Drama Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Drama - Essay Example Amanda decides marriage is the only answer for Laura and forces Tom to find a beau for his sister. Unfortunately, the one he finds, while perfectly acceptable to both Laura and Amanda, is already engaged. This leaves Laura with a broken heart, symbolized by the broken unicorn Laura encourages him to keep as a souvenir. The play is a tragedy because Amanda, having had the opportunity to learn from her past, continues to live in a dream-world of her own creation, effectively crushing her children’s chances to create their own dreams. Amanda reveals her dreams in her expectations for her children. She continues to hold out hopes for a good marriage for her daughter in spite of her extreme shyness and poverty. This starts with her own recitation of the quality of her suitors, â€Å"My callers were gentlemen – all! Among my callers were some of the most prominent young planters of the Mississippi Delta – planters and sons of planters† (I, 148). Her expectations for her son are that he become like one of these old suitors in spite of his own youth and lack of education or social advancement. These expectations reveal that â€Å"Amanda lives in the past and imposes unrealistic rules of conduct upon her children† (Popkin, 1960, p. 46). Immediately upon Tom telling her that he has a friend coming over for dinner, Amanda already considers him her daughter’s future husband. Tom tries to reign her in by stating â€Å"Lots of fellows meet girls whom they don’t marry† (V, 184 ), but Amanda just tells him to â€Å"talk sensibly.† This emphasizes Amanda’s tendency to crush the realities of their situation and the ideas of her children beneath her own dreams and memories. Richard Vowles (1958) describes the play’s dreamlike qualities as another element intended to point out this oppression: â€Å"One scene dissolves into another. There is, indeed, almost a submarine quality about the play, the kind of poetic slow motion that