Open Prompt #2: The Glass Menagerie

Prompt 2: Choose a character in a novel or play of your choice (from the AP List!) and write about the conflict(s) that arise since they are in conflict with the society they are from. This may be socially, religiously, and/or morally. Dig deep! You should also address whether your character comes to a good/bad fate due to this conflict(s).

A shatter of glass and a young woman's fragile world leads to the downfall of an already sensitive universe in Tennessee William's "The Glass Menagerie." Tom Wingfield, frustrated with a life of repetitive motion and static, grows more and more impatient with his disillusioned mother and his sheltered sister. Set during the Great Depression, "The Glass Menagerie" offers insight into the world of a typical struggling family; a father who abandoned them, a mother who longs for the past and two unsatisfied children unable to do anything to save them from their fate.

Amanda Wingfield, the matriarch of the Wingfield family, grew up as a Southern belle. Throughout most of the play, she talks about her popularity with the 'gentlemen callers,' many of which would stop by her house, chat and give flowers. She talks about how she could have picked any gentleman and lived a rich life, but always ends her reminiscence with "your father had a way with words." Amanda's obssession with the past has an incredible effect on the end of the play.

Amanda also wheedles her daughter, the fragile Laura Wingfield, into wearing "Gay Deceivers," to impress her on gentleman caller. One extraordinary thing that Amanda thinks is that after Laura's first one, there will be an influx of gentlemen callers coming to take them both away and to take care of them for the rest of their lives. Laura, however, wants nothing to do with the world outside her front door, preferring the company of her glass menagerie instead of other humans. Amanda's need to 'polish' up the truth shows one of the complexities of her character--the fact that Amanda believes that what is natural is undesirable and that blemishes cannot be accepted. However, her opinion is juxtaposed with Laura's personality-- Laura, who has a limp, is believed to be crippled because Amanda said it was. Tom notes that Laura is not actually a cripple, but that she is abused and belittled into believing she was crippled so Amanda can continue to tell her stories of the gentlemen callers in the South.

Though not in conflict with society as a whole, Amanda Wingfield is in conflict with herself and her two children (the only society there really is during the Great Depression). Amanda's inability to let go of the past and her tendancy to live within it is a great factor in her conflict with society--Tom and Laura are not only tired of hearing the same things over and over again, but they also feel more hopeless just listening to it. Amanda's life seemed so easy before she married, which is a cruel way to treat them, considering all the hardships and trials they go through. Amanda's personality, which includes the fact that she needs to lie to make things seem better, is also a driving factor to causing Tom to run away. Ultimately, Amanda's micromanagement and inability to create boundaries for herself brings her to a negative end, causing her only son to leave (just as the father had left) and for Laura Wingfield to blow out her candles alone.