The Glass Menagerie: A Study of A Dysfuntional Family
...y memories to her children; while reminding them of their father’s abandonment. This journey through memory lane could have been entertaining during childhood, but a source of unhappiness and resentment for Tom and Laura during adulthood. Indisputably, Amanda loves her children very much, but her inadequacy to cope with her predicament disabled her as an effective parent. Tom does not have a moment of peace. His mother admonished and rebukes him incessantly for the way he sits, the way he eats, etc. Ironically Tom is their only mean of support earning a meager stipend in a warehouse. This fact terrifies his mother causing her to nag him the more. Tom is trapped and asphyxiated unlike Amanda, Tom has no wonderful memories to escape so he goes to the cinema everyday, and smokes a great deal. Things that drive Amanda almost insane. Tom, like his sister, is very obedient and polite with his mother; though she continuously tests his forbearance to the limit. He has been told so many times that he is just like his father, Mr. Wingfield, that one day he decides to abandon his mother and sister too. Laura, like Amanda and Tom, is a victim of the circumstances; however, she is more pathetic because she is the most fragile of the three. She has a leg slightly shorter than the other, and while this disability could have been easily surmounted in an amorous family as far as she was concerned, she was carrying a neon-fluorescent sign for everybody to see. She grows up believing she is ugly and repulsive. She like the others also escapes into a fantasy world. Hers is a collection of glass animals; Amanda calls it a “Glass Menager...