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Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie Essay

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The lacking of a positive male role model can be very troublesome for any family; especially during the mid-thirties. Prior to the Second World War, women did not have significant roles in the workforce and depended on their husbands or fathers to provide for them financially. There were limited government assistance programs during the era of The Great Depression, and it was up to the families to provide for themselves. The absence of Mr. Wingfield placed enormous strains on the physical as well as mental wellbeing of his family. The effects the abandonment of their father had on the Wingfield family from Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie are undeniable. The Amanda Wingfield that we come to know is overbearing, worrisome, and …show more content…

Amanda’s constant pushing of Laura to attend “Rubicam’s Business College”, whose anxiety disorder already prevents her from leading a normal life, illuminates Amanda’s inability to recognize the abnormalities in her children (1163). When Laura reminds her mother that she is crippled, Amanda begins to scold Laura, “[n]on-sense! Laura, I’ve told you never, never to use that word…” this gives further testimony to Amanda’s denial of her children’s defects (1165). Amanda is so consumed with preventing her children from making the same mistakes that she has, that she has become a “witch” and “hateful to her children” (1172). Her thirst for her children’s success combined with the lack of ability to give them what “she” thinks they need, due to her financial constraints of not having her husband’s support, has driven her to the current delusional state she is in (Williams). In present day women are very active in the work force, and a man in his early twenties generally does not have to take on the responsibilities of providing for his family, like young Tom Wingfield did, even if the father had abandoned them. When Tom’s father ran out on them, Tom being the only male in the male driven work force of that time period, had to abandon his dreams and ambitions to fill in as the main provider for his family. The lack of adventure in Tom’s career at the Continental Shoemakers, leads Tom to attending late-night movies to suppress

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