THE GLASS MENAGERIE The rules about raising children are the most sacred of all rules. They are authenticated by religious teaching and reinforced in our school systems. Our families are the places where we have our source relationships. Families are where we first learn about ourselves in the mirroring eyes of our parents, where we see ourselves for the first time. In families we learn about emotional intimacy. We learn what feelings are and how to express them. Our parents model what feelings are acceptable and family authorized and what feelings are prohibited.
It is in this light the we look into Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie to depict the fact that families play both nurturing/supportive and destructive/delimiting roles in our lives. Central to the story is the idea of responsibility of each character in the play. Response-ability says Perls, is a misused word. It means the ability to respond: the ability to be alive, to feel, to be sensitive. (Perls, 1975).
It does not mean obligation.
It does not mean duty. It is something that one is directed to do without asking why. One does it automatically, without accepting responsibility for actions. This is a trait where one moves from letting others be responsible for us, to taking responsibility for ourselves. Taking responsibility involves self-management competency. Often, when things dont go well, people tend to blame their difficulties on the situations in which they find themselves or on others.
The Report on Family Responsibility
To be fully prepared to participate as active, contributing members of our society and world our children need to learn to be responsible for themselves, others and the environment. This deeper level of responsibility or social responsibility includes an awareness and growing appreciation of our connectedness to and interdependence on each other and our environment. On their way to becoming ...
Effective self-management does not fall into this trap. Self-management competency includes integrity and ethical conduct and personal drive and resilience. The reason why it is most difficult to take personal responsibility for mistakes is because one feels threatened and insecure. The word responsibility itself is a misused word. More than postponing automatic assumptions, Perls, the renowned psychologist sees growth as a move from letting others be responsible to taking responsibility for oneself. The play, The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams was written as a memory play, and its actions are drawn from the memories of the narrator. It takes place in the Wingfield apartment in St.
Louis, 1973. The play is autobiographical and events of the play are done by memory; therefore, many of the symbols referred to in the play reflect on memories from the authors life. Tom Wingfield introduces the characters of the story. Each one is given an introduction including Jim, Lauras gentleman caller. It tells of a story of a family, with Tom as the son of Amanda, who has an unstable job. Laura is handicapped and unable finish her typing class. Amanda is the mother who nags and insists that both her children must have improvement in their lives.
It is an incessant stream of thoughts about her childrens future that drives Amanda to conceive of ways to help them sort out their life. As Amanda discovers that her daughter Laura had been skipping classes, she thinks of other ways that could help her out in life. Collaborating with her son, Tom, she prods him to find his sister a man whom she could marry and possibly improve her life in the future. This is the driving force of the storya mothers desire to control the destiny of her children by thinking of all the ways of giving them a good life. Nagging Tom to search a partner for her sister had a powerful controlling effect on both Tom and Laura, the receiving ends of Amandas constant nagging. In examining Amandas obsession to make things work for her children, one is led to Alice Millers work titled For Your Own Good. Miller groups these parenting rules under the title poisonous pedagogy.
The Essay on The Glass Menagerie Laura Amanda Play
The Glass Menagerie, is a adorable little play written be Tennessee Williams. The play takes place in tiny apartment, behind an ally, during the 1940 s. There is three main characters, Amanda, Tom, and Laura. Amanda, the mother takes care of her two children as a single mother. She likes to have whats best for the both of her children, but sometimes favors Amanda more. Amanda is a worrier, who is ...
The subtitle of the book is, Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence. She argues that the poisonous pedagogy is a form of violence that violates the rights of children. Such violation is then re-enacted when these children become parents. Miller posits that the poisonous pedagogy concept exalts obedience as its highest values. This is Amandas demand for obedience from her children. Early on we see Amandas way of driving her children to a life she envisions for them.
She does not like routine and seeing them doing nothing makes her uncomfortable. She admonishes Tom, I know your ambitions do not lie in the warehouse, that like everybody in the whole wide worldyouve had tomake sacrifices, butTomTomlifes not easy, it calls forSpartan endurance! She speaks with authority and her children are bound to obey. The delimiting virtues of the family are seen in the emptiness, yearning, incompleteness which are unpleasant words that hold hope for the incomprehensible beauty of Laura in The Glass Menagerie. It is precisely in these seemingly inferior qualities of Laura–qualities that her mother spends most of her time trying to fix or denying –that the very thing she longs most for her daughter can be found: hope for the human spirit, freedom for love. Indeed, The Glass Menagerie is a story that revolves around Laura, aptly making her the lead character in this story. She is at the center stage of the entire story, weaving each scene and interacting with each character with such powerful spirit and presence that readers somehow find themselves riveted to her reaction and the feelings she evokes in every scene. When Tom finds Jim and introduces him to Amanda, Amanda is thrilled to find Jim as someone who has an ambition in life.
She is convinced that Jim will be a good husband to her daughter Laura. As the story progresses, we find that Jim has actually no feelings for Laura. He excuses himself as best he could from the scene. Everyones attention rivets back to Laura and how she feels by now. Laura is afraid to take risks and slowly learns to have the courage to face her own emptiness with undefended clarity. All the people around Laura want to help her.
Her mother insists that she looks for a man to marry her, thus, she meets Jim through her brother, Tom. Convincingly, Jims desertion of Laura is the center of the plays dramatic action. This desertion leaves Laura devastated. A lot of questions race through the readers minds as Jim reveals that he is engaged. Why hadnt Tom known about that at all? Why did he choose a mere acquaintance to introduce to her sister? Why had he not even bother to be more prudent in the manner of choosing a partner for her sister? Why did the thought of finding a partner have to be conceived by Lauras own mother? Laura is the central character of the conflict and the storys climax. As readers proceed to read how the plot meanders along with such zeal in focusing on Laura, the author is all the more convinced that it is Lauras reaction that they are concerned about. There is a seeming sense of empathy elicited from readers along the way and the author uses it to his advantage.
The Term Paper on Glass Menagerie Symbolism Laura Jim Tom
... quarrels between Amanda and Tom, some of Laura's glass animals break. Laura is present during this scene, and the reader is told that one ... to Laura. When Laura finds out that Jim is engaged to be married, a part of her breaks too. When Jim breaks the glass unicorn's ... distorted into hopes, and Jim his baritone cliches of progress'; (Cohn 101). Though Amanda blames her children alone for relying on ...
The story grips the readers hearts as we see how Lauras spirit is broken. Definitely, Laura is hurt because of that meeting. It was a short stay in their house but it opened a lot of memories on the part of Laura. It even brought back the high school years she had taken a liking to him. One can just imagine Lauras thoughts after Jim leaves. Even if they probably have known each other in younger years, he probably would not have pursued her at all just as he deserted her after dancing with her? The play invokes several symbolisms that revolve around Laura.
The symbolism during a particular scene points to a broken spirit in Laura where Jim accidentally breaks the unicorn she treasures so much. Of course Jim was solicitous of Laura, gentle and kind enough to dance with her. But to reveal that he really has a girlfriend who was waiting for her was entirely devastating for Laura. What is admirable here, nevertheless, is Lauras grace in accepting her plight. She even gives Jim the broken unicorn as a souvenir. Without its horn, the unicorn is better left with him than with her, as the broken figurine represents all that he has taken from her and destroyed in her. Moreover, to Laura, Jim represents the one thing she fears and does not want to facethat is, reality.
Laura’s vulnerability is seen in her glass menagerie. Her collection of glass represents her own private world. This is set apart from reality, a place where she can hide and be safe. The events that happen to Laura’s glass affect her emotional state greatly and it is because of this that she becomes the focal point from which all other characters revolve. In the end, everyone is a loser as no improvement of any kind results from Amandas maneuverings. In fact, each character ends up remorseful and frustrated at the turn of events. The broken unicorn, the lights turning out and the fast exit of Jim from the scene all point to the futility of it all.
The Essay on Amanda the Glass Menagerie
Amanda Amanda Wingfield is the eccentric Southern mother in Tennessee Williams drama The Glass Menagerie. Amanda is a relic of a bygone era. She lives in a fantasy world of her own creation where she is the Belle of a grand never ending Southern ball. Her children, Tom and Laura also retreat to their own respective worlds of make believe. Amanda doesnt care to recognize the defects in her ...
Indeed, obedience is essential to any family and social structure. Law as a guide to human safety through its protective structure is essential to human fulfillment. Learning to be agreeable, cooperative, unselfish and meek are useful and valuable. In our families, we adapt to the needs of our family system. We take on roles necessitated by the dynamics of the system and such roles demand that we learn certain feelings and give up other feelings as well. REFERENCES Miller, A.
For Your Own Good. Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Perls, F. Growth in the Human Personality. New York: New York: Julian Press. 1975. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.
