The Glass Menagire:acts 1-4

While reading the play The Glass Menagerie I cannot help but notice the obvious strife between the mother, Amanda, and her children, Tom and Laura. They live in “one of those vast hive-like conglomerations of cellular living units” which emphasizes their own misfortune and poverty; a key factor to the disconnect between Amanda and Tom (3).  Their mother is constantly trying to relive her glory days through her daughter, Laura. Amanda constantly insists that it’s “time for our [Laura’s] gentlemen callers to start arriving” but they never arrive (10).  Unfortunately Laura can never fulfill her mother’s hopes and dreams, leaving her to be viewed as a failure. Moreover, Amanda is in denial about her own daughters physical state, as she ignores the fact that her daughter is crippled and states” You’re not crippled, you just have a little defect- hardly noticeable, even” (17). Since Amanda cannot relive her glory days through her daughter, she continuously dwells on the past, even going as far to think as far back as a high school crush. Though Laura isn’t the only person who has a strained relationship. Since Tom is the only, if not the main, source of income of the house Tom obviously feels more entitled, but is constantly reminded by his mother that no such thing exists for him. It is because of his family that he stays at his job at the show factory, even though he would prefer “somebody pick up a crowbar and batter out my [Tom] brains” rather than return to work (23).

                The entire time reading the first four scenes, I was eerily reminded of a novella called Maggie: Girl of the Streets. They both show how poverty affects people and their behavior. It becomes apparent that the stress of taking care of his family single handedly is too much to cope with. Something that can easily be translated into the reality of the vicious cycle of poverty.