Amanda
Wingfield is the mother of Tom and Laura Wingfield. Whereas her son, Tom, wants to escape his
family, and her daughter, Laura, lives in an imaginary world she's created, Amanda takes refuge
in recounting tales of her storied girlhood in the Old South. She used to be a much sought
after young lady with many prospects and a genteel life style... if you believe everything that
she says. She frequently expounds to her children speeches like this:
"Well, in the South we had so many servants. Gone, gone, gone.
All vestige of gracious living! Gone completely! I wasnt prepared for what the future brought
me. All of my gentlemen callers were sons of planters and so of course I assumed that I would be
married to one and raise my family on a large piece of land with plenty of servants. But man
proposesand woman accepts the proposal! To vary that old, old saying a bitI married no planter!
I married a man who worked for the telephone company! . . . A telephone man whofell in love with
long-distance!"
Amanda uses these remembrances to
force onto her children attempt to make their lives better- she nags Tom to bring home a fellow
from work so he might marry Laura, for instance, and when he comes, Amanda has dressed into an
old gone from the storied Southern youth. In other words, she lives in a fantasy world of her
own creation, just like her children.
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