Amanda Wingfield Character Analysis

Tom and Laura’s mother. Amanda was a Southern belle in her youth, and she clings to this romantic vision of her past rather than accepting her current circumstances of poverty and abandonment. Amanda does not live in the past; rather, she lives in her own version of the present that she sees through the veil of memories and illusions. Unlike Tom and Laura, who retreat into their own private fantasies to escape from reality, Amanda lives her daily life through the rose-tinted glasses of her memories and dreams. Amanda is pragmatic in many ways––for example, she makes ends meet by selling magazine subscriptions. However, Amanda’s vision of the way she thinks her world should work and the reality of the situation often do not intersect. She constantly nags Tom, and she refuses to accept Laura’s peculiarities, projecting her own ideals of femininity onto Laura rather than accepting or even recognizing her daughter for who she is. Amanda is both a very comic and deeply tragic figure. Her exaggerated, larger-than-life statements and actions are often so out of touch with reality that they seem quite funny. However, her self-delusion and inability to see the world around her is also sad and painful to watch. For example, when the Gentleman Caller comes to visit, Amanda puts on a frilly dress she had worn as a young ingénue, slips into a thick Southern accent, and minces daintily around the apartment, as though she were sixteen again. Her actions are absurd, but she cannot see how desperately and pathetically she is acting, which makes the scenario tragic.