The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

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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...

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... and escape the unrealistic world that their mother set for them.

Works Cited

Als, Hilton. "GLASS HOUSES." New Yorker 81.7 (04 Apr. 2005): 102-103. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. 29 Dec. 2008

DiSchiavi, Michael. "Tennessee Williams' Women in a Man's World." Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide 15.4 (July 2008): 18-18. LGBT Life with Full Text. EBSCO. 28 Dec. 2008 .

Fambrough, Preston. "Williams's THE GLASS MENAGERIE." Explicator 63.2 (Winter2005 2005): 100-102. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. 3 Jan. 2009 .

Schwarzbaum, Lisa. "Belle Weathered." Entertainment Weekly (Apr. 2005): 77-77. Canadian Reference Centre. EBSCO. 2 Jan. 2009 .

Smith, Sean. "HEART OF 'GLASS'." Newsweek 145.13 (28 Mar. 2005): 50-51. Canadian Reference Centre. EBSCO. 4 Jan. 2009 .

Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. New York: Penguin Group,1987

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