Blog #9

Tom:

• quote: “Look, Mother-I haven’t got a thing, not a single thing left in this house that I can call my own.” … “ Yesterday you confiscated my books. You had the nerve to…(being interrupted by Amanda)” … “ House! House! Who pays the rent on the house, who make a slave of himself to…(being interrupted by Amanda again.”
• These quote showed me how less Tom was respected and cared by Amanda. When Tom tried to express his feelings to Amanda, Amanda hardly listens. She doesn’t even let Tom finish his statement once he talks about something that she doesn’t like. With the depression brought by his family and the satisfaction of his life, Tom must be so unhappy. His dream is to be a writer. The only thing that can bring him happiness is the books. When Amanda took the books away, Tom was hurt already. However, Amanda thinks that she does it for Tom’s good. She doesn’t care what he likes. She only consider what she thinks is good for him. Tom had tried so hard to support the family that he even called himself a “slave”. From this conversation, Tom’s quote really made me understand his feelings and the reasons why he feels that way.

Amanda:

• “Don’t say that word! How many times have I told you never to day that word! You are not crippled you’ve just got a slight defect. If you lived in the days when I was a girl and they had long graceful skirts sweeping the ground, it might have been considered an asset. When you’ve got a slight disadvantage like that, you’ve just got to cultivate something else to take its place.
• After Laura told Amanda that she doesn’t think there will be a gentleman caller coming for her because she is crippled, Amanda said these lines to her. This is one of the very few nice things that Amanda had said in the play. In my mind, she was always very harsh on her kids. She doesn’t care how her kids feels and she only want them to do the things she told them to do. However, when I read this quote, I was shocked. Amanda just seems like a nice mother, loving and caring her kid. This is in a big comparison with the quotes that she uses when she talks to Tom. Maybe she do love her children. It’s just the situation that she lives in stress her out that she just have to push her children harder so that they can have a better life when they are at her age. The part that made me feel the most “Amanda” was the part that she uses the “days in the past” sample to tell Laura about how great she actually is. That’s the way Amanda usually talks-at our time back then, the thing was like…

Laura:

• “Yes, mother, I liked one once.” “ I came across his picture a while ago.” “His name was Jim. … Whenever he saw me, he’d holler, ‘Hello, Blue Roses!’ I didn’t care for the girl that he went out with. … they’re probably married by now.”
• When Amanda talked to Laura about marriage and about the love she might had before, Laura described her crush using these lines. The way she talks about the crush in her high school year was just like a little girl. The way she says the words makes people thinks that it is the purest love on the earth. Even when she mentioned that the boy had a girl that he was hanging out with, the feelings she has towards the boy still sounded so precious. This showed me how naive and immature Laura is compare to Tom. Maybe it is because she was loved by Amanda much more than Tom was, she doesn’t think bad about things in the world. It also tells me how shy she is. She liked a boy, but she never tried to chase him and just watched him go and merry with another girl.