Life Without Father

I attended a recent showing of Tennessee William's "Glass Menagerie" a the Ahmanson Theater. It seems to me the piece is a meditation on the absence of archetypal father energy and the insatiable craving we each carry to heal the father wound.

All three of the main characters miss the literal father in the play, a man of charm who abandoned them long ago. In different ways, this absence is causing them suffering and creating a desperate need.

Amanda, the mother, has not confronted the pain of her marriage failing. She regresses into adolescent girlishness, obsesses with flirtation, and projects her failure onto her daughter in an unending bipolar cycle of unrealistic dreams and bitter disappointments.

Laura, the frail daughter, is devoid of self-esteem. She is unable to function in the world outside the realm of her mother's protection, and can only relate to men through fantasy and the safe role-playing with her glass figurines. Her wound is displayed literally in an awkward limp.

Tom, the brother, is immensely unhappy. Without father energy, he is stuck in the oppression of his mother's suffocating psychological womb. He lacks the passion and ambition to take risks and enter the world. Through guilt and smothering, Amanda's aggression toward her absent husband finds its target in Tom.

So Amanda needs male energy to heal her wound, affirm her beauty and provide a worthy adversary. Laura needs the validation and confidence that a father can instill in a young woman. And Tom needs to find his own manhood, which he seems to be pursuing through contact with other men, be it artistic, professional or sexual.

Into this spider's web wanders Jim, the gentleman caller. Jim is not so much a person as an ideal. He flirts with Amanda and makes her feel young. He values Tom's creativity, calling him Shakespeare and offering words of encouragement about his potential. And he tries to instill confidence in Laura, calling her pretty, dancing with her, and kissing her because "somebody ought to."

But in the end, Jim disappoints them exactly as their father did. He leaves. The father wound is eternal and recurring. Amanda blames Tom, because she cannot be accountable or make the absent father accountable. Tom leaves, but part of him is trapped in that apartment for all time, haunted by the wound that time and distance cannot heal.

In the universal sense, the father wound leaves us each alone in the desert of the world. Our fathers are mirages fading on the horizon. And though our mothers are safe oases, they cannot help us get to our fathers. We are left in the sand between the two, thirsting for something we must find on our own.