Memories have a major influence on everyone. They can define who someone is, alter memories, or be good/bad things that are remembered. In the memory play, The Glass Menagerie, the character’s memories are either inaccurate or altered because something was too painful so it needed to be blocked out which could cause new memories to form. A memory can be affected by emotion, which causes people to forget or exclude some parts of a memory. A question that is constantly asked is “Can emotion affect our memories?” Yes “There are two, quite different, elements to this question. The first concerns the emotional content of the information you want to remember. The second concerns the effect of your emotional state on your learning and remembering”
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Laura asks “Didn’t you go to the D.A.R. meeting, mother?” Amanda replys “No. No. I did not have the strength to go to the D.A.R. In fact, I did not have the courage! I wanted to find a hole in the ground and hide myself in it forever” (Williams 12). This memory had many emotions tied with it causing Amanda to become upset with Laura. Amanda did not go to the D.A.R. because she found out that her daughter had dropped out of school right away and as it turns out, Laura was just pretending this whole time to go. Hearing news like this would make anyone upset, so it seems that some of this memory was exaggerated too much and some details might have been left out when she really heard of what happened to …show more content…
Tom comes home late again and Laura yells “Where have you been all this time?” Tom responds, “I have been to the movies.” Laura asks “All this time at the movies?” Tom quickly responded with “There was a long program. There was a Garbo picture and a Mickey Mouse and a travelogue and a newsreel and a preview of coming attractions. And…” (Williams 26). Tom just goes on and on about what was happening at the movies. He claimed he was there and came home late, just like the many other late night previous to that. Laura and Amanda can not help but wonder if Tom has really been at the movies this whole time. There is much more missing from this memory because Tom would not just make up stuff like all the things that happened at the movies unless he was trying to cover up where he really was. Details are missing from this and other scenes where Tom has claimed he was at the
Laura asks “Didn’t you go to the D.A.R. meeting, mother?” Amanda replys “No. No. I did not have the strength to go to the D.A.R. In fact, I did not have the courage! I wanted to find a hole in the ground and hide myself in it forever” (Williams 12). This memory had many emotions tied with it causing Amanda to become upset with Laura. Amanda did not go to the D.A.R. because she found out that her daughter had dropped out of school right away and as it turns out, Laura was just pretending this whole time to go. Hearing news like this would make anyone upset, so it seems that some of this memory was exaggerated too much and some details might have been left out when she really heard of what happened to …show more content…
Tom comes home late again and Laura yells “Where have you been all this time?” Tom responds, “I have been to the movies.” Laura asks “All this time at the movies?” Tom quickly responded with “There was a long program. There was a Garbo picture and a Mickey Mouse and a travelogue and a newsreel and a preview of coming attractions. And…” (Williams 26). Tom just goes on and on about what was happening at the movies. He claimed he was there and came home late, just like the many other late night previous to that. Laura and Amanda can not help but wonder if Tom has really been at the movies this whole time. There is much more missing from this memory because Tom would not just make up stuff like all the things that happened at the movies unless he was trying to cover up where he really was. Details are missing from this and other scenes where Tom has claimed he was at the