Amanda Wingfield: A Mother in Crisis
15
Our Passage
"Let you in? Oh, good, you've met already! It's rare for a girl as sweet an' pretty as Laura to be domestic! But Laura is, thank heavens, not only pretty but also very domestic. I'm not at all. I never was a bit. I never could make a thing but angel-food cake. Well, in the South we had so many servants. Gone, gone, gone. All vestige of gracious living! Gone completely! I wasn't prepared for what the future brought me, All of my gentlemen callers were sons of planters and so of course I assumed that I would be married to one and raise my family on a large piece of land with plenty of servants. But man proposes—and woman accepts the proposal! To vary that old, old saying a little bit—I married no player! I married a man who worked for the telephone company! That gallantly smiling gentleman over there! [She points to the picture.] A telephone man who—fell in love with long-distance! Now he travels and I don't even know where! But what am I going on for about my—tribulations? Tell me yours—I hope you don't have any! Tom?" (64)
Amanda Wingfield:
A Mother in Crisis
Works Cited
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. New York:
New Directions, 1999. Print.
F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner.
2004. Print.
The Catholic Virtue of Acceptance
Conclusion
For Amanda to progress in life, she must let go of the illusions from the past, stop using it as a form of escape from her problems and finally submerse herself back into reality.
The Great Gatsby
A modern example
Theme of Escape
"Now just look at your mother! [She wears a girlish frock of yellowed voile with a blue silk sash. She carries a bunch of jonquils—the legend of her youth is nearly revived. Now she speaks feverishly:] This is the dress in which I led the cotillion. Won the cakewalk twice at Sunset Hill, wore one Spring to the Governor's Ball in Jackson! See how I sashayed around the ballroom, Laura? [She raises her skirt and does a mincing step around the room.] (Williams 53)
Theme of Illusion vs. Reality
Introduction
I married no player! I married a man who worked for the telephone company! That gallantly smiling gentleman over there! (Williams 63)
We can describe Amanda using three themes:
“All my wedding silver has to be polished, the monogrammed table linen ought to be laundered! The windows have to be washed and fresh curtains put up. And how about clothes? We have to wear something, don’t we?” (Williams 42)
- The theme of Memory/the Past
- The contrast between Illusion vs. Reality
- The theme of Escape
Theme of Memory/Past
What is an Illusion?
A deceptive appearance or impression.
“You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don’t plan for it” (Williams 45).