like you were in Blue Mountain,” she can then go back to negative self defeating language. For example, “Well, not very—well—I had to drop out it gave me—indigestion,” or, “ In what respect am I pretty?” even when Laura mentioned the line, “I’m—-crippled,” she used it with a negative
The characters inhabit their private realities in order to detach themselves from a world that confuses and alienates them. Laura, Amanda, Tom, and Jim prefer to immerse themselves in their narrow view of time rather than embrace the flow of time. Laura remains isolated as she has failed to find love. Amanda judges Laura as she imposes her own narrow expectations on her. Tom believes that he can escape reality and become inseparable from the imaginary worlds of movies. Jim's idealistic view of Laura suggests that he is out of touch with reality. The play demonstrates that the characters desire to escape reality due to their inability to live in the present and embrace the flow of
Laura unable to survive in the outside world - retreating into their apartment and her glass collection and victrola. There is one specific time when she appears to be progressing when Jim is there and she is feeling comfortable with being around him. This stands out because in all other scenes of the play Laura has never been able to even consider conversation with a "Gentleman Caller."
how much she hates the fact that she was not affirmative in her words to Mrs. Price on
The pointedness of the play is created through a distinct plot path. The observer is lead through the story, seeing first how greatly Amanda Wingfield influences her children. Secondly, the play-goer notes how Tom Wingfield desperately struggles and writhes emotionally in his role of provider- he wants more than just to be at home, taking care of his all-too-reminiscent mother and emotionally stunted sister. Tom wants to get out from under his mother’s wing; his distinct ambitions prevent him from being comfortable with his station in life. Lastly, Laura struggles inside herself; doing battle against her shyness, Laura begins to unfurl a bit with Jim, but collapses once again after Jim announces his engagement and leaves her, again. Each character struggles and thrashes against their places in life, but none of them achieve true freedom. This plot attests to the fact that true change and freedom can only come through the saving power of God Almighty and Jesus Christ, and by letting go of the past.
It is said in the character description that Laura “[has] failed to establish contact with reality” (Glass 83). This illustrates how Laura is childlike and naive, in that, Williams literally says that she has not established contact with reality. Laura is naive because she refuses to face life and all that comes with it, she is also childlike because she has sheltered herself and is unaware of her surroundings much as a child would be. Early on in the play the reader discovers that Laura had affections towards Jim when they were in high school. This, of course, will prove to be part of Jim’s easy manipulation of Laura. Shortly after this discovery, Laura’s gentleman caller, Jim, is invited over for dinner with the family. After having completed their evening meal, Laura and Jim go to another room and being
By her no longer being as shy as prior to Mr. O'Connor's visit, she is able to end her inner battles and allow for her brother and mother to do the same. By beginning the play “crippled”, Laura is able to depict the evolution of her family's relationships in an unconventional manner by resolving Tod and Amanda's conflicts and through self realization with Mr. O’Conner. Referencing back to Laurence Sterne's quote, Laura is an ideal symbol of “a man’s mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time”. With fighting her inner battles of being shy and limping, and having her loved ones constantly bickering, her mind was inevitably torn. By Mr. O'connor easing one side of her mind with help overcoming her shyness, Laura was able to conquer her inner battle. In doing so, Tom and Amanda also began mending their broken relationship as Laura symbolized their broken family. With Laura able to recover, so was her
Dee was always very confident in herself. She knew she was blessed with many things like beauty and an education. She was aware that she had a good life. She had always gotten what she wanted; everything came easy for her. Maggie “thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of her hand, that “no” is a word the world never learned
As a mother, she didn’t do her job very well. It was unpleasant to see her smoking a cigarette while being pregnant. In fact, her metal illness was building up that she heard voices speaking to her and imagined herself living in other dimensional, where she didn’t have to worry about anything, she was free (Laura 150). There was no Dan, Richie and Kitty only herself. Laura was reconstructing imagines of Virginia wolf and Clarissa Dalloway. Her personality was changing and developing a different persona, even she wanted to be free as virginal wolf who drowned herself to dead (Laura 150). Sometimes people create personalities from characters that they strong admired, so they can revive them and follow them as a living role. This is a Psychological problem that people often has to face. This illness can change the way of how people thinks and behave. Moreover, Laura thinks that dying is the answers to all her problems. Hence, the author explains that “She sees…and enter a neutral zone, a clean white room, where dying does not seem quite so strange” (Laura 151). As shown above, she sees dying as a beautiful dream, in which herself is transferred into realm where dreams come true. Additionally, her struggles increased and she wants to escape from it. Her plan is to commit suicide on the room of the hotel. But suddenly she regains her conciseness and those terrible thoughts disappear (Laura 151). Then again, Laura sees
As Laura lives on the prairie, her self-awareness develops as she becomes more acclimated to the environment. In the beginning of the novel, Laura has little control over herself or her actions. For example, she gripes on the voyage, “I want to camp, now! I’m so tired”, to which Ma responds with a swift scold indicating she is not to complain (15). However, as she progresses through the trials and tribulations of the prairie, she becomes more accustomed to survival on the prairie as a young child. When a fire escapes from the hearth inside the house, Mary is frozen in fear. It is because of Laura’s growing self-awareness that she is able to save her sisters and put out the fire before the entire house becomes engulfed in flames. Something that would have once terrorized her into non-action, is now something she handled in a swift and collected manner. The novel claimed Laura “didn’t know what to do” and she “was too scared to think”, but her experience in the prairie allowed her to react without needing to process the situation (202-203). The prairie presents harms to Laura, but it is because of these dangers she is able to develop through her childhood into a self-aware individual. Additionally, the fever that struck the family is another instance when Laura exhibits self-control against the prairie. She is fighting against an illness induced by the
Laura Wingfield, Tom's sister, hides from the world by magnifying her illness. In her own secure world, Laura sees herself as crippled. She stays in their apartment and her only way of escape is through her collection of glass figurines. Laura keeps herself safe and marks the fire escape as a border that crosses danger.
Time progression, education, and social justice movements have weakened the grasp of female oppression. Yet, the wounds of inequality are continuously bleeding, despite having years to heal. Modern women face unequal pay in the workforce, little representation in congress, female genital mutilation in 29 countries, a lack of education, etc. Laura’s unhealable wound is representative of this truth. Interestly, Laura’s character is not an empowering feminist hero, as her situation and disability suggest. There are no heroes or villains within this story as Lori Leathers Single argues in Flying the Jolly roger: Images of Escape and Selfhood in Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie, “Because the play is about familial dysfunction, there are no heros or villians in The Glass Menagerie. In order to understand the truth beneath the surface, the audience needs to maintain its objectivity.” (152 Single). Literary heros customarily gain unhealable wounds during an encounter with “hell”, or a low point in their journey. The wound allows the hero to become wiser, mature, and strong. Laura’s wound does not lead to these positive traits however. Alternatively, the unhealable wound eats Laura alive, drowning her in the typical psyche of an oppressed woman. As Robert J. Cardullo introduces in the academic journal entitled Liebestod, Romanticism, and Poetry in The Glass Menagerie, “Laura Wingfield of The Glass Menagerie (1944) hardly qualifies as a Romantic superwoman, a majestic ego to transcend the “mereness” of mundane human existence.” (Cardullo 76). Laura does not defeat the malevolent presence of female oppression, but instead embraces it through the victimization of
Anxiety is a popular word today. It seems like everyone has some form of anxiety and a different level of it. Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, is about a poor family of three living in small apartment and each has problems in life. Amanda, the mother, tries to keep her family together, but also wants what is best for them. Tom, her son, is a poet working in a warehouse to provide for the family, but wants to travel. Then there is Laura, the daughter, and she is what much of the plot revolves around. She is shy and has anxiety, which makes it hard to find a husband and to finish school and get a job. At the time of the play, anxiety was not as popular of a word as it is today. Many did not entirely understand anxiety and Laura
Scene seven in The Glass Menagerie is critical for the audience to fully understand Laura. In this scene, Laura begins to show a different side...
Laura’s internal struggle, the main conflict of Mansfield’s story, is one of identity, and she oscillates between imitating environmental influences and reacting to them in a manner that is unique to her individual personality. Throughout the course of the story, the pendulum of her conscience swings to converse sides, causing her actions to be inconsistent and without allegiance to either her family’s upperclass exclusive ways or to her inherent qualities of equality and empathy. This varying behavior causes critics to dispute over Laura’s "true" personality, motives and objectives. While some critics believe that her sympathetic efforts are an attempt at rebelling from the expectations of her class, others believe that she is an empathetic individual without a supportive family. Another group of critics believe that the story presents only the initiation of Laura’s kindness, suggesting that she will continue to flourish into a compassionate person on the outskirts of upper class society; others refute this view, stating that The Garden Party portrays the extent of Laura’s d...
Laura Wingfield is described by Williams as having “failed to establish contact with reality, [and] continues to live vitally in her illusions.” Laura is unmotivated to move beyond the daily life she has with her family. She seems comfortable and content, in the sense that because she has always been taken care of, she believes that she always will be. She is not concerned about her future unlike her mother who vocalizes her concerns to Tom, “nothing has happened. She just drifts along doing nothing. It frightens me terribly how she just drifts along,” (34). Amanda has Laura attend Business College to help her in the future. However, Laura drops out the day after she “was sick to the stomach and almost had to be carried into the washroom,”