Relationships Throughout the Glass Menagerie
...s really fed up with Amanda interfering in his life and telling him off all the time, criticizing him. She also pressures him emotionally many times and basically traps him. Amanda from her side is trying to protect her son’s morality, and her greatest fear is that he will turn out like his father. Her “mission” is to make sure this doesn’t happen. She needs Tom’s support- financially and also as a male image in the house. And above all these, there is of course the motherly love she feels towards her own son. Their relationship is very ironic- essentially they both have the same goals, dreams and escapist characters. Amanda (not really noticing that) is basically encouraging the very thing she was trying to suppress- his imagination and creativity. The next relationship I’m going to talk about is Amanda and Laura. AMANDA: “Resume your seat, little sister- I want you to stay fresh and pretty- for gentlemen callers!” LAURA: “I’m not expecting any gentlemen callers.” AMANDA: “Sometimes they come when they are least expected! Why I remember one Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain-“ TOM: “I know what’s coming!” LAURA: “Yes. But let her tell it.” TOM: “Again?” LAURA: “She loves to tell it” AMANDA: “One Sunday afternoon in blue Mountain- your mother received- seventeen!- gentlemen callers!” Here we see Amanda living still in the past, remembering her youth, how her life used to be. But she is also living for the future- by finding her daughter Laura a gentleman caller. She is living out her own life in her daughter- mostly because she is scared Laura will make the same mistakes as she did (she wants to protect her). All of what she says here is for providing a good future for Laura- hoping she will have a settled married life. We also see that when Tom makes cynical comments on his mom’s words, Laura asks him to let her tell the story. She knows her mother loves telling it over and over again, its like her source of pride and her happy memory. Laura therefore tolerates her mother, humors her. She wants her to feel good. AMANDA: “…Not one gentleman caller? It can’t be true! There must be a flood, there must have been a tornado!” LAURA: “It isn’t a flood, it’s not a tornado, Mother. I’m just not popular like you were in Blue Mountain…” Amanda is extremely non realistic here, we can even say she is senile. She is totally living in a different world, as if on purpose she is trying to deny the truth by putting up a whole new reality. She knows her daughter has problems, and she knows she has never brought one gentleman caller home- then what makes her think that Laura will all of a sudden get many gentlemen callers? There is also a very ironic contrast here- Amanda declares she has received “seventeen” gentlemen callers- Laura received “not one” gentleman caller. This causes tension between the two, it seems like Laura is living in the shadow of Amanda. In SCENE 2 Amanda finds out that Laura has been lying to her for a very long time, and while she thought she was studying in Rubicam’s Business College, Laura was actually absent all the time- she dropped out of school. Amanda is really mad at Laura and disappointed by her actions. “I thought that you were an adult; it seems that I was mistaken.” Amanda is justified in her criticism of Laura. She has the rights to be mad at her, and she talks to her this way because she wants to show her that she is old enough and needs to start being more responsible. On the other hand, we can say that its also Amanda’s fault. She doesn’t knowledge Laura’s problems- mentally, physically and emotionally. “…my hopes and ambitions for you…” This shows us that Amanda controls her daughter, and she is way too much ‘into’ Laura. She is living her own life, making up for her own mistakes, all this and more- through Laura. But on the other hand, it shows that she cares a lot about Laura, she wants to set up opportunities for her, she is (unlike Laura) responsible and she is her conductor. “So what are we going to do with out lives?” This shows Amanda’s real fear. She is dedicating her life and all her efforts into her children’s sake, hoping that something good will come out of them. As soon as she sees that things aren’t working her way she freaks out and doesn’t know what to do. She loves her children a ton, and wants the best for them. In SCENE 4 we have Laura leaving the house in the morning to go to the grocery store, she is putting in a coat. The script says that [the coat is one of Amanda’s, inaccurately made-over, the sleeves too short for Laura]. This shows us again one of the main symbols of their relation: Laura trying to fit into her mother’s shoes, though she isn’t really able to do so. She is living in her mother’s shadow. In SCENE 6 we have the mother and the daughter preparing for the gentleman caller who is supposed to be coming in for dinner the same evening. While Amanda is ‘fixing’ Laura’s outlook, she says: “…to be painfully honest, your chest is flat.” This is extremely ironic from Amanda’s side, especially because this is a matter concerning Laura and a defect she has. All through the play (example- page 50: “Don’t say crippled!”) Amanda denies the truth, tries to hide it. All of a sudden she shatters Laura’s self esteem when before she was trying to protect it. “I’m going to make a spectacular appearance.” This is again, very ironic from Amanda’s side. Though the gentleman caller is supposed to be coming in for Laura, she is trying to steal her limelight. She is spending so much time reliving her past (by making all this fuss on the gentleman caller) as much as planning and providing Laura’s future. Laura feels awkward and scared from the coming up event. She doesn’t want to meet Jim (he is her high school love”) and she feels bad. LAURA: “…you will have to excuse me, I won’t come to the table.” AMANDA: “What sort of nonsense is this?” Amanda, as she does so often, dismisses Laura’s lack of confidence, doesn’t face the fact that she has a problem, she is denying the truth again! She is not facing the issue of the present. Laura is having a lot of trouble explaining her mother the fact that she is not able to come to the dinner table when the gentleman caller will be present. Amanda’s reaction is: “Fuss, fuss-silliness! Over a gentleman caller!” This is probably the most ironic statement Amanda has ever made to Laura. All the fuss that Amanda herself is making- the preparations, the talking etc. - where are they gone all of a sudden? Amanda’s and Laura’s relationship is basically dominated by Amanda. She is the one that leads it, most probably because she is the mother and Laura has certain disabilities. Laura loves her mother, and therefore she hardly ever argues with her, and lets her say whatever she wants on any subject what so ever, even though she might have heard it thousand times before. She know this does well to her mother and she wants to see her happy, therefore she remains quiet and respects her. Amanda also loves Laura, this is why she is “controlling” her so much and leading her life. She is extremely scared that Laura will make the same mistake as she did with her husband, and she is practically capable of doing anything do avoid it. Though Amanda sometimes takes this “role” too far- she is living in a world which is not her or Laura’s reality, and she is taking too far at times. She always talks about her own experience and her past, and it makes Laura feel very awkward- especially because her life is not so perfect, and she feels as if she cannot be as good as her mother is. Also, we have Amanda trying to live her life through Laura, trying to fix the mistakes she made before, and this makes us think: as she really into providing a good future for Laura, or more for living her own past through Laura? But I think that it’s clear enough that Amanda has an outstanding love for Laura, and she is just trying to give her the best life she could possibly have. Tom’s and Laura’s relationship is very unique and might have different aspects and views with different people. To start with, we know that Laura is very important for Tom, and that she is probably the main reason he has returned home (as he tells us in the beginning of the play). He hasn’t always been there for her, and he wants to “correct” his mistake perhaps, so he is back now to help her. Tom and Laura don’t really interact throughout the play, therefore we have to try and conclude the features of this relation mostly from Tom’s speeches to the audience, since he is the narrator. The only time Tom and Laura really interact is at the beginning on scene 4, when Tom is back from the movies late at night, drunk. Laura obviously finds Tom’s words very entertaining, and he seems to like talking to her and telling her about his adventures from the movies. He also gives her a scarf he has gotten from the magician. Knowing that the movies are one of tom’s main escapes, the scarf might have some important significance for him, yet he still gives it to Laura. Taking this a bit further, we can also say the way he is talking to her and the way she replies is kind of flirtatious. Laura obviously cares for Tom, and we can see that by the way she helps him to get inside the house and eventually go to bed. In scene 5 Amanda and Tom are talking and Tom lets her know that he is brining a man over for dinner tomorrow night. Amanda is very excited about this and she obviously thinks this is the guy Laura is going to marry. Tom is being more realistic and he tells his mom that “lots of fellows meet girls who they don’t marry.” Again, we can look at this from both sides: could be that Tom is protective for Laura, and out of brotherly love he doesn’t want her to get hurt, but also he might be jealous that someone will marry Laura eventually and he tries to ‘knock down’ that possibility. Then later on he says: “…she’s ours and we love her. We don’t even notice she’s crippled anymore.” Here we have Tom acting very protective towards Laura, very scared that she will get hurt, and this shows the side where the love he feels for her is only brotherly love. “She lives in a world of her own, a world of little glass oruments” This can be analyzed differently: perhaps Tom likes the fact that Laura is living in this kind of world, sheltered and into herself, and not meeting any one (especially no gentleman callers coming in) so that he ‘has her’ for himself. In scene 6, when Jim is already present, his presence causes stress to Laura and she is not able to upfront him. There fore she “escapes” to her room, leaving her mom and Tom with him. When tom approaches the table he says: “Laura is not feeling to well and she says that she thinks she’d better not come to the table.” Tom here is acting protective towards his sister, doesn’t want to force her into anything and make her feel uncomfortable. We can also see it as that he doesn’t want her to face Jim, and make him feel as if she doesn’t want to see him or talk to him, since he is jealous that they might like each other. Though we can only clearly see that something might be different with Tom’s brotherly like feelings for Laura at his speech at the end of the play: “Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!” This is really the only time (text-wise) that tom expresses his feelings for Laura. In the other quotes I have mentioned about we can only assume that this is true and there might be more then just brother-sister relation here. He confesses that even though he has escaped from the stifling effect of the family home, he cannot forget Laura. So many things remind him of her, and he is tormented by the memory. What he says here suggests a strong emotional connection between the brother and sister, and probably a feeling of guilt on the part of Tom for having deserted her. And the word he uses, "faithful," seems an unusual one for a brother to use about a sister. The idea of being faithful is more usually applied to relationships between lovers or spouses rather than siblings. However, this passage is not in itself an indicator of an incestuous or even "quasi-incestuous" love. To sum things up, the text itself does not seem to have presented the relationship between Tom and Laura as "quasi-incestuous" in any consistent, obvious manner. However, it is possible to suggest such a relationship, especially through the way it is performed on stage. The last relationship I’m going to discuss is Jim’s and Laura’s. Jim, throughout the whole play almost, was known to us as Laura’s high school crush and as the gentleman caller, especially according to Amanda. As for Jim himself, he never gave “that weird girl from high school” Laura any important significance, never stopped to think too much about her, and he is acting in a rather irresponsible way when they are together, not making very clear his intentions and his feeling for Laura. Already in SCENE 2 we can see Laura’s feelings and memories of him: “He used to call me- Blue Roses!” Jim already here is making Laura live in illusions, even though he is not even a part of her life right now (which shows what a great effect he has upon her). We see that Jim has been Laura’s only crush in high school, and even now, after so many years has passed by and they both grew up, she still holds onto that memory. In SCENE 5, after Laura is being told by her mother that the “gentleman caller’s” name is Jim, Laura realizes that this might be “her” Jim from high school, and she is very scared to upfront him. This is the negative effect Jim has upon Laura: the fear, the nervousness. She tells her mother that she won’t be able to come to the table or be present at all when he is there, but Amanda just gets mad and says: “What sort of nonsense is this?” This shows Laura’s lack of confidence when it comes to Jim, and how Amanda, being so obsessed with this gentlem...