Amanda (Mother): “No, sister, no, sister – you be the lady this time and I’ll be the darkey.” 1. While the play takes place in 1937, Amanda’s comment indicates that she believes that black women were still to be serving and cleaning up after white women, suggesting slavery. Amanda: “Resume your seat, little sister, I want you to stay fresh and pretty for gentlemen callers!”
2. Amanda’s reference to calling Laura, her daughter, “little sister” implies that Amanda sees herself more as a sister and equal rather than an authority figure or mother. She also states the importance of “gentlemen callers” and the pressure society puts on young women to find a mate. Amanda: “In fact, I did not have the courage! I wanted to find a hole in the ground and hide myself in it forever!”
3. While providing reason to Laura why Amanda did not attend her DAR meeting, Amanda becomes over-dramatic in her explanation, providing a sense that she is a drama queen. Amanda: “But I stopped off at Rubicam’s business college to speak to your teachers about your having a cold and ask them what progress they thought you were making down there.”
4. Laura is in her early 20s and Amanda treats her like a child when it seems convenient. Visiting her daughter’s college is also intrusive and shows how Amanda has no boundaries Amanda: “Fifty dollars tuition, all of our plans – my hopes and ambition for you – just gone up the spout, just gone up the spout like that.”
5. Amanda states “our plans, but follows with “my hopes and ambition” implying that Amanda was just projecting her plans onto Laura when Laura had no plans for herself. Amanda: “You did all this to deceive me, just for deception.”
6. Laura explains her sickness to her mother while attending business college and Amanda turns the situation around about her, playing the victim. Tom: “You’ll go up, up on a broomstick, over Blue Mountain with seventeen gentlemen callers! You ugly – babbling old – witch.”
7. While arguing with Amanda, Tom makes reference to Amanda’s obsession to when she was younger, surrounded by gentlemen callers, which is not the case now. His frustration towards the argument and his mother brings out the “ugly” that he must inherit from her. Amanda: “If anyone breaks a leg on those fire-escape steps, that landlord ought to be sued for every cent he possesses.”
8. Laura, who is referred to as “crippled” in the story, slips, and Amanda thinks solely of money and not of her daughter’s well being. Amanda: “But not till there’s somebody to take your place.”
9. Tom wants to leave Amanda and Laura but Amanda needs a man to come into the house before Tom can leave them. Amanda is dependent on a male to be in the home. Amanda: “There is only one respect in which I would like you to emulate your father.”
10. Amanda continuously compares Tom to his father who left years ago. Amanda fears that Tom will leave them just as his father did, leaving no man to care for the women. Amanda: “We can’t have a gentleman caller in a pigsty! All my wedding silver has to be polished, the monogrammed table linen ought to be laundered! The windows have to be washed and fresh curtains put up. And how about clothes? We have to wear something, don’t we?”
11. This is where the audience gets the full grasp of Amanda’s selfishness. A gentleman caller is coming to the house the following evening for her daughter and Amanda does not even think to tell her. She immediately goes to think of what she has to do to prepare and how everything will look. Besides selfish, she exemplifies shallowness “She wears a girlish frock of yellowed voile with a blue silk sash. She carries a bunch of jonquils – the legend of her youth is nearly revived.”
12. Amanda acts as though that gentleman caller, Jimmy, is for herself and not for Laura. Amanda: “You modern young people are much more serious-minded than my generation.”
13. She is the main character in the story that is serious-minded about Laura’s future, applying pressure to either go to school or find a husband. Amanda: “It seems extremely peculiar that you wouldn’t know your best friend was going to be married!”
14. Amanda confronts Tom about Jimmy’s engagement, assuming that he knew. Tom responds by trying to tell her he did not know but Amanda does not listen. Amanda: “Don’t think about s, a mother deserted, an unmarried sister who’s crippled and has no job!”
15. Amanda is cold and insensitive. Throughout the story she goes back and forth on caring for her children, but at this point it shows how cruel she really is. Laura has no confidence and clearly this stems from the way Amanda speaks of her.
