TS Eliot's Wasteland

8 Pages 1909 Words

her son in pursuing his poetry, and not demonstrating self-control in taking care of her life, but instead living vicariously through her days as a teen. In the process of her dreaming and scheming, she totally ignores the wants and needs of her children, never really understanding or giving sympathy to either of them. When they fail to live up to her expectations, Amanda nags them and criticizes them unmercifully. She romanticizes her past life as a Southern belle, often repeating an exaggerated story of having seventeen suitors at once. She has to live in the past, because she is unable to gain the self-control to put her life back in order. Unskilled, she is not able to find a permanent job and depends upon her son Tom to support both Laura and her. She is frustrated with his lack of ambition and refusal to take college courses, and she cannot accept the fact that Laura is a strange cripple. She refuses to ever give support to her children in the way of what they may want for their own lives. It is not surprising that Amanda, in spite of her determination, is destined to meet with disappointment and failure. If she had given more effort into sympathizing with her daughter, Laura would have been more self-confident instead of believing her disability to be something that should have been hidden from people or ashamed of. Also, if Amanda h...