Being a good mother takes a lot of time and effort. To be a good mother, you need certain, but good qualities. In my opinion, the mother needs to be loving and understanding towards her children. She needs to know when to back off and when to be there. She needs to make many sacrifices and take time for her children. There are so many qualities a mother must have. But to be a good mother, you need unconditional love. Amanda had some of these qualities but lacked a few of them.
Amanda did want the best for her daughter, Laura. She would tell her son, Tom, and Laura the stories about gentlemen callers over and over. She would just brag until she made herself feel better. Now Laura, unlike most girls, was shy, quiet, and crippled. She spent most of her time cooped up in her house and played with her glass menagerie. She was too afraid to go out in the big world. Even when she went to school, shed get so nervous, she would hyperventilate.
Amanda wanted her daughter to be popular, beautiful, and attracted to men. She wanted Laura to have many gentlemen callers but she didnt even have one. Lauras only interest was music and her glass menagerie. Amanda wanted Laura to experience a man at the house for dinner so she had Tom bring home one of his friends from the factory. It ended up that the guy from the factory was the one and only guy Laura had a crush on from high school. Amanda did care a lot about Laura, she was concerned why Laura wasnt going to school.
At other times, she was obsessive in her thoughts about Laura not getting any gentlemen callers. Laura would always say that she wasnt like her mother, that she wasnt as pretty and was crippled. Amanda would always reply, You cant even tell youre crippled! It seems like Lauras mother did not want to deal with the reality of Amanda being crippled. Amanda did treat Laura and Tom differently. With Tom, Amanda would just talk about making money and asking him how work was. And with Laura, Amanda would talk about gentlemen callers.
In the play, she said, Why couldnt I have had normal kids? Would a mother say this about her kids? Amanda had a weird way of raising her kids, and did say some mean things about them, but truly loved them in her own way. Even though Amanda made Laura open up to Jim, the guy who came over for dinner, it helped Laura a lot. This made Laura talk to Jim. And they opened up to each other. And Laura realized that the world wasnt out to get her. And her mother helped her through this, even though it might have been the hard way.
