Breaking the Victimizing Bonds
Despite being portrayed as the villain of his mother’s unknown fate, Tom Wingfield in “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams is a victim held in the life pillaging bonds of his father’s mistakes and the suffocating pressure of his mother Amanda. Thrashing to break free of his bonds, Tom brings about harm and resentment to his family as he abandons his home responsibilities to fulfill the responsibilities he has set for himself. As a victim in his own life Tom’s fate is unavoidable. The reader’s villainizing view of Tom’s leave is onset by his preceding to leave despite his father’s absence, his mother’s inability to fulfill her roles, and her unobtainable goals; however, these tragic couplings of events …show more content…
The father’s absence triggers Tom to struggle with finding a place in society, to live in a world “which is a wasteland and a prison house, a world of constrictions and confinements filled with artificial objects that are corroding or turning into junk,” ( Williams 363). Tom’s admiration for his father and comparisons from his mother drive him to abandon his family. His father’s absence leads his mother to use Tom as a financial replacement causing pressure and unhappiness in his life. He idolizes the picture of his father wearing a soldier’s uniform on the picture in the living room causing him to idealize the idea of war and to equate World War II with his chance to escape and for adventure. Tom fell victim to his pure admiration of his father, following in his father’s footsteps in an attempt to escape the hardships that were ultimately triggered from his father’s …show more content…
She treats her son Tom as a partner replacement, expecting him to earn money and be the breadwinner for their family. Amanda’s expectations, insecurities, and fears of losing everything she holds dear fuels her battles with her son (Janardanan 46). Repeatedly in Tennessee Williams A Glass Menagerie Tom is faced with conformation from his mother Amanda. The pressures and confrontations from his mother spark his inhibitions to leave home and explore. In an advance of these ideas Tom states,” I am about to move” and is followed by his mother’s confrontation (William 373). Amanda insisted that Tom’s desires are “a manifestation of selfishness” and that they are “further proof that he will end up as faithless and irresponsible as his father, an example of the kind of man he should never become,” (Eric 531). The confrontation from his mother forces Tom to protest his right to be a person and not just a reflection of his father, to show and remind his mother that in this situation he is not the one compelled by selfish ambition. Tom rebuttals his mother’s harsh words with “For sixty-five dollars a month I give up all that I dream of doing and being ever! And you say self-self’s all I ever think of. Why, listen, if self is what I thought of, Mother, I’d be where he is-GONE!” (Williams 374). Later, Tom must