Characters, like the fruit that make a tree a fruit tree make a play, a novel, or even a sit-com. A characters personality can determine what path a story line might travel, or be used to guide a story down the correct path. Characters traits can also be called upon to give a story depth and meaning. Traits can be used to take away form the story or used to bring the story out like a bright shade of lip liner brings out a set of lips. I would like to look at the traits both good and bad, of Amanda in Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie. Amandas character is full of paradox, which supplies her with many good, and bad traits. All of her gains and falls play off of one another making her a good character that adds to the story, and if you ask the right person might even be the story her self. Amanda is from Blue Mountain, where she lived on a time of gentlemen callers. She was a married woman, but was abandoned by her husband. Amanda is stuck between a world of illusion and reality, which is what causes most or at least the bad traits that I pick out to talk about. Amanda lives a very boring and empty life. She uses her alternate world to help make her life better. She slips back and forth through the whole story. She demonstrates one example of using her alternate world when she says to Laura you be the lady this time and Ill be the darky. She plays games like this to make her life more exciting. However she is unable to live in her alternate world and she is forced into the pressures of everyday life, which she lives through her children.Amanda lives through her children to help make her life more bearable. Amanda living through her children brings out the bad and the good. One of Amandas good traits is the fact that she gives all to her children. She shows this when she says I know so well what becomes of unmarried women who arent prepared to occupy a position. That is her lifes main concern. She frets and worries about her child...
