The Glass Menagerie
..., being a mother mean that you supposed to care for and provide for your children both emotionally and physically. Amanda did neither of these well. Amanda tried, almost too hard, to see her daughter through. While attending Rubcam’s Business College, Laura suffered from extreme anxiety and vomited on the floor; she was humiliated and decided not to go back to the class. Although personally humiliated, she was more worried about her mother’s disappointment, so every day she leaved as if she was going to class and walked out in the cold and visited different shops to get warm. Laura did not want to disappoint her mother and tried to save her from this disappointment. When her mother had discovered that she had dropped out of business school, this was traumatic because it was the way out that her mother had envisioned for her. The phonograph of her father symbolized the family’s past might have been better financially than their present situation. Actually, the phonograph represented the father who had left long ago but whose presence still affected the family on a daily basis. For Laura, listening to the records her father left behind was the only tangible connection she had to her absent father. Being about eight years old when he left, in a predicable way Laura had been arrested in her emotional development because it was at this age daughters learn how to relate to the male gender through play and affection with their fathers. One significant incident of Laura’s using the phonograph as an escape occurred when she had her first gentleman caller. Jim asked her why her hand was cold. She replied, “I’ve been playing the Victoria.” If her father had been p...