The glass menagerie monologue how to#

Her indifference slashes another hole in her daughter's confidence, and her message underlines the inevitability that Laura will not marry. To Amanda any relationship Laura might have had with this boy is as pointless as the shreds of hope she holds in her heart for Mr. Her actions reveal the insignificance she places on Laura's high school crush, just as her sardonic words, 'He must have a jolly disposition,' reveal her scorn for this young man. If that relationship were going to blossom into anything like a marriage proposal, it would have by now. Amanda dismisses the attraction, seeing that it amounted to nothing because Laura never received a picture of Jim, only the portrait in the yearbook.

What message does Amanda's indifference to Laura's high school crush in Scene 2 of The Glass Menagerie give Laura about her marriage prospects?Īlthough it seems like a moment during which Laura might connect with Amanda and reveal her longing, Amanda brushes off Laura's enthusiasm in sharing a picture and information about a boy she liked in high school because her daughter is now nearly 24 years old. While Laura retreats emotionally and physically to her glass menagerie, Amanda plows ahead, or backward to the past, ineffectually and destructively. Yet Amanda, too, cannot function in reality but in a different way. Amanda is intolerant both of her daughter's character and of her social abilities she will not face and accept that Laura has limitations and that she cannot function in reality. She plays the martyr, exactly as Laura has envisioned and caused her to deceive in the first place. Neither passive or accepting, Amanda will have no part of the deception. On the other hand, Amanda displays no such tolerance, and her reaction to Laura's deception is as true to character as Laura's reaction is to her mother's story. If she didn't want to hear them, she could tune them out as she attends to her glass animals, but she may actually seem to enjoy them, an attitude she reveals when she replies to Tom's frustrated 'Again?' sigh with the resigned response, 'She loves to tell it.' Nor do the stories affect Laura personally. She would rather listen to the story once again than offend Amanda by telling the truth, preferring to let her mother live in the past and in her illusions.

Laura is tolerant of her mother's stories because she is generally passive and does not want to confront her mother. How does Laura's tolerance for her mother's stories in Scene 1 of The Glass Menagerie contrast with her mother's intolerance for her daughter's deception in Scene 2? Instead, her insistence on hiding its presence continually reinforces her belief that Laura is not capable of much.

The glass menagerie monologue how to#

Because she has always treated the word crippled with shame, Amanda has never taught Laura how to accept her impairment as insignificant, and Amanda demonstrates she hasn't either. However, her judgmental attitude toward Laura's impairment is obvious when she retorts to Laura's cry, 'I'm-crippled!' with 'I've told you never, never to use that word.' Amanda's words reveal she and her daughter have discussed this issue before. In Scene 1 when Laura explains no young men will be calling that evening, Amanda says in disbelief, 'Not one gentleman caller? It can't be true!' That's all you have to do!' For Amanda interacting socially has always been easy, or so she says. She says to Laura, 'cultivate other things to make up for it, like charm. In an effort to help her daughter join the world away from her glass animals Amanda has tried to get Laura to look beyond her disability instead of dwelling on it. Laura's flawed leg is a major cause of the young girl's introversion and retreat into a world of illusions instead of preparing to work in an office. Laura's disability is one source of Amanda's disillusionment with her situation in life. How does Laura's disability cause Amanda's disillusionment about the family's future in Scene 2 of The Glass Menagerie?