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PAGE PAGE 5 The Threefold Images of Amanda in The Glass Menagerie Introduction Tennessee Williams was one of the most prominent playwrights in United States after the WWII. The character type of the faded Southern belle is inevitably the signature character type of Tennessee Williams’ dramatic works. In The Glass Menagerie which brought him to the celebrity, the character of Amanda Wingfield is a clear representative of this type. Amanda is typically coincident to the general features of Tennessee Williams faded belle, growing in a prominent southern family, having received a traditional upbringing, and having suffered a reversal of economic and social fortune at some point in her life. Nonetheless, what makes Amanda particularly special is that the character of Amanda is the combination of three different images of being a woman, being a wife and being a mother, all of which are influenced by her experience of being southern belle more or less. As a woman, Amanda is an innocent, faded southern belle indulged in illusions of the Blue Mountain; as a wife, she is a pathetic wife tempted and deserted by her husband; as a mother, Amanda is a heroic but autocratic mother loving her children deeply. Main analysis 1. Amanda an innocent, faded southern belle indulged in illusions of the Blue Mountain. Amanda was a typical southern belle when she was young, beautiful and intelligent, being chased by endless admirers, and attending social occasions as if she was in her own element. She counts this kind of experience in her young age an honor, and is indulged in her memories and illusions of that experience, even though she is down and out now. Her past become the forever topic of her story telling. The first telling in this play happens in Scene One, when the three family members are having dinner together, Amanda says: “One Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain your mother received seventeen! Gentleman callers! ” (Williams 428) and she particularly emphasizes tha