Sunday, October 10, 2010

The Glass Menagerie


How do you feel about these characters? You may focus on one character or discuss more than one. Include quotations from the play to illustrate your points. 

Through the play, I felt that the characters: Tom's, Laura's, and Jim's character revolved around Father.  In this play, one of the main themes was the lack of family structure and the lack of having the fatherly and husband figure in the family. With this lack, the family members have to fill in the missing traditional roles that the father/ husband have to fulfill or are in need of the fatherly figure.  That is why the family fell apart by the end of the story.  But with Amanda, she is living with her dream of being able to go back in time and chose a different future for herself.  She is trying so hard for Laura not making the same mistake as she chose when she was younger.

In many ways, Tom is the head of the family. He is the one who has a job and a steady income.  But he hates living at his home because he feels the pressure to bring the money home to support the family. Amanda pressures him not to spend his own hard worked money on movies every single night.  She does not want him to “jeopardize the security of [the family]” (1006). But he told Amanda that he does not want to “spend fifty-five years down there in that-celotex interior! with- fluorescent-tubes! Look! [He] rather somebody picked up a crowbar and battered out [his] brains- than go back mornings” (1007).  He even said that he is like his father in many ways because he is “the bastard son of a bastard (1029).  Even Amanda told him that Tom reminds her of her ex husbands.  She told him that “more and more [he] remind [her] of [his] father! He was out all hours without explanation-Then left! Goodbye” (1013). Tom even is planning to run away like his father because he wants adventures in his life.  That is why he goes to the movies every single night because “adventure is something that [he] don’t have much of at work, so [he] goes to the movie” (1012). Amanda desire of wanting a husband like figure in the story really drives Tom away from the family because Amanda does not allow him of doing what he wants to do with his life.  Amanda’s expectation of him pushes Tom to be like his father because there is a good possibility that Amanda put the same expectation on her ex husband.  That is probably the reason why both characters ran away from the house because both characters could not stand living with Amanda. 

Laura has insecurities problems because she is crippled and needs the reassurance from a fatherly figure who tells her that she is beautiful despite her disabilities.  She put her disabilities as an excuse for not being more outgoing, more motivated to receive an education, or achieving any personal goals.  When Tom and Amanda were talking about Laura, Tom told Amanda how “in the eyes of others-strangers-she’s terribly shy and lives in the world of her own and those things make her seem a little peculiar to people outside of the house…She lives in a world of her own-a world of-little glass ornaments, Mother… She plays old phonograph records-and that’s about all” (1021).  But when Jim came over, he told her “somebody needs to build [her] confidence up and make [her] proud instead of shy and turning away…” (1043). That is why Tom was such a significant role in this play because Laura needed a character like Tom.

Jim does represent Father and the fatherly figure in many ways.  He represents the fatherly figure because he is the one who told her how everyone has problems, including himself.  Jim told her how “everyone has problem, not just you [Laura], but practically everybody has got some problems. …For instance, [Jim] hoped when [he] was going to high school that [he] would be further along at time, six years later, ...” (1037).  On the other hand, he is very similar to Father.  He took an interest in Laura by telling her that she is very pretty and actually kissed her.  But he did not lead her on because he told the entire family that he was engaged with another woman, Betty.  Jim did not want Laura to have the same faith as her mother did because that is what happened with the Wingfield family, where the husband leaves the mother with the children.