“The Glass Menagerie” – Character Analysis of Amanda Wingfield

Amanda Wingfield is the most prominent and dynamic character in the play. She is described by Williams as “a little woman of great but confused vitality clinging frantically to another time and place”. In the play, Amanda appears to be a paranoiac as she was constantly worrying about her family’s future, and coming up with seemingly foolish ways to ‘secure’ their lives. It is not until the end, that one sees her real self emerge, when she subtly revealed the angel-like beauty that was hidden in her all along.

In her younger days, she was a typical Southern Belle, brought up in a genteel family and pampered by her seventeen beaux. She received a traditional upbringing and was taught to value certain social distinctions, which she carried on until later in life, even when those values were already rejected by social norm. This explained her ‘silliness’ and ‘weirdness’ when meeting Jim and when talking to Tom or even Laura. Out of those seventeen gentleman callers, she chose a man she loved, but he in return fell in love with long distance, and abandoned her with her two children. Being the strong woman she was, Amanda raised both her children single-handedly, until they were grown-ups. She encouraged both her children to enroll in activities so that they could improve themselves, support the family, and so that they might be successful..

However, because of her desperate hopes for her children, she was extremely protective over her children, and was forever nagging at her son. Even on small things like eating, she still had something to say, for example, “Honey, don’t push with your fingers. If you have to push with something, the thing to push with is a crust of bread. And chew – chew! Animals have sections in their stomach…” Also, because Amanda was so worried that Tom would end up drinking like his father did once, she would argue with him every time he came home from the movies. This, in the end, led to her son’s departure for good.

Though strong she was, Amanda denied reality in a dangerous way. Her daughter, Laura, was unfortunately crippled — she had to walk with a brace and was extremely shy. Nevertheless, Amanda dismissed Laura’s handicap without so much as a wave of her hand. She refused to acknowledge that Laura was crippled, and wouldn’t let any of her children mention it. When Laura said to Amanda that she was crippled, so she wouldn’t have gentleman callers, Amanda said, “Nonsense! Laura, I’ve told you never, never to use that word. Why, you’re not crippled, you just have a little defect…” This also led to her constant persuasion to Laura that she would have many gentleman callers.

Amanda’s constant nagging at Tom, and her refusal to see Laura for who she really is does agitate the audience, but she also reveals her sacrificial love for her family early in the play. She endured the painfully embarrassing process of selling newspaper subscriptions so that she could enhance Laura’s marriage prospects, and never uttered a word of complaint. When we come to think of it, “there is much to admire in Amanda, and as much to love and pity as there is to laugh at”. As a result of her Southern upbringing, she couldn’t fit into the later degraded, ungenteel society she was trapped in. Her ways were fit for noble families, and not for a family who had a crippled daughter, a runaway husband, and a son who wanted to get away from the family; yet, she maintained her genteel manners. This led her to appear foolish, comic, tragic, and even grotesque sometimes. However, silly though she was, her love shone through her senselessness.

Amanda’s greatest flaw was probably her denial towards reality. She withdrew from reality into fantasy, and unlike her children, was convinced that she was not doing so. She longed to be well-off, and tried believing that her dream would come true. But because of her attachment to her dream, she was blinded from the truths of the real state she was in. She still believed that she was the Southern belle that she once was, and constantly made efforts to engage with people and the world outside her family. She couldn’t accept the fact that her daughter was not going to get gentleman callers; neither could she accept that Tom was not going to become a rich businessman. This made her responsible for why her children ended up this way; yet, she wouldn’t accept that she was responsible for the sorrow and flaws of her children as well. Amanda was probably the most unrealistic person in the play, and this pathetic retreat into illusion can make her seem reprehensible.

Reprehensible though she may be, she actually has an almost angel-like charm and beauty, which is not displayed till the end of the play. At the beginning of Jim’s visit, her expectations were the highest they’ve ever been. The moment Jim sat down and was made comfortable, she told him, “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.” This demonstrated the high hopes she had for his visit. But in the end, when he told her that he was actually engaged and would never come back, her heart fell off the cliff and right into the sea. It was then when the cold water washed over her, that she finally awakened from her fantasy.

After Jim left the house, she finally realized that her daughter would never receive gentleman callers in the manner she did, nor would she obtain a husband as easily as she did. Her “Southern Belle” mask finally came off, and the inner-self which she had hid for so long finally appeared. She confronted Tom in the most non-motherly-like way ever. “Don’t think about us, a mother deserted, an unmarried sister who’s crippled and has no job!” was what she said to him in the end. This showed that she clearly acknowledged her current state. After Tom left in a fury, Amanda approached the frightened Laura with the utmost motherly dignity. Williams described her as “slow and graceful, almost dancelike” – she was a “tragic beauty”.

Amanda had two faces in the play. It was not a hypocritical two-facedness, but more of a reclusion. She hid in her “Southern Belle” image so that she could escape from the reality she didn’t want to face. Actually, she hid so well that she even fooled herself. Yet, her true self, one that saw and acknowledged her situation was always there, buried deep inside her heart. Her actions were mainly a result of her upbringing, so she can’t be entirely blamed for her actions. Overall, she’s a very lovable and motherly character that, among all THE foolishness and silliness, one will come to sympathize, love and admire.