Introduction:
Tennessee Williams’ ‘The Glass Menagerie’ is remarkable in the sense that the dramatist has not crowded it with a number of characters. It consists of only four characters: Amanda, the mother, Tom, the son, Laura, the daughter and Jim, the gentleman caller. Among these characters Amanda is the most important. She is heroic and many sided. Her character develops with the development of action. She is strong and wilful. She is both practical and romantic. She loves her children and takes great interest in instructing them as well as planning for their bright future. Her husband has gone to enjoy himself in adventures yet she brings up children as well as possible. Her past memories fill her heart with great delight.
Her Pride:
It is Amanda’s pride that in her youth she was very attractive. Amanda Wingfield is mother of Laura and Tom. Laura’s one leg is slightly shorter than the other and is held in a brace. Others do not mark the defect but she suffers from a sense of inferiority and fails in becoming social. She is attractive but because of her self-centered nature fails in attracting young men to her. She is still unmarried. Amanda claims when she was young like Laura, she had a number of gentlemen callers willing to marry her.
Amanda tells that she lived in Blue Mountain when she was young. A number of young men were mad after her. They used to visit her at home to win her favour. She claims that one Sunday seventeen callers visited her at afternoon. To provide them seats folding chairs were brought from outside. Yet the gentlemen were happy for they had got an opportunity to be with her. She hopes her daughter Laura too should have so many young callers but unfortunately none visits her. Amanda’s such boastful narrations only strengthen Laura’s sense of inferiority. She feels no young man will ever like her. She grows self-centered and passes her time in a collection of glass animals.
It is Amanda’s mistake that in place of encouraging her daughter Laura and helping her in getting rid of her inferiority complex, she tells such things that affect Laura’s psychology adversely. Now Laura regards herself as unattractive, unworthy and unfortunate.
Her Worry for Laura’s Marriage:
Laura is still unmarried. It worries Amanda very much. She thinks now Laura is young and attractive. If she is not married in the prime of her youth, she will have to lead the cursed life of an unmarried girl. Amanda accounts for her daughter Laura’s misfortune and fears how miserable life she will have to lead if she is not married. She warns Laura that an unmarried woman has no position in this male dominated society. Amanda tells Laura that marriage is a blessing to every girl for unmarried woman lead a miserable life. She has seen such cases in South. Such women have to regard someone as their guardian. Among the nearest and the dearest they have either their own brothers or sister’s husbands. With the passing of time the warmth of natura! affection is lost. The brother-in-law or the sister-in- law begin to regard such women as a burden on them. They have to live like dependents. They are confined to a little room. They are asked to visit other relations also. They are reduced to the position of a bird without nest. They are insulted everywhere.
I have 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 mouse trap of a room-encouraged by one in law to visit another-little bird like women without any nest-eating the crust of humility all their life!
Advice for Self-improvement:
Amanda is a good adviser and she is always willing to instruct her children what to do and what not. Here she advises her daughter Laura for self-improvement. Amanda points out an important fact to Laura that people pay attention to others’ defects only when they do not find any attraction in them. Otherwise, nobody has time for that. If unfortunately, a person has a defect he should never think that he can’t make any progress or impress other people. Such a person ought to develop other qualities to that great extent that everybody will feel pleasure in admiring those qualities. It is true Laura suffers from a slight deformity. One leg is shorter than the other. But it does not mean she is cursed forever. She should try to make her personality charming by talking in a lively manner and attending others impressively. Amanda tells Laura that her father had these qualities so greatly that none was able to ignore him.
When people have some slight disadvantage like that, they cultivate other things to make up for it—develop charm—and vivacity—and charm! that’s all you have to do! …………..One thing your father had plenty of—was charm!
Her Practical Approach:
A gentleman caller is invited for Laura. Her mother Amanda wants to make the girl as attractive as possible. To make her flat bosom look attractive, Amanda sets two powder puffs as breasts under her garments. Laura does not like these artificial means to be employed to look attractive. She protests by saying that Amanda is trying to trap the young gentleman caller. Amanda tells that every beautiful girl is a trap. She is successful if she can entrap the heart of her lover. If she fails in it much time is not taken by other girls in stealing the lover. She discloses a secret to her daughter that every young man wishes to be entrapped by a beautiful girl.
“All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be!”
She rebukes Tom for not giving him time to decorate the house. Amanda rebukes Tom for his lack of common sense. Before asking a gentleman caller to dinner he should have given her some time for preparation. She points out that the whole house is dirty enough to look like a pigsty. Besides all the ornaments are due to be polished. She feels all the table clothes too require washing. She thinks for changing all the curtains and windows should be washed. Amanda’s demands have no bounds. She feels requirement of new dresses also. It seems she is flying in the sky of imagination like a bird having forgotten her economic limits. But she should not be accused for it is like fulfilment of her dream.
Her Sensitive Nature:
One night Tom returns overdrunk. Amanda feels sympathy for him and tells him that Laura has begun to think that he is not happy with her. Tom is surprised and says that he has never said anything like that. Amanda claims that his strange behaviour has suggested it to his unfortunate sister. Amanda tells Tom that his inward feelings are not hidden from her for she is his mother. She knows that he does not like his job at the warehouse. He is an ambitious man and the work is suitable for a common man. She knows that only to pull on the family he has to make this sacrifice. But the life is not a bed of roses. It is full of hardships. Everybody has to bear, so much quite patiently. Nobody is allowed even to cry aloud. She has so much of grief, buried in her heart and she can’t tell that to anybody. She can’t describe her miseries even to him. The greatest one is regarding his father. She loved that man so much but he went away without saying even a word to her as if she were a stranger.
“I know your ambitions do not lie in the warehouse, that like everybody in the whole wide world—you’ve had to-make sacrifices, but—Tom—life is not easy, it calls for-Spartan endurance! There’re so many things in my heart that I cannot describe to you! I’ve never told you but I—loved your father……”
Amanda attracts Tom’s attention to Laura’s misery by pointing out Laura’s strange behaviour. A young girl like her ought to have a happy company of boys and girls. She ought to have parties to attend, letters to respond and novels to read. But quite contrary to it she speaks to no body and has no friend to talk to her. She is self-centered and takes delight in toys of glass and plays with her old records. This sort of life will make her insane. In fact, it is her sense of inferiority that obstructs her free conversation with others. She can’t have a boyfriend to propose. It is now Tom’s duty to settle Laura’s marriage by finding out a proper young man.
“She spoke to nobody, nobody spoke to her. Now all she does is fool with those pieces of glass and play those worn out records. What kind of a life is that for a girl to lead?”
Her Nobility of Thought:
Amanda asks Tom why he goes to movies so much. He replies that he has no adventure in his life. His work at the warehouse is quite dull, He wants adventure and for that he sees movies. Tom tells his mother that every man has some instincts and he wishes to satisfy them. If in real world these instincts are not getting opportunity to be satisfied, the man makes indirect attempts. He satisfies them in the world of imagination. Dreams are a better part of that but movies too work for that. For a moment the person forgets his bitter reality. His mind is transported to the unreal world present on the screen. He identifies himself with those characters. Every man has instinct to be a lover, a hunter, a fighter and in movies these instincts are satisfied. Only this is the difference that the person sits idle in a seat and on the screen the hero appears doing all these activities impressively.
But Amanda thinks otherwise. According to her only animals have to satisfy their instincts for they have association merely with body. A man ought to be higher than animals. He should aspire for things of spirit rather than body. She inspires Tom to be nobler in his motives.
Superior things! Things of the mind and the spirit! Only animals have to satisfy instincts! Surely your aims are somewhat higher than theirs! Than monkeys—pigs—
Her Worldly Wisdom:
Amanda rebukes Tom for not following the importance of the occasion. According to her he does not know that the visit may prove a turning point of in their family. She blames Tom’s young age for being so careless. He does not know that time flies incessantly. It is a fact every moment the process change goes on. Future becomes present and present becomes past. But past does not die. It is turned into eternity. What is done can never be undone. We are left merely to regret for our past errors. It is therefore, wise men ask for thinking well before taking any action and giving proper importance to everything. Nobody know what is hidden in the next moment.
“You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don’t plan for it.”
Amanda tells Tom that in life appearances so often prove deceiving. For example, Tom’s father who was an innocent looking young man of charming personality. But he did not prove loyal to her. He left her with two tender children to be brought up. Apparently, he was a nice man. Now she thinks that good appearance is a demerit in a boy for there are chances of becoming disloyal. It is better to marry a man of ordinary looks.
“That innocent look of your father’s had everyone fooled! He smiled— the world was enchanted! No girl can do worse than put herself at the mercy of a handsome appearance! I hope that Mr. O’Conner is not too good looking!”
Her Ridiculous Behaviour:
It is a part of Amanda’s ridiculous behaviour that she talks too much. She forgets if a thing is apt to be spoken at one time or not. For example, while talking to Jim Amanda accounts for her daughter Laura’s qualities. It is rare to have the perfect qualities of beauty, maturity and sincerity in a single girl. According to Amanda in marital matters, a girl has an upper hand. The boy proposes and the beautiful girl decides whether to marry him or not. She tells about her past how so many young men were willing to marry her but rejected them for Tom’s father. She felt in love with him for she liked a telephone man. Unfortunately, this man has gone without saying anything to them. He travels but she knows nothing about him. She means to say that choice depends more on liking than virtues.
“But man proposes—and woman accepts the proposal! —To vary that old, old saying a little bit-I married no planter! I married a man who worked for the telephone company! —That gallantly smiling gentleman over there [Points to the picture] A telephone man who—fell in love with long distance! —Now he travels and I don’t even know where! —But what am I going on her about my-tribulations?”
Besides to welcome Jim, she dresses herself so brightly as if he were coming for her instead of her daughter.
Her Heroic Nature:
Amanda claims appreciation for her heroic nature. She sells magazines and works in a departmental-store to earn money to support the family. She never feels disheartened and struggles bravely with adverse circumstances.