Glass Menagerie Blog Post 5

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

7. The author tells us that "Amanda, having failed to establish contact with reality, continues to live vitally in her illusions." What part of this statement could be applied to Laura as well? What part could not? What are the chief instances in the play of Amanda's having lost "contact with reality"? What are her chief illusions? What are her strengths? How is she both cruel and tender with her children? What qualities has she in common with Jim, the gentleman caller? Why do you suppose her husband left her?

 Amanda lives in the past, and Laura is completely unmoving. Tom, on the other hand, wishes to be moving more. Laura could be living in her illusions because she just wants to completely stop her life and be a homebody. Reality is not staying at home and refusing to go to school because it makes you nervous. That is just not something that is realistic in everyday life. Amanda loses contact with reality a lot. She mainly goes back to the past a lot to when she was still in high school. She goes back to talk about how she was and how many gentlemen callers she would receive. How popular and pretty she was in high school comes up a lot. Her strengths are that she wants what is best for her children. She is constantly nagging them about their appearances and what they want to do with their futures. This is also a negative quality because she doesn't go about it in the right way at all. She is cruel to them by putting them down and always criticizing. She is critical of Laura when she tells her not to refer to herself as crippled. She says, "When people have some slight disadvantage like that, they cultivate other things to make up for it--develop charm--and vivacity--and--charm!" (Williams 1244). A young woman who is insecure about herself does not want to have a "charming" quality. They want to be known as beautiful and personable. She is also very tender though like when she comforts Laura after Laura finds out that Jim is actually engaged. She is a good mother, just has trouble relating to her children. I believe her husband left her for the same reasons Tom always wanted to leave and eventually did leave. She is overbearing and kind of annoying at some points. You just want her to stop nagging and shut up and let you do what you want. I can completely relate to this because I see a lot of my own mother in Amanda, but I also believe that, as teenagers, a lot of us would see our own nagging parents in Amanda.