The figure of the fallen Southern belle is based loosely
on Williams’s own mother, who grew up in a prominent Mississippi family
and suffered reversals of fortune in her adulthood. This figuration
remains one of the best-known trademarks of Williams’s plays—Blanche
DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire is perhaps the most
famous representative of this type. The social and historical circumstances
surrounding characters like Amanda point to some of the broader
concerns of The Glass Menagerie. In the decades after
the Civil War, many once-distinguished Southern families saw their
economic fortunes decline. Daughters of these families, like Amanda,
traditionally were raised to take pride in their social status.
In a rapidly industrializing and modernizing America, however, that
status was worth less and less. New money was seen as far more desirable
than old but penniless family grandeur. The promise of Amanda’s
past remains unfulfilled and always will remain so, but she refuses
to accept this fact and convinces herself, wrongly, that Laura can
still live the life that she expected for herself. At the end of the
play, Amanda chides Tom for being a “dreamer.” It is clear, however,
that the Wingfield children’s inability to deal with reality is inherited
directly from their mother.
In Scene Five, Amanda’s far-fetched dreams for Laura
appear to be within reach. The screen legend at the beginning of
the scene is “Annunciation”—a word that, besides simply meaning “announcement,”
also refers to the Catholic celebration of God’s announcement to
the Virgin Mary that she is pregnant with Jesus Christ. Jim, then,
may be seen as a savior—for Laura and for the entire family. Furthermore,
Amanda’s description of the moon as a “little silver slipper” also
calls to mind the Cinderella fairy tale, which Williams considered
an important story. In one version of this tale, a handsome young
prince rescues a maiden from a lifetime of domestic drudgery, and
a glass slipper is crucial to cementing the match. Amanda’s hopes
for Jim’s visit are high, and clues such as the slipper suggest
that they may be correctly so. Soon, though, Williams’s references
to the birth of a savior and of fairy-tale romance are revealed
as ironic omens of tragedy.
