Essay about Card Report- "The Glass Menagerie"

Tom constantly calls Laura crippled and peculiar throughout the play, constantly making her feel worse about herself. Instead of continuing to treat her as a fragile human being, Tom should have been more positive when he referred to Laura and tried to help her build the confidence in herself that she desperately needed to face reality. Amanda doesn’t help Laura with her confidence and ends up finally pushing Laura to do something with her life after she is too far gone. Jim unintentionally gives Laura more reason to see herself as someone who doesn’t belong in reality by simply calling her “blue roses,” something that does not exist naturally in the real world. With Tom, Amanda, and Jim seeming to justify Laura’s insecurities it become more and more difficult for Laura to have any confidence in herself, let alone to face reality. To Laura, reality is a place she feels that she can never truly

The loss of her husband causes Amanda to develop a dependence on her children. She wants Tom and Laura to become successful. Amanda complains that Tom does not earn enough money at the shoe factory. She wants him to attend night school so he can attain a better career.

She is hoping to depend on Tom, that he will change her life around for her. She is a child with to big of an ego to see that not everything will fall into the path she wants it

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.

Amanda loves Laura and Tom tremendously. From what we are shown in the story, her children

Everyone in the family sticks to their societal role, Tom takes care of the Amanda and Laura, Amanda does some work, but she does do a lot of work in the house, and Laura is attempting to find someone to marry so she does not have to go to work. When Amanda was younger, she tells the reader that she always had gentleman callers, and she is always hoping that Laura will get gentleman callers. An example of Amanda projecting this belief onto Laura is when Amanda says “"Resume your seat, little sister – I want you to stay fresh and pretty – for gentlemen callers! (1.14)”. However, having to take care of his sister and living with Amanda causes tension in Tom’s life. Tom works in a factory, as most men did in the 30s, and this meant that he worked long hours for little pay. Tom wanted to be a poet, but he had to keep working because he had to support his family. Amanda puts a lot of pressure on Tom to be there for his sister, to be his older sister’s guardian, and she gets upset when Tom is out late drinking and going to the movies as his

The glass menagerie symbolizes Amanda Wingfield's overwhelming need to cling to her past and her fulfilled fear of being alone.  Amanda resents the poverty-stricken neighborhood in which she lives so

            The complexity of Amanda's character directly affects her action and dialogue with her children. In her role as mother she exhibits an overwhelming desire to see her children succeed in life. In trying to push them toward her ideal of success, she at times unwittingly hurts them even though she means well. Her actions often hide her intense love for her children, but it is an important driving force in her motivations. She loves them too well--at times to a point of smothering them (perhaps the reason for the departure of her husband)--which results in her attempt to push them towards all the good things she has known and remembered and away from anything that does not suit her ideal.

Along with the character transformation in “A Doll’s House”, Tom, from “The Glass Menagerie”, also goes through some character changes. Throughout the entire play, Tom was working in a warehouse trying to support his family. While working there, he was struggling with his dreams of becoming a merchant marine. Towards the end of the play, when Tom introduces his friend Jim O’Connor to his sister Laura, his mother hopes that this could be a man that Laura could settle down with and someday marry. When Amanda finds out that Jim is already engaged, she blames Tom. She is furious that Tom brought a gentleman caller over

Amanda is crippling her children emotionally by continually critiquing every aspect of their lives, such as their eating habits, career paths, social behaviors, how they should dress, talk, and entertain. She insists Tom is far too much like his father, and believes his actions are prohibiting him from being a man of success; believing that harassing him to behave to her expectations will matter and generate a real change. Tom is smothered by her constant critique of his character, saying she is reminded of Mr. Wingfield more and more each day due to Tom’s unsuitable behavior. Amanda sees Tom as the main conflict in finding Laura an acceptable suitor. After her persistent badgering, Tom eventually brings home Jim, a co-worker, for dinner as a potential suitor for Laura in scene seven. Jim accidently breaks off the horn of Laura’s glass unicorn, making it appear like one of the other horses in her collection. This is symbolic for the fact that Amanda sees Laura as the same as the rest of the women, and doesn’t see her as a unicorn – unique. Laura, unfortunately, is psychologically damaged by her mother’s assumptions and constant critiques about how women should behave. Among her other beliefs are whom women should marry, what types of chores they should perform, and how they should spend their lives. Amanda refuses to see Laura as her own

The opening scene is used both to set the scene of the Great Depression lifestyle and to also show the personality of the main characters. We see that Amanda the mother is controlling of her children, and we see that she has a tendency to linger in her youth when she was a sought after bride for many gentleman callers. Tom, though quiet, is beginning to show his distaste for his home life, at one point leaving the table due to his mother’s nagging. Laura is struggling in her effort to find a gentleman caller. This struggle to find a caller is exasperated in that her mother incessantly nags her on the subject. We learn that the family father has left the home leaving Tom to become the breadwinner for the family, something that later will be

Because she knows that Tom is not a strong man. In another word to say, Amanda is selfish and hypocrite.

The decisions that their dad made, greatly effected Tom, Amanda, and Laura. If I were to lose my father there would be many questions running through my head.If I were to be in Toms’ shoes, I have no clue what I would've done. Families would be hurt, souls would be hurt and relationships would be broken. Tom's father does not show any emotions or reactions on how he left the family.

The gentleman caller was Amanda’s fascination and great hope for the Wingfields to attain financial security. With a husband, Laura will be provided for and the two women will no longer depend on Tom. Amanda’s ambition for Laura showed the level of disconnection from the real life and fragility of her dreams. Even if Laura could find a husband, it was strange that Amanda should have so much faith that a husband for Laura would mean security for their family. In spite of everything, Amanda’s husband was unfaithful, and his choice to leave the family led to their current dilemma. Amanda was fixating on the idea of the gentlemen caller; she proposes a switch for Tom’s freedom in exchange for a husband to Laura. She was trying to make plans for Laura because she knows that she is getting older. Laura needs a husband to support her. Amanda was still putting her safety into the hands of men; perhaps she sees

Written in 1944, Tennessee Williams wrote a play during World War II when people were barely making ends meet. Centering on the Wingfield family, the story consisted of five characters: Amanda Wingfield (the mother), Laura Wingfield (the daughter), Tom Wingfield (son, narrator, Laura’s older brother), Jim Connor (Tom and Laura’s old acquaintance from high school) and Mr. Wingfield (father to Tom and Laura, and Amanda’s husband)- who abandoned the family long before the start of the play. The title, “The Glass Menagerie”, represented a collection of glass animals on display in the Wingfields’ home. At one point or another, these animals then represented each character when they couldn’t accept reality. The theme of this play were about the