"Go to the movies, go! Don't think about us, a mother deserted, an unmarried sister who's crippled, and has no job!" (Scene 7, Page 1288)
This is one screwed up family. Amanda is very loving towards her children, but she is also quick-tempered with them. She's been hardened by a lifetime of disappointments. She always dreamed of marrying a man with land and servants, but she ended up marrying into the working class and eventually being abandoned by her husband. And to make matters worse, she still practically fawns over her jerk of a husband and honors him with a giant picture in the middle of their home. Their relationship is quite complex, to say the least. As hard as Amanda tries, Tom is still turning out to be very much like his father, and he doesn't seem to care. The main difference between the two men is that Tom loves his mother and his sister. When he calls Laura crippled, Amanda reprimands him and says that she isn't noticeably crippled. In the quote above, however, tension causes Amanda to eat her own words and call her own daughter crippled in an attempt to stop Tom from leaving.
Tom loves Laura, but not enough to stay. He loves Amanda, but not enough to obey her. He doesn't love himself enough to believe that he could ever do great things. Family complexities at their finest.
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