Duty to Family versus the Self: Dichotomies in The Glass Menagerie - Term Paper Example

November 24, Duty to Family versus the Self: Dichotomies in Williams’s The Glass Menagerie Society is the world’s fiercestand most unforgiving dictator. It defines the concept of duty, especially the duty of men and women because they are men and women. One of the themes of Tennessee Williamss The Glass Menagerie is the notion of duty. He explores who determines its essence and describes the positive and negative consequences of obeying duties. The Wingfields belong to the working-class, and Amanda strives to keep the family together, while her missing husband enjoys his life somewhere in another part of the world. Tom wants to forsake his duty to his family, but he seems to have difficulty in leaving Laura the most. In the play, responsibility becomes a choice between duty to one’s dreams and duty to one’s family, which is juxtaposed with gender and social class issues. The Glass Menagerie depicts that society insists that people forget their duty to their own dreams because they have to follow gender and social class norms and expectations. The concept of responsibility is a product of social conditioning, which is based on gender and social class customs. Society teaches gender norms that defines the roles and responsibilities of men and women to each other. In Scene 2, Amanda expresses her disappointment to Laura after learning that the latter has dropped her classes at the business college. Amanda underscores the sacrifices made in sending Laura to school: “Fifty dollars’ tuition, all of our plans—my hopes and ambitions for you—just gone up the spout, just gone up the spout like that” (Williams ii. 369). During this time, working-class women had limited educational and economic opportunities. For Amanda, Laura is throwing away the only opportunity she has to earn money, and to help her brother support their family. Tom has the gravest responsibility of all, because as a man, he is expected to provide for his mother and sister. Amanda constantly nags Tom of his duties to his family: “What right have you got to jeopardize your job? Jeopardize the security of us all? How do you think we’d manage if you were---” (Williams iii). Amanda cannot even say the unthinkable. She finds it unthinkable for a man to desert his family because a man’s most important duty is to his family. As a southern belle, she is a traditional woman and her conventions molded her thinking about the duties of men and women. Aside from gender division, society separates people into social classes, where the rich has more freedoms than the poor. Tom envies the life of the rich: “Across the alley from us was the Paradise Dance Hall. You could see [couples] kissing behind ash-pits... This was the compensation for lives that passed like mine, without any change or adventure” (Williams v. 381-82). He hates his life where duty to others is central. The play demonstrates uneven social and gender structures that affect people’s ability to be happy. Society asserts that men have the responsibility to take care of their families’ basic needs and wants. Tom has the duty to raise his family, after their father left many years ago. He says: “House, house! Who pays rent on it, who makes a slave of himself to…” (Williams iii. 373). Society thinks it is natural for men to be breadwinners. They are the symbolic beams of the family. Tom thinks differently, however. He wants to follow his duty to himself, but for the longest time, he surrenders to social dictates. Aside from Tom, Jim has a duty to improve Laura’s self-confidence because he sees her as a little sister. He senses Laura’s strong insecurity because of her physical illness: “A little physical defect is what you have. Hardly noticeable even! Magnified thousands of times by imagination! You know what my strong advice to you is? Think of yourself as superior in some way!” (Williams vii. 402). In the article “Tennessee Williamss The Glass Menagerie,” Ardolino argues that the Rubicam College stands for Julius Cesar’s crossing of the Rubicon River. He asserts that Jim has large ambitions that will allow him to cross his dreams in life, which is what he wants Laura to also do for her own sake (Ardolino 132). Though Jim kisses Laura, his attraction is more for a sister than a lover: “Laura, you know, if I had a sister like you, I’d do the same thing as Tom. I’d bring out fellows—introduce her to them. The right type of boys of a type to—appreciate her” (Williams vii. 406). He acts like a brother who wants to take care of his sister. Like Amanda, he holds gender norms and believes that a man is needed to appreciate and to take care of someone like Laura. Sisterly love aside, the ending shows that Jim has a responsibility to his fiancée. As a fiancé, he has to remain loyal to his fiancée, so he leaves Laura behind, perhaps hoping that the kiss would be enough to help her grow as a woman. Among these men who try to be true to their social duties, Tom’s father rejects these family responsibilities and pursues his own responsibility to himself. He is the foil to Tom’s earlier family-centered self. He illustrates the best example of a man that society rebukes, or rather, pukes on, because he is self-centered, at least in the eyes of the judging society. The society prepares working-class women to have the responsibility to support their breadwinners and to be married. Laura has a duty to finish her schooling and to earn money. As a working-class woman, she has to work too. However, since she drops school, she seems to have forgotten the reality of existence for low-income people. Amanda reminds her of their social stature, which she thinks that Laura should have considered before she had a nervous attack in class: “So what are we going to do the rest of our lives? Stay home and watch the parades go by? Amuse ourselves with the glass menagerie, darling?” (Williams ii. 370). Working-class women, as housewives, can stay home and watch parades, but they have no other men in the house, except Tom who has meager wages. Amanda depends on Laura to supplement their income for survival. She ridicules Laura’s obsession for her glass menagerie, which for her, cannot be eaten or pay the bills. For Ardolino, when Laura leaves school and her dream of being with Jim is dashed for good, she reaches the “point of no return” because of her gender and socioeconomic class (132). Amanda thinks so too, but she does not show it to her daughter. Since Laura does not finish her education, she has the duty to get married, so that her brother can be free: “What is there left but dependency all our lives?...Of course—some girls do marry… Haven’t you ever liked some boy?” (Williams ii. 370). Amanda promotes gender roles, where women prepare for marriage, if not for endless work. She believes that women have responsibilities as women too, which includes being pretty for men and doing household jobs. Women are enclosed in limited roles, which have become seemingly natural duties that they cannot ever think of not performing. Mothers forget their own duty to the self to take care of their children. Amanda hovers over Tom constantly, like a hen that pecks and pecks on her chicks: “A well-cooked meal has lots of delicious flavors that have to be held in the mouth for appreciation. So chew your food and give your salivary glands a chance to function!” (Williams i. 365). Amanda might be seen as a nagging moralist, but she has a mother’s responsibility of ensuring a better future for her children, the kind she never had. Society imposes selflessness on women, specifically mothers. Tom, nonetheless, is often frustrated with his mother. Her nagging might be one of the reasons he leaves his home to watch movies and to drink. He wants to escape the constant reminder of his duties. Moreover, since Amanda belongs to the old world, she has a romanticized notion of men, which she does not shake off entirely, even after her husband left her without so much as a word of goodbye. Instead of dwelling in depression, Amanda shows the grit of a working-class mother. She has to work, while she pushes her children to work too and to have a better life than she has. Fambrough presents his analysis on the moralizing personality of Amanda: “…the lugubriousness of her dismay and recriminations [for her children] neutralize the compassion we might otherwise have felt for her plight” (100). He sympathizes with Amanda’s children, who have to live everyday trying to please their mother, only to displease her more. Fambrough, nevertheless, analyzes the meaning of the soundproof glass during the last scene between Laura and Amanda. He describes the pantomime as symbolic of the true Amanda: Amanda’s voice is a metaphor for the human personality—which, as Dostoevsky remarked, so often poses an insuperable obstacle to love—while her mysteriously lovely silent gestures symbolize the person hidden behind the personality. (Fambrough 102). Amanda might seem like a conniving and materialistic woman, but in the end, when the remaining man in the house leaves them behind, she remains strong for her family. She does not crumble down into hysterics, but shows compassion for her daughter. Amanda turns into the loving and selfless mother that she truly is. The duty from one woman to another woman is demonstrated in the last scene, where they understand one another’s unique dreams and frustrations. When Amanda comforts her daughter in silence, it reveals her inner woman self. Fambrough calls it the “art of compassion” (102), which happens between women. Laura just loses the love of her life, and Amanda understands what she is going through. She does not even speak because she feels for and with Laura. Jay abandons her for another woman, while her husband leaves her for his own desires in life. Amanda sees the painful similarity between her and her daughter, and for that, their female bonding becomes stronger. In addition, by looking back at the picture of her husband, this action signifies that men can cause so much anguish to women, and so women have to stick together to heal their wounds and to move on with their lives. When all men are gone, women can stand up for one another and support their emotional and social needs. Furthermore, Amanda’s act of compassion indicates her strength as a woman because she is a woman who has gone through life’s many hurdles. She knows that Laura’s setbacks are just the beginning of more disappointments in life. The unicorn given to Jim symbolizes the loss of further gentleman callers. Laura might just have completely given up on marrying and falling in love again because her glass menagerie, her illusion that life can be safe and happy, is already shattered. Through Amanda’s silence, she tells Laura that men can come and go, but their support for one another as women and as a mother to her child will never vanish. Their duty to their gender remains overwhelmingly strong because of the men who disappoint them. The duty to others conflicts with the duty to oneself, and for those who choose their own interests they can find happiness, but not social acceptance. Amanda’s husband fulfils his duty to his own wanderlust and neglects his family in the process. Though away, his absence becomes the evidence of what Amanda does not want her son to be. She tells Tom: “Promise, son, you’ll—never be a drunkard!” (Williams iv. 377). Somehow, she reminds Tom that his father is the worst kind of man and to be like him in any way is a mortal sin. But her husband does not mind leaving them at all. He even sends a postcard with the words hello and goodbye. He has no regrets in forsaking his familial duties, if it means his happiness. His picture reminds the audience that Amanda may look up to his picture, but not look up to him as an exemplary model for a father, husband, and a man. Amanda is not entirely selfless. She should have married a richer gentleman, but she follows her duty to her heart and marries her husband: “And I could have been Mrs. Duncan J. Fitzhugh, mind you! But—I picked your father!” (Williams i. 366-67). She is not thinking of her duty to her family, and she chooses love over practicality. She is happy then, but miserable now because of the consequences of her actions. Her nagging nature may be a symptom of her desire for her children to avoid becoming like her, someone who yields to her heart and becomes a pauper in the end. Furthermore, when talking about children’s responsibility to their families, Laura has a duty to her family, but she withdraws to her glass menagerie, which represents the fragility of human condition. She cannot do anything else but to submerge into her collection. With it broken, she has lost her capacity to dream again. Her mother tries to give her hope, and for now, their womanhood comforts her. As discussed, men have strong roles and responsibilities for their families. Tom has a duty to his family, especially in helping his sister, but he has the same intense itch that his father has- the desire to wander and to learn about the world through experiencing it physically, socially, and intellectually: … the lighted window ….is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow. Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. (Williams vii. 410). Tom feels guilty in leaving his sister the most, but he has to fulfill his duty to his dreams. He might feel happy for his decision, but the memory of his sister haunts him, for he knows that she and society will not forgive men who desert their families. Williams breaks the menagerie because he emphasizes that people have to make hard choices in life that can break them or the people around them and that is all there is in life. The Wingfields are poor, so Tom feels hopeless and helpless because he cannot work enough to satisfy the needs of his family and his own needs. As a result, he follows a difficult choice. The fire escape symbolizes the necessity of forming decisions that either way, someone loses. Williams describes the “dark, narrow alleys which run into murky canyons of tangled clotheslines, garbage cans, and the sinister latticework of neighboring fire-escapes” (i. 363). To be a human being is chaotic because every decision has its pros and cons. Every decision has one duty to gratify. People cannot please and serve everyone. They can escape the fires of their lives, where they can save themselves and leave the rest of the people burning. Moreover, the setting demonstrates that duties are bound to social class and historical settings. Poor people have fewer options in life than richer people. Tom thinks about life’s possibilities and limitations: “In Spain there was Guernica. Here there were disturbances of labor, sometimes pretty violent, in otherwise peaceful cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, Saint Louis…” (Williams i. 364). He understands that leaving his family will enable him to be free from his duties to others and become more in tune to the duty to his needs. He feels sad that he has disappointed his family, but it is better to be miserable alone than to be miserable with them. Amanda lets go of her son, as she has her husband. She demonstrates that in life, her duty remains to her family because her family is her life. Society has produced gender and class norms that many people desire to follow because they do not want to be pariahs. These norms create the greater problem of dichotomies that reject the possibility of a different alternative, such as prioritizing the duty to the self than to the family. The play shows that the characters may seek to be dedicated to their duties to their families, but in one way or another, they pursued their dreams and desires. They are not entirely pawns of their social norms. Moreover, these characters are lonelier and miserable because of these social duties, but somehow, women find solace in their duties to their families, while men tend to shirk their duties and follow their own desires. The outcome is the portrayal of human will, a will that can bend society’s strong desire to control individualism. The Glass Menagerie is not just about broken dreams. It is also as much about standing on life’s broken pieces. Despite the wounds, people manage to grow and to become stronger. At times, they can even be happy, though not all the time. Works Cited Ardolino, Frank. “Tennessee Williamss The Glass Menagerie.” Explicator 68.2 (Apr-Jun2010): 131-132. Academic Search Complete. Web. 15 Nov. 2012. Fambrough, Preston. “Williamss The Glass Menagerie.” Explicator 63.2 (2005): 100-102. Academic Search Complete. Web. 15 Nov. 2012. Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. 1944. Web. 15 Nov. 2012. < http://staff.bcc.edu/faculty_websites/jalexand/Williams--The_Glass_Menagerie.htm>. Read More