Amanda Frankie Character Analysis

There was a time in my life where all I wanted to be was Ramona Flowers. I thought she was so cool in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World with her colored hair, her pithy remarks, and her success at attracting romantic partners (which is all I wanted as a twelve-year-old girl.) However, upon revisiting the concept of Ramona Flowers, I realized how annoying and awful the concept of her is. (Granted, I am basing this characterization of the movie and not the comics. I’m sure they are different characters.) The concept of Ramona Flowers is completely subservient to the male desires. She completely represents the pseudo-strong female who all the guys desperately want, but can’t have; however, in actuality, Ramona Flowers

Circumstances define the actions an individual takes. Building self-confidence is achieved by changing the belief of our self-image. Realistically, makeup is a tool for hiding pimples, blackheads, and unwanted features, more like fitting into the society of beauty. Whereas hormones cannot be controlled, and pimples pop out ridiculously without consent. Perhaps, weakness cannot be hidden, but provide a lesson of empowerment. Stephen’s self-doubt that increases by him convincing himself he is guilty of his insecurities. It is admitted, “Convinced that he had been guilty of babyish weakness.” Which, assesses the confidence of doubt he sources. The “glass roses”, in the story was portrayed in Stephen's mind, as “pretty little flowers made of red glass.” But in great detail, resembles a solid phase of Stephen and his insecurities. And once the roses shattered, we see Stephen constantly revising it in his mind, as beautiful; exemplifies the vigorous break free of Stephen’s insecurities. Progressively, he determines the beauty of resiliency and self-confidence.

She realizes that she is left defenseless and that her philosophy and education can not help her in times of great intense physical struggle and difficulty, such as trying to get back home without her other leg and no glasses in order to see (Whitt 78).

She shows herself as cowardly when she was reeling after the accident, “For six years I do not stare at anyone, because I do not raise my head.”(444), she says, portraying her disgust for herself. Walker utilizes the tone of her writing to manipulate the progression of her attitude shift. For instance, in the stages soon after the accident she uses a very morbid and pessimistic tone to describe the events that are transpiring at that juncture of her life. Stating, “I do not pray for sight. I pray for beauty.”(445), proving that even though this accident has occurred she has still remained very resistant to a change in attitude. She also couples detail to multiply the effect that these strategies have on the reader because when she describes these events, the details she uses reflects the tone, so it visibly transmits the idea of her attitude at that phase, which would be much harder to achieve without these rhetorical techniques used appropriately. The dialogue also plays into this idea as well as it also reflects the current mood of the stage. For example, when she was still very young she used very flattering words as dialogue to complement the tone where she thought beauty was everything and being most beautiful was most important. “That girl’s a little mess.”(442), “And got so much sense!”(442), people bombard

Amanda is obsessed with her past, and uses it to escape reality, as she constantly reminds Tom and Laura of the time she received seventeen gentlemen callers. The reader cannot even be sure that this actually happened. However, it is clear despite its possible falseness, Amanda has come to believe it. She refuses to acknowledge that her daughter is crippled and refers to her handicap as "a little defect - hardly noticeable" (Williams 1648). Only for brief moments does she ever admit that her daughter is "crippled" and then resorts back to denial. Amanda doesn't perceive anything realistically. She believes that this gentleman caller, Jim is going to be the man to rescue Laura and she hasn't even met him yet. When Jim arrives, Amanda is dressed in a "girlish frock" she wore on the day that she met their father and she regresses to the childish, giddy days of entertaining gentleman callers. Amanda uses her past as a means to escape the reality she does not want to face.

Tom is unable to forget what his father has done and his memory of the details of the photograph and the postcard highlights his feelings of displeasure towards his father. As the play develops, we see Mr. Wingfield being a contributing factor to Tom’s departure from the Wingfield household. In fact, Tom cites his father as both an example and excuse for his departure. In scene 6, Tom explains to Jim “I’m like my father. The bastard son of a bastard!”

She eats by herself for the first time in her life, and afterwards remarks on how she feels about it: “How strong, how full of life and hope I felt as I walked out of that bakery. I opened my arms, burning to hug the new day. The strength of a million people was struggling up in me” (157). The words “strong,” “life,” and “hope” epitomize Sara’s newfound freedom she feels after breaking ties with her family. She relates her feelings within to that of “a million people struggling up in me” and these people-filled descriptions of loneliness show that even though she is physically alone, her individuality is such a success to her life that being only with herself is still a triumph. Sara continues, “I, alone with myself, was enjoying myself for the first time as with the grandest company” (157). She mentions that she is finally “alone with [herself],” but starkly contrasts this isolated description with the feeling of “the grandest company.” Sara celebrates her individuality another time when she leaves college with enough money to rent a beautiful room. She describes how, “I celebrated it alone with myself. I celebrated it in my room, my first clean, empty room” (241). By saying she is “with” herself even though she is “alone”, Sara demonstrates again that her individuality is a success. She celebrates the luxury of being alone and overcomes the hardships of her past by embracing

   Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, describes three separate characters, their dreams, and the harsh realities they face in a modern world.  The Glass Menagerie exposes the lost dreams of a southern family and their desperate struggle to escape reality. Williams' use of symbols adds depth to the play. The glass menagerie itself is a symbol Williams uses to represent the broken lives of Amanda, Laura and Tom Wingfield and their inability to live in the present.

“...I feel like I could disappear. I feel like I am breaking.” (Knowles, 166) This quote is from a book that impacted my life, and the way i see things. “See You at Harry’s” is a book about a young girl named Fern. Fern leads a somewhat normal life, she has two brothers and an older sister, but when disaster strikes she feels like it’s all her fault. This story taught me two valuable lessons. One, bad things happen and it’s no one's fault, and two, everyone is different and that’s okay.

After Laura explains to her mother that no young men will be over to visit her, Amanda makes a comment that the gentlemen’s excuse must be due to some sort of flood or tornado. “It isn’t a flood, it’s not a tornado, Mother. I’m just not popular like you were in Blue Mountain… Mother’s afraid I’m going to be an old maid” (975). Much like Maggie, Laura allows her minor flaw to overrun her life and disallow her to build a relationship with others. Laura’s limp has prevented her from meeting and making any friends while she was in school also hindering her from building any kind of bond with others.

Laura harbors feelings about things of her past that she cannot change. She has been so focused on her past that it is now ruining her future. Laura needs to realize that the past is now gone and she needs to focus on her present and building a life that she can proud of.

In this passage, Jane breaks free from the bonds that hold her down and repress her, and for the first time the reader realizes Jane’s true personality and individuality (Anderson).

Additionally, a major part of Laura’s character is her debilitating anxiety. The stem of this issue can be traced back to an illness in her childhood that left one leg shorter than the other, requiring a brace be worn. From that moment on, she is cursed with a limp that sets her apart from everyone else. This alone plays a major role in the development of her anxiety and low self confidence. Throughout the story, it becomes clear that Laura blames many inconveniences on her disability, in a way using her limp as a crutch in order to take pressure off of herself. The first instance her anxiety is mentioned in the story, it is during a dramatically furious performance from Amanda after learning that her daughter hadn’t been attending business school. In actuality, she spent her days walking, in a way

Walker established that she was a tom girl before being shot in the eye, yet after this when she is put in a school filled with “budding criminals” she can’t fight; instead after months of harassment her parents are forced to send her back to her old school, her confidence is clearly gone. The girl Walker exemplified as being able to compete with her brothers armed with pop guns using only a homemade bow and arrow can’t stand up for herself. Walker showed that she has that ability at when dealing with people that disrespect her when she dealt with the boy that continually called her names at that old school, but that was because she knew that there was at least one teacher that loved her she couldn’t do it for herself. When relatives come over to her house, Walker goes and hides in her room, the girl that was able to give a speech to a crowd of people can’t confront people that she should know would support her no matter what, her family. Even after having her eye fixed Walker expresses that she still has that doubt, when she is about to be put in the magazine or even more pressingly when she thinks her own daughter would be disgusted at her eye.

The present does not satisfy him working at the same warehouse as Tom, despite Tom’s prediction that he would "arrive at nothing short of the White House by the time he was thirty" (Williams, 190). Tom realizes that he "was valuable to him [Jim] as someone who could remember his former glory" (Williams, 190). Jim reminisces about his lead in the operetta and Laura asks him to sign her program. He signs it "with a flourish" (Williams 218). Only as Jim enters the Wingfield’s illusory world, can he become this high school hero again. Subsequently, Jim regresses to his high school days of wooing women as he woos innocent Laura by dancing with her and kissing her. While this might as well be an illusion, the situation’s reality is that Jim is engaged. Unlike the Wingfield’s, Jim can only live temporarily in the past. Thus, he leaves the dream world of the Wingfields.