Tom Wingfield, the character and narrator in the play, mentioned their father when he disclosed that he left the family a long time ago. Likewise, his father was described as a telephone man who left his job and eventually left them. The last memento received was a postcard from Mazatlan, a place noted to be on the Pacific coast of Mexico . The father may be the most important character since his absence adversely affected the other members of the family: Amanda, the wife; Tom, his son, and Laura, the daughter.
Obviously, the member who was extremely affected was Amanda Wingfield, their mother and the spouse, who could be deduced as least expecting the abandonment of their father. From the events in the play, Amanda’s recollection of her spouse was through depicting him as person who inflicted pain, as evident from her remarks: the “worn out phonograph recordsleft as a painful reminder of him” . Likewise, she stressed that since her spouse left them, she had to raise the children alone and find ways to support them: “I’ve had to put up a solitary battle all these years” . As such, she could be perceived as burdened, anxious, worn out and stressed.
As a consequence of her spouse abandoning them, Amanda thought of ways for her children to support themselves in the future. When she discovered that Laura, her daughter, stopped attending the typing school, she was distressed and bothered. Amanda mused: “What are we going to do, what is going to become of us, what is the future?” . The impact of her husband leaving them contributed to negative and positive implications. The negative effects included the feelings of stress, anxiety and burden for thinking of ways to support the family. On the other hand, the positive impact could be deduced in terms of developing unity, strength, and resilience in overcoming challenges and adversities that they encountered.
Concurrently, the father’s leaving had significant impact on Tom, the son, through acknowledging that supporting the family was vested in his shoulders. Explicitly and implicitly, the responsibility was considered a burden and a sacrifice. He had to work to pay for the rent and the electricity, as mentioned in the play: “House, house! Who pays rent on it, who makes a slave of himself to – “. From the words that Tom blurted, it was evident that he felt devastated and a slave for having to financially support the family – a responsibility that should have been assumed by his father. In addition, Amanda sees that Tom was seemingly taking similar paths that his father has undertaken: not loving his job, staying up late, and drinking . In fact, Amanda asserted that “More and more of you remind me of your father! He was out all hours without explanation! – Then left! Good-bye!”. Thus, his father became a model for Tom. Despite the wrongdoing of leaving the family, he still harbored leading the same path.
Finally, the effect of the father’s absence on Laura is her being more reclusive, isolated, and apprehensive to take an optimistic stance on the future. For Laura, she could be perceived as someone who was not guided and advised by a paternal figure. This was corroborated by Jim O’Connor who told her that “Yep – that’s what I judge to be your principal trouble. A lack of confidence in yourself as a person. You don’t have the proper amount of faith in yourself” . As such, she lacked the encouragement and bearing to lead a productive and rewarding life.
Work Cited
Williams, Tennessee. "The Glass Menagerie." 1945. mattlally.com. http://mattlally.com/fiction/the_glass_menagerie.pdf. 17 May 2014.
