The Glass Menagerie
...and their issues with each other and the outside world. Amanda, the mother, seems to live in the past; Laura, the extremely shy daughter, prefers to live inside the world of her little glass figurines rather than the outside world. And then there is Tom, the son and the narrator, who feels suffocated by his life. This family, the Wingfield's, have many issues, one of them being the way they all seem to live, in one way or another, in a world of illusions. But for me, the main issue that seems to plague this family is that of abandonment.
Already from the start of the play we find out that Mr. Wingfield abandoned his family, Tom tells us that “he was a telephone man who fell in love with long distances.” (5) But even though he left his family “going on sixteen years” (62) his portrait still hangs on the wall in the livings room. It seems to function as a reminder of their abandonment and source for each member’s issues. Amanda seems to be controlling and over bearing, always talking about the days when she was a young girl in Blue Mountain where one day she “received seventeen gentlemen callers!” (8) This seems to be her way of showing her children her discontent with the situation she was left in by their father. A situation she would not have been in if she hadn’t married him and had picked one of her callers “who were some of the most prominent young planters of the Mississippi Delta.” (8) This in turn seems to have made Laura self conscious about herself which makes her retreat into herself and into her world of glass figures. I feel that her inability to be like her mother was when she was young has made her feel inadequate about herself, plus the fact that she is “crippled”, has made her shy away from people and reality. So like her delicate glass figurines, she is also delicate, not just in her appearance but also emotionally but also mentally.
And...
View Full Essay
