Concept of Memories in The Glass Menagerie and Never Let Me Go: Critical Analysis

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The past is unquestionably a key topic reviewed by both Williams and Ishiguro in their novels “The Glass Menagerie” and “Never Let Me Go”. Both author’s use of dialogue presents this act of looking back as means of reflecting how it shapes their character’s future events and actions. Though in some cases, the past is presented as a psychological barrier against one who’s attempting to move on. Therefore the past is ‘dead’ but remains significant in one’s life, as would be expected, in realistic terms. Nonetheless, we’re able to view how many of the central and even part taking characters hold relevance to the theme of the past thereby presenting their attitudes to it in both novels. In the case of Ishiguro, he frequently “presents characters who look back”, with possible influence from his own experiences of reminiscing, expecting to return back to Japan one day, where he was born.

Both authors are seen to utilise reflective characters and their positive views of the past, in this case through the use of Kathy by Ishiguro and Amanda by Williams. Both characters have a constant focus on the past, with Kathy’s views presenting how the past shapes the future, holding feelings of sentimental value towards her memories, however Amanda presents her use of the past as a coping mechanism against her terrible living conditions. For example when Kathy mentions “The memories I value most, I don’t see them ever fading. I lost Ruth, then I lost Tommy, but I won’t lose my memories of them.” The language conveyed here can be deemed as having a very blunt and retrospective tone, reflecting Kathy’s re-assured feelings that she doesn’t “go along with that”. This is impactful as it allows us to view her assured feelings of contentment, that she gains from her ‘memories’. This continues to reflect how Kathy values her memories and how they still remain significant to her. The repetition of the word “lost” presents Kathy’s determination to hold onto what she can in regards to the past, and therefore reiterates the strong sense of pride and happiness she gains from her past at Hailsham. The phrase “the memories I value most” also hints at the idea of Kathy ordering her memories for a sense of psychological and emotional contentment, showing her use of the past also as a way to cope with her present, like Amanda. We’re able to view Kathy and Ishiguro’s attitude to the past as a parallel, as he’d held similar feelings of wanting to hold onto his past when living in Nagasaki. He’d mentioned “Nagasaki is not just a few hazy images. I remember it as a real chunk of my life”. This conveys how he like Kathy held significance to his past and memories, no matter how irrelevant they may seem to others. Similarly, Amanda in Williams’ novel presents a corresponding attitude to Kathy, using her past to battle through her grim present, which one may argue is typical of human nature. Both characters convey their happiness in regards to their positive memories, though in the case of Amanda, it is far more evident. For example we’re brought forth with the line ‘One Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain – your mother received – seventeen! – gentlemen callers! Why, sometimes there weren’t enough chairs to accommodate them all.” The tone of exaggeration here raises questions to the reliability of what she’s saying but also reflects her strong sense of excitement to her past lavish life. It also evokes ideas of a possible sense of regret to the past, in terms of marrying her husband over her other “gentlemen callers”. The multiple use of dashes here emphasises how Amanda is recalling the event, presenting the effect of excitement and enthusiasm Williams wanted to create for Amanda towards her memories before her marriage. Through this we’re able to contrast between Amanda’s joyous past and her now dreary present and suggest Amanda’s reasoning for her continuous recall of her memories, to block out any sort of misery or regret she may come to feel. From this we’re able to depict themes of appearance vs reality in terms of Amanda’s life coming across as fulfilled due to her regular positive attitude and uplifted spirits, rather than being presented as depressed or in a state of struggle, economically and therefore socially too, as in the Victorian era your wealth and status reflected your social standing. The word “accommodate” connotes to that of welcoming and assisting one, therefore we’re able to suggest a sense of eagerness in still wanting to welcome these suitors, whether they’re for herself, or realistically speaking for Laura. Both Amanda and Kathy’s feelings and actions support the psychoanalytic perspective which “is built on the foundational idea that your behavior is determined by experiences from your past that are lodged in your unconscious mind”, reasoning for both characters attempts to hold onto the past. “Williams’ characters are haunted by a past that they have difficulty accepting.” We’re able to agree with this as both Kathy and Amanda’s actions repeatedly consist of them fantasising about their past, thereby reflecting a “dream like quality”. Kathy “unconsciously” reminisces about Hailsham like when driving past open land questioning if that’s where Hailsham was, despite possibly thinking she’s moved on as she’s now a “very good carer”. Amanda goes onto try and relive her youth through Laura, forcing Tom to bring gentlemen callers home and rather than focusing on Laura, Amanda dresses up herself as she may have had to do in the past with her “seventeen” callers.

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However some characters in this case of Ms Emily, irrespective of the past, persistently focuses on accepting reality, refraining from believing in hopes and dreams. She holds a firm and realistic attitude towards the future possibly as she’s so close to death, whilst reinforcing this upon other characters like the clones, whilst making them accept reality and preventing them from thinking about what their life would’ve been like if they weren’t clones. We see she felt so strongly about this as this is what ultimately led her to be dismissed from the school. In contrast, Jim aspires high and has a positive forthcoming attitude to the future. He prefers to have a constant focus on “moving on” as when he does look back, we’re able to question his actions and how he acts out in a sense, in regards to him going onto kiss Laura. Ms Emily does in fact have a parallel attitude to Jim in terms of moving on, mentioning to Tommy and Kathy that they must “let their lives run their course.” We’re able to view her intentions to get on with life rather than hoping for further goodness to come, therefore reiterating that the past is dead and has gone by, with Jim reiterating this too. For example, Ms Emily mentions “But this dream of yours, this dream of being able to defer. Such a thing would always have been beyond us to grant.” The repetition of the abstract noun “dream” emphasises the lack of possibility there was for it to come true, viewing the idea of them wanting to desire for more as unreasonable and pointless. Despite this, the fact that Ms Emily still cares enough to look out for the clones and their unrealistic hopes, presents her as a caring individual; she’s understanding towards the difficulties the clones have to face, especially with society failing to acknowledge their issues too. Ishiguro mentions he’s “always liked the texture of memory. I like it that a scene pulled from the narrator’s memory is blurred at the edges, layered with all sorts of emotions, and open to manipulation. You’re not just telling the reader: “this-and- this happened.” You’re also raising questions like: why has she remembered this event just at this point?” From this we’re able to reflect the importance of the past both to Ishiguro and its relevance to characters in the novel. He argues it builds the foundations for each character and develops their personality traits and qualities, impacting their presence and actions in the novel as a whole. We’re able to agree with this in regards to characters like Kathy, Tommy and Ruth, however Miss Emily’s negative attitude towards the past and her asserting that you should consider it “dead”, presents her nonchalant characteristics, though does go onto present how deeply she cared for the clones as she’d rather they have less to hold onto, to make accepting their reality and their purpose to donate organs much easier. This reiterates the significance of other themes such as the scientific elements of the novel, in this case, cloning. The first hybrid human clone was created in November 1998, with the novel being published in 2005. We’re able to view a direct link between the two as reasoning for Ishiguro’s interest in cloning and therefore inspiration for this element alongside the the theme of the past to have such significance in the novel. The clones only purpose was to give organ donations therefore we’re able to reason with why they valued their past so strongly as a possible escape from their reality. Again a “dream like quality” is evident here with the clones, using their memories of the past as a way to distract them or allow them to look beyond their purpose of donating organs. Similar to Miss Emily, Jim also presents a different attitude to the past in regards to the view in question. We find much evidence of him and his confidence in reliving his past that he forgets his reality of his wife to be. Not only does he break a piece from Laura’s glass menagerie, but he also toys with Laura’s heart, kissing her and realising it was a mistake. Despite this he presents a quite firm attitude towards the idea of focusing on his ambitions as he mentions that he “believes in the future of television.” He doesn’t seem to focus on the past as he’d forgotten about Laura’s nickname “blue roses” till he was reminded again. Though we could view this as typical of human nature, as why would anyone have reason to hold on to the past unless it was significant to one or in Laura’s case all she had, since she dropped out of business school and was at a complex stage in her life. We’re able to link Jim to Williams as we can suggest he also had great passion to move on as Williams had lived a difficult life, reasoning for him to want to dismiss his past and start afresh. He classified the two years that he was forced to work in the factory as “the most miserable two years of his life.” Therefore this passion to move on in terms of Jim may be inspired by Williams’ own life and his determination to escape his own past.

Both Ruth and Laura also convey a different attitude to the past in regards to how they value it. In the case of Ruth, she goes onto use the idea of looking back as an act of growth, to tackle her inner conflict with her younger self and her previous actions. She’s shown to have a determination towards making amends specifically towards Kathy and Tommy. Laura on the other hand seems to have no purpose to look back, though when she does, her past/ memories seem to be treasurable to her in terms of Jim and the nickname he’d given her “Blue roses”. However overall, neither characters seem to strongly value their past. Ruth mentions the line “That’s the worst thing I did.” From this phrase we’re able to understand a strong sense of regret towards her past actions and how she’d possibly intended to use the past to reflect and make changes to her future actions. The use of the word “worst” suggests a struggle to overcome, thereby presenting a sense of emphasis towards the amount of remorse she has for keeping Kathy and Tommy apart. The fact that “her voice had dropped almost to a whisper” when mentioning the above phrase, allows us to realise how Ruth truly cares to redress any past but complex situations, in regards to how she acted to both Kathy and Tommy about their strong “friendship”. She pushes to resolve the imbalance in nature within their relationships rather than to hold no significance to the past whatsoever. Though some may argue that Ruth is only acting this way due to embarrassment of her actions, rather than it being due to remorse. Ishiguro himself questions “As time starts to run out, what are the things that really matter?”. We’re able to view his influence over the character of Ruth and determine his reasoning to portray a character who has such a remorseful attitude to the past, reinstating the past “is not even past” as that’s what ultimately will shape the future and impact one in terms of Ruth’s guilty conscience to keeping Tommy and Kathy apart. Laura on the other hand has no remorse or barely finds reason to look back, other than to cherish the memories of her high school crush, Jim. We’re able to suggest that Laura has no reason to live in worry or regret of the past. This idea begins to become apparent in the line ‘Glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you are.’ This can be viewed as a rather ironic reference to herself and her family reinstating their fragility rather than the stereotypical loving family they should be. Laura’s father walked out on her family, leaving Tom to be the sole breadwinner, ultimately struggling to keep his family financially stable, along with living with an overbearing mother, Amanda. The tone of this statement is very firm and with Laura being such a delicate character herself, th4e fact that it’s coming from her makes this seem unquestionable and almost factual in a sense. Williams “had an older sister Rose. Eventually, she had to be placed in an institution. She became the model for Laura Wingfield. The description of Laura’s room, just across the alley from the Paradise Dance Club, is also a description of his sister’s room. Laura’s desire to lose herself from the world was a characteristic of Williams’ own sister. And both were seen by Williams as being shy, quiet, but lovely girls who were not able to cope with the modern world.” This allows us to view Williams’ inspiration to form such a weak character who has such a nonchalant attitude to the past. Though Feminists may argue this is typical of authors, to present female characters in such a weak and fragile way, in need of male protection therefore reasoning for Jims sympathy to Laura. Overall both characters assert that the past is dead, evident through their lack of value or care towards it.

Though we’re able to argue that “The past is not dead” due to the significance of central characters, Kathy and Tom. We’ve come to view how Kathy focuses on the past repeatedly, holding value to her memories. Though whilst both characters hold relevance to the past, in the case of Tom, he has emotional and psychological barriers preventing him from escaping it, almost forcing him repeatedly to face it. Tom’s memories don’t support his means for survival but rather entrap him, as those are the things he ultimately wants to escape from. Even when he does “escape” by going to the cinema, his focus remains on his family, “Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!”. The repetition of the word “I”, emphasises the struggle Tom goes through to flee from his reality; the burden to provide for his family due to his father leaving. The dash also conveys the break in his voice, reiterating the negative impact the pressure had on him mentally and emotionally, whilst the use of listing shows just how desperate Tom was to escape his responsibilities. The adjective “faithful” connotes to one who’s trustworthy and reliable, thereby reinstating Tom’s continuous feelings of being a disappointment to his family despite continuously attempting to avoid these feelings by “smoking” or going to the “movies”. Overall this has the effect of presenting his imbalance of emotions and allows us to link this to Williams past where he’d hated his job leading to his weak mental state. Tom also mentions “I reverse it to that quaint period, the thirties, when the huge middle class of America was matriculating in a school for the blind.” The use of a monologue here presents his reflective actions as was seen previously with Kathy too. The adjective “quaint” connotes to a relique or something old-fashioned evoking a sense of importance to that era. The metaphor “school for the blind” reflects the state of America during the Great Depression, with the adjective “blind” suggesting America was naive and ignorant, more specifically to the events of WW2. Whilst Tom does go onto act as if the “past is dead”, he’s constantly faced with his reality and made to deal with his complexities in life, with that being his financial or family situation. Kathy on the other hand cherished her memories, despite the reality of them. She mentioned “..even back when Hailsham was considered a shining beacon, an example of how we might move to a more humane and better way of doing things, even then, it wasn’t true”. The metaphor here signifies how Hailsham was a place of protection and guidance for the students. The use of adjectives “humane” and “better” convey a sense of realism but also suggest how Hailsham had ultimately become very impactful for both Kathy and the clones in their later life, even though “it wasn’t true”.

In conclusion, both ‘The Glass Menagerie’ and ‘Never Let Me Go’ present characters with significant attitudes to the past. Some are shown to hold on to the past and to cherish their memories, typical of human nature. Whereas others find difficulty in escaping their past or don’t believe in cherishing it, but rather moving on with their life, also typical of human nature. Overall we’re able to view many differing attitudes from characters in both texts, whilst constantly maintaining a sense of significance to the theme of the past.

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