Amanda Wingfield Symbolism
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Victoria Ficara
Professor Nick
GT Reading Spring 2015
27 February 2015 Amanda: Lost in the World of the Past
Tennessee Williams’ character Amanda Wingfield from
The Glass Menagerie is a bold and manipulative woman obsessed with and cemented in the past. Years ago, Amanda was abandoned by her husband and was forced to raise two children alone during the Great
Depression. Haunted by the rejection of her husband, she is determined to keep her children close, even if it means using guilt and criticism to manipulate every aspect of their lives.
Amanda’s controlling behavior is what drove Mr. Wingfield away, and is now steering her son,
Tom, toward a similar escape. This essay will explore several of the symbols, be they objects or …show more content…
events, Tennessee Williams uses to illustrate Amanda Wingfield as a character who, tragically, cannot move forward from her past.
Two objects that really stand out are “the cheap or imitation velvety looking cloth coats,” and especially the “imitation fur collar” that she always wears when going out in society (Scene
Ⅱ Pg. 755). Both of them represent that Amanda is still trying to live in her past as a southern belle with fancy clothing because they are both “imitations” of her past glamour and lavish clothes. One event that shows us that Amanda wants to remain a youthful belle also occurs in the beginning of the play as well: it tells us that she “ resurrected [a dress] from that old trunk!”
(Williams, Scene VI, Pg. 769) and talks about receiving seventeen gentlemen callers one Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain. This shows that she is stubborn and is willing to do anything to convince herself that she is still the belle she once was.
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Another important event that occurs in the beginning of the play is that we learn that
Amanda spends a lot of her time gazing at Mr. Wingfield’s portrait. Perhaps this means that she misses Mr. Wingfield even if she refuses to admit it. Also in Scene III, Amanda is described as wearing “a very old bathrobe of the faithless Mr Wingfield” (Williams, Scene III, Pg. 759), so we can assume that Amanda is haunted by the rejection of the love of her life and the memory of her absent husband. WilIiams uses Amanda’s behavior towards Tom to show that she cares because she doesn’t want him to turn out like his father. She badgers him to behave the way she expects him to, how to eat, where to go, and how to get ahead in his job, but as a result of
Amanda’s controlling nature, the Wingfield family gets into a complicated situation and all Tom wants to do is escape from the apartment, from this suffocating life ultimately.
Williams uses three symbols that reveal and develop Amanda’s character. One is the character Jim O 'Connor: for Amanda, Jim represents the days of her youth, when she went frolicking about picking flowers and supposedly having seventeen gentlemen callers on one
Sunday afternoon because he reminds her of the life she once had, carefree and filled with affections and the attention of gentlemen callers. Another symbol is flowers, particularly jonquils because Amanda always talks about them when mentioning her past. Lastly, the apartment’s fire escape symbolizes the way for Amanda Wingfield to bring a man into the house to save herself and her daughter from the fate of becoming a spinster. She is always expecting gentlemen callers to come and court Laura as they had when Amanda was her daughter’s age. “Not one gentleman caller? It can 't be true! There must be a flood, there must have been a tornado!” LAURA: “It isn …show more content…
't a flood, it 's not a tornado, Mother. I 'm just not popular like you were in Blue Mountain”
(Williams, Scene I, Pg.755).
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The universal truth that we learn from Williams’
The Glass Menagerie is that perhaps sadly, like Amanda, we all cling to the past, especially when we do not want to face reality or if we are in a difficult situation.
We must all learn to face life and move beyond the past even if we have faced devastation. If we do not move forward, one can potentially end up like Amanda, grief stricken, lonely, and living in a fantasy world caught in one’s past.
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Works Cited
1. Shmoop Editorial Team. "The Glass Menagerie Theme of Dreams, Hopes, and
Plans."
Shmoop.com
. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 19 Feb. 2015.. http://shmoop.com/glassmenagerie/dreamshopesplanstheme.html ,
2. Shmoop Editorial Team. "Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie."
Shmoop.com
.
Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 19 Feb. 2015. http://www.shmoop.com/glassmenagerie/amandawingfield.html 3. St. Rosemary Educational Institution. "Symbolism in The Glass Menagerie." http://schoolworkhelper.net/. St. Rosemary Educational Institution, Last Update:
2015. Web. Retrieved on: Friday 20th February 2015. http://schoolworkhelper.net/symbolismintheglassmenagerie/ .
4. Williams, Tennessee,
The Glass Menagerie,
New York, Reprinted by permission of
Random House Inc. 1945,
Print.
Victoria Ficara
Professor Nick
GT Reading Spring 2015
27 February 2015 Amanda: Lost in the World of the Past
Tennessee Williams’ character Amanda Wingfield from
The Glass Menagerie is a bold and manipulative woman obsessed with and cemented in the past. Years ago, Amanda was abandoned by her husband and was forced to raise two children alone during the Great
Depression. Haunted by the rejection of her husband, she is determined to keep her children close, even if it means using guilt and criticism to manipulate every aspect of their lives.
Amanda’s controlling behavior is what drove Mr. Wingfield away, and is now steering her son,
Tom, toward a similar escape. This essay will explore several of the symbols, be they objects or …show more content…
events, Tennessee Williams uses to illustrate Amanda Wingfield as a character who, tragically, cannot move forward from her past.
Two objects that really stand out are “the cheap or imitation velvety looking cloth coats,” and especially the “imitation fur collar” that she always wears when going out in society (Scene
Ⅱ Pg. 755). Both of them represent that Amanda is still trying to live in her past as a southern belle with fancy clothing because they are both “imitations” of her past glamour and lavish clothes. One event that shows us that Amanda wants to remain a youthful belle also occurs in the beginning of the play as well: it tells us that she “ resurrected [a dress] from that old trunk!”
(Williams, Scene VI, Pg. 769) and talks about receiving seventeen gentlemen callers one Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain. This shows that she is stubborn and is willing to do anything to convince herself that she is still the belle she once was.
Ficara 2
Another important event that occurs in the beginning of the play is that we learn that
Amanda spends a lot of her time gazing at Mr. Wingfield’s portrait. Perhaps this means that she misses Mr. Wingfield even if she refuses to admit it. Also in Scene III, Amanda is described as wearing “a very old bathrobe of the faithless Mr Wingfield” (Williams, Scene III, Pg. 759), so we can assume that Amanda is haunted by the rejection of the love of her life and the memory of her absent husband. WilIiams uses Amanda’s behavior towards Tom to show that she cares because she doesn’t want him to turn out like his father. She badgers him to behave the way she expects him to, how to eat, where to go, and how to get ahead in his job, but as a result of
Amanda’s controlling nature, the Wingfield family gets into a complicated situation and all Tom wants to do is escape from the apartment, from this suffocating life ultimately.
Williams uses three symbols that reveal and develop Amanda’s character. One is the character Jim O 'Connor: for Amanda, Jim represents the days of her youth, when she went frolicking about picking flowers and supposedly having seventeen gentlemen callers on one
Sunday afternoon because he reminds her of the life she once had, carefree and filled with affections and the attention of gentlemen callers. Another symbol is flowers, particularly jonquils because Amanda always talks about them when mentioning her past. Lastly, the apartment’s fire escape symbolizes the way for Amanda Wingfield to bring a man into the house to save herself and her daughter from the fate of becoming a spinster. She is always expecting gentlemen callers to come and court Laura as they had when Amanda was her daughter’s age. “Not one gentleman caller? It can 't be true! There must be a flood, there must have been a tornado!” LAURA: “It isn …show more content…
't a flood, it 's not a tornado, Mother. I 'm just not popular like you were in Blue Mountain”
(Williams, Scene I, Pg.755).
Ficara 3
The universal truth that we learn from Williams’
The Glass Menagerie is that perhaps sadly, like Amanda, we all cling to the past, especially when we do not want to face reality or if we are in a difficult situation.
We must all learn to face life and move beyond the past even if we have faced devastation. If we do not move forward, one can potentially end up like Amanda, grief stricken, lonely, and living in a fantasy world caught in one’s past.
Ficara 4
Works Cited
1. Shmoop Editorial Team. "The Glass Menagerie Theme of Dreams, Hopes, and
Plans."
Shmoop.com
. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 19 Feb. 2015.. http://shmoop.com/glassmenagerie/dreamshopesplanstheme.html ,
2. Shmoop Editorial Team. "Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie."
Shmoop.com
.
Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 19 Feb. 2015. http://www.shmoop.com/glassmenagerie/amandawingfield.html 3. St. Rosemary Educational Institution. "Symbolism in The Glass Menagerie." http://schoolworkhelper.net/. St. Rosemary Educational Institution, Last Update:
2015. Web. Retrieved on: Friday 20th February 2015. http://schoolworkhelper.net/symbolismintheglassmenagerie/ .
4. Williams, Tennessee,
The Glass Menagerie,
New York, Reprinted by permission of
Random House Inc. 1945,
Print.