The psychological problems in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams are everywhere. The most obvious, to me, is the major insecurities that Laura deals with daily. She is constantly compared to her mother when it came to “gentleman callers” and had to deal with Amanda, her mother’s, lectures about how she needs to be more outgoing with men. Even though her mother knows that Laura being crippled causes most of her insecurities, she wants Laura to live life as best as possible, even if that means making her step out of her comfort zone.
Amanda – Resume your seat, little sister – I want you to stay fresh and pretty – for gentleman callers!
Laura – I’m not expecting any gentleman callers.
Amanda – (crossing out to kitchenette. Airily) Sometimes they come when they are least expected! Why, I remember one Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain- (Enters kitchenette.)
Tom – I know whats coming!
Laura – Yes, but let her tell it.
Tom – Again?
Laura – She loves to tell it.
Amanda returns with bowl of dessert.
Amanda – One Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain – your mother received – seventeen! - gentleman callers! Why, sometimes there weren’t enough chairs to accommodate them all! We had to send the nigger over to bring in folding chairs from the parish house
Also, Tom almost goes insane from the daily nagging of his mother. He has to provide for himself and the two women, and it’s too much stress for him to handle. He hates working in the warehouse, and coming home to his mother just puts him over the edge.
You think I want to spend fifty-five years down there in that- celotex
interior! With- fluorescent- tubes! Look! I’d rather somebody picked up a
crowbar and battered out my brains- than go back mornings! I go! Every
time you come in yelling that God damn ‘Rise and shine!’ ‘Rise and shine!’ I
say to myself, ‘How lucky dead people are!’
Tom, unlike his sister Laura, cannot find it in himself to deal with his mother. He does love her, and shows that in his apology, but although Amanda only wants what’s best for her children she drives her son away to the point of disowning himself from the family.
you are spreading your self really thin. if you take out the t quotes you have under ten lines of text, and thats only a bad thing because you are really not backing your point up enough for me to bother to come up with a coherent retort for it. The only part I can really argue with as it is developed is the fact that you imply that it is only the insecurities about her small defect that create the gap between laura and her mother in the number of gentlemen callers. When in reality the gap is much larger not just because laura is a shy quiet girl who doesnt socialize well, but also because Amanda from her own accounts was a step down from being a whore like blanche.
Comment by sirero — April 4, 2008 @ 4:03 am