The Glass Menagerie by Tennesse Williams

This story is so much like Death of a salesman, I saw Amanda being Willy and all the attention is given to Laura, wich i can compare to Biff, and then we have the ignored child which is Tod. The protagonists of this story are all of them, Tom, Laura and Amanda. I think that Jim is the confidant in this story, he is the only one that knows Tom's dreams and plans for the future. I think that the antagonist of this story was just the situation and Amanda's husband. The situation of Laura being crippled, Tom having to work because dad left and Amanda being left alone with so many unacomplished dreams and hopes. The setting is on the Wingiled's apartment, long time ago, i think it was just a few years of the Holocaust. There are many conflicts in this story one of them is the anxiety attacks Amanda gets when she thinks that Laura is going to stay alone, unmarried and withouth a career. The second conflict is tha Amanda was abandoned by her husband. Another conflict is that Tom hates what he does for a living and is frustrated because he wants to become a poet! Another conflict is that Laura has a really low selfesteem and does not achieve anything in life because she is so self conscience of her disability. The last conflict is that after Laura gets her hopes up with Jim he lets her know that he is engaged.

At the beginning of this drama i noticed that Amanda, is so superfucial, always wants to be well liked and accepted, She talks to her children as if they were friends and she has no autority over them. I know parents that are like this, as i was growing up i had friends that her moms were so cool because they were so nice to them and allowed them to do many things that i was not allowed to do. When i grew up i learned to appreciate the fact that my mom was not like this, because most of my friends ended up having a messed up life, and i am not saying that i have a perfect life, but because my mom was my mom, she was able to rescue me from going the wrong way.. I think part of me not falling so low in my life was the fact that I knew my mom had rules and I had to follow them.

As i was reading the story and getting to know Amanda, I realized that it was not that she was a bad mother, but she just has high hopes and dreams for her kids. When Amanda starts talking about all of the gentleman callers she had, i do believe it could have happened, Just because she is not popular know and rich does not mean that her life did not hold a popular and promising future. My sisters talk to me about my mom when she was younger and they say that there were so many men behind her all of the time, men with power and wealth and she held a really important job in Mexico, her future was really promising but she never payed attention to any of those men instead she married my dad, (dont get me wrong he is wonderful) but he was not a powerful man nor was he rich, they got married and then we moved to the U.S. My mom from being the secretary of the president of the state to an immigrant that earned $3/hour working the whole day. Why did we move? well things go really hard for them with 5 children and two of them working, besides the violence in Mexico is really crasy! So i can really see how someone with lots of wealth or really popular can end up feeling frustrated because all of the sudden they feel that they are "nobody" this must be really frustrating and I think that Amanda was going through this, this is why she was the way she was with her kids, she did not want them to end up like her or worst.

When i kept reading into the story, i did see that she really was bossy and annoying she talked to much and to many times. That is annoying, i really got into the story it was as if i had a movie in my mind and as i was reading i wanted to get into the movie and tell her to shut up! I think that mo matter how annoying their mother was they should respect her. No matter how annoying, evil or whatever. Honor you mother and father! Tom was definately disrespectful towards his mother. I wanted to get in there and slap him when he called her a babbling old witch! man, that got to me! I think that Tom needed to realize that he was the man of the house now! he had to work and be there for his siter and mom,no question about it. I do blame both Amanda and him for not assuming that responsibility. Amanda needs to get rid of her husband's memory, she still talked about him and had his picture up and she compares her husband to Tom as if he was a good example to follow, this must have gotten Tom upset and probably was the reason he hated to be at home. Instead of Amanda taking her frustrtation on her husband and forgetting about him she took her frustrations out on Tom and Laura.

I liked the way that Amanda had support and encouraging words for the kids, she believed in them, but she came accross as being pushy because she did not know how to express it. This is something that reminds me of my mom, I remember when i was in hight school, she used to say that i was so popular that if i walked with a pizza on my head, all the girls would come with a pizza on her head the next day!, i used to laugh about his so much, i never did believe it, but i should have tried it. up to know there is still no day that she tells me that i can do whatever i want to do, she believes in me (bless her heart) this gives me energies to keep going but unfortunately Tom tooks this the wrong way, he took this as if she was just pushing him and preassuring him. Tom closed himself to his mom because he too, was living in a dream, he was wishing something that at this time was almost impossible, becasue he needed to be there for his family, since his dad didn't.

I did not get the part where he says that he was El diablo and he was a killer? was he serious or was he just trying to scare and annoy his mom? I also did not get the part on page 1173 where Tom talks about the dance hall, what was the point? The fact that Jim was engaged was a shame, i felt bad for Laura, she raised her hopes up and I think Jim did too, I think he liked her too, but he knew he had a responsibility. That was good, from Jim, he had good character, i think that he did not want to cheat on his fiance but he wanted to help Laura feel more secure. I think that it was unfair and mean the way Amanda blamed Tom, when they realized that Jim was engaged, but then again, she problably had her hopes up too. I did not really get the ending, did they leave (Laura and Tom) and left Amanda alone? If this is the case then they were mean and unfair and selfish, becasue no matter how annoying Amanda was ,she took care of them and loved them.