Amanda Wingfield Quotes

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Amanda Wingfield is irrefutably shaped by her upbringing in a lavish lifestyle as a beautiful Southern belle. But she is no longer that person, instead she is a single mother of two who was abandoned by her husband and is have a hard time coming to terms with her new status in society. She has trouble adapting to modern society because she still has the traditional southern views on marriage being used as a tool for status, and old-fashioned gender roles, which do not fit in todays culture. William’s stresses Amanda’s tradition views throughout the play, but they almost always come back to the topic of traditional gender roles. In this quote form scene one, Amanda explains how she thinks her daughter should act in order to get men, "[In the past women] knew how to entertain their gentlemen callers. It wasn’t enough for a girl to be possessed of a pretty face and a graceful figure – although I wasn’t slighted in either respect. She also needed to have a nimble wit and a tongue to meet all occasions" (927). Amanda is so caught up in her own world and her very traditional views that she often forgets that her vision of happiness is not necessarily her children’s view. She constantly forces her values on them and that is what causes Tom to be so unhappy (and also his and …show more content…
She does this just like any good, caring mother would, without ever expressing so much as a single complaint. What we can draw from this is Amanda is not as evil and ignorant to her children’s happiness as she can come off as, but instead is deeply flawed. Comparable to Laura, Amanda hides from reality in her own fantasy world. Unlike Laura though, she is convinced that she is not living in a fantasy world, and because of this, she is constantly trying to uphold her and her family’s

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