In the Glass Menagerie, first and foremost, we find the
three main characters, Tom, Amanda, and Laura, all but powerless because they are
immobilized by and in the shackles of a "dissolving
economy."
Laura is completely hopeless, and is lost in her
own dream world. Amanda spends much of her time grieving over the lost bounty and
supposed beauty of her youth. Her only hope is to find a man who will sweep Laura away
and save her from a life of dependency or worse. Tom's only hope is to escape the whole
mess by going to sea. The other man in the family, the father, at least had the power to
escape his situation and abandoned his family years and years
before.
In terms of power and gender, the equation lays
itself out like this: in times of economic hardship, men have more options than women,
and women with their wits about them and some physical attractiveness have more options
than women who lack these qualities. In other words: when the going gets tough, the
tough get going only if they can find some advantage. Being a man and having a job, is,
at least, some help, and it makes matters just a bit less tough for
them.
In the play, two men escape and leave the women to
fend for themselves, thus weakening them even more.
No comments:
Post a Comment