The Effect of Materialistic Life on the Lifestyle of a Family

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The Effect of Materialistic Life on the Lifestyle of a Family
Materialistic life has been associated with unsatisfied and unhappy lifestyles of families. The paper is based on three different plays which include The Glass Menagerie, Long Day’s Journey into Night and Dancing at Lughnasa. Materialistic life causes conflicts and social disorder just as illustrated by the three plays. It has been reflected in family relations and has resulted in conflicts in various instances in the three plays. The literary works and plays emphasize that there are problems right in the heart of the most important unit of society which is family and how it suffers by facing a catastrophe. The plays illustrate the family as one of the victims of materialistic life by drawing the picture of deceit and illusion.
In the play, “The Glass Menagerie,” Tom feels that materialistic life has confined him and explores various ways to free himself and escape from that confinement. He views his life at the warehouse as a nailed coffin where he is suffocating as time passes by and promises to escape. Tom toils in the shoe warehouse in order to support his mother as well as his sister after his father ran off several years ago. Therefore, he has limited choices and decides to live with such kind of materialistic life in order to make ends meet. However, that kind of life brings out various effects on his family as illustrated in the play. Apart from his life in his workplace, Tom also views his life within the family as a coffin as a result of materialistic life.

Amanda who is Tom’s mother puts pressure on her children hence compromising their relationship as a family. For instance, she gets disappointed that that Laura, her daughter, is painfully shy and doesn’t attract gentlemen callers. Amanda, therefore, enrolls her daughter in a business college, anticipating that she will later make a fortune for the family and herself through a business career.
Amanda is one of the main characters brought out as materialistic. She is capable of doing what it takes to attain worldly possession. Amanda has a great concern over wealth and material possessions. The worldly concerns prompt him to make decisions that compromise her relationship with her children. Tom and other members of Wingfield family try to escape various difficulties in the family contributed to materialistic life, but every member finds it difficult to do so. As a result of this, they resort into a world of illusion where they find the comfort that the real world doesn’t seem to offer. For instance, Laura’s crippling shyness leads her to secretly sneaks from class and spend days in the city alone. Tom, on the other hand, finds refuge in liquor, literature, and movies. In various instances, the family gets into arguments which are a clear indication of conflict caused by materialistic life. For instance, during one of such arguments, Tom breaks several glass animal figurines accidentally, and these are Laura’s most prized possessions.
Materialistic life makes Tom to be locked into his life by emotional factors. He finds it very hard to keep up with her mother’s materialistic behavior. For instance, Amanda pushes Tom to look for a potential suitor at the warehouse. Eventually, Tom selects Jim Connor and invites him to dinner without telling him about the agenda. Amanda, on the other hand, is only delighted by the idea that Jim is a driven gentleman who is focused on his career advancement. Amanda tries to lure Jim to marry his daughter. She says, “Have you met Laura? Oh, good you’ve met already! It’s rare for a girl as sweet and pretty as Laura to be domestic! But Laura is, thank heavens, not only pretty but also very domestic” (Williams 25). (Page 25, Scene six, paragraph marked 70). Amanda later gets disappointed after Jim makes it clear that he has another fiancée. Laura gets a terrible heartbreak which is only attributed to her mother’s materialistic nature. However, Amanda blames her disappointment as well as Laura’s heartbreak to Tom who she accuses as inattentive and selfish. Materialistic life is also illustrated in other plays mentioned above.
Just like The Glass Menagerie, “Long Day’s Journey into Night” also brings an aspect of materialistic life that ends up causing conflict in a family setup. In the novel, there are two medical disasters that are revealed gradually. For instance, Tyron is constantly blamed because of his own stinginess. His materialistic life is linked to Mary’s morphine addiction. He declined to pay for a competent doctor to provide proper treatment for the pain caused during childbirth. As a result of materialistic life, the family revisits old fights constantly that end up opening old wounds. The family members find it very difficult to forget about the past. Materialistic life is one of the causes of conflict that arise between Tyron and Mary. Tyron hoped that his sons would become successful but this does not happen, and instead, the two men indulge in drinking. The modern materialistic life has effects on family and responsible for social pressures. Jamie blames Tyron for Edmund’s serious illness. He says, “It might never have happened if you would have sent him to a real doctor when he first gets sick. Hardy is rated third class even in this hick Burge. He is a cheap old quack!” (O’Neill 34). (Page 34, paragraph one of the screenshot).
From the novel, these pressures have disrupted relations in the family which is one of the important units of the social system. Mary’s addiction as a result of her poor treatment after giving birth to Edmund has tortured the family for many years. She returns from a sanitarian where she stays for a prolonged treatment, but there is fear that just the slightest upset may sabotage her recovery. Mary is treated as a very delicate creature, and her pain that causes misery to the family is traced back to Tyron stinginess. Tyron emerges to be materialistic; he values his money too much and finds it hard to spend it on her wife for better recovery. The play reveals that the physician who gave the morphine prescription is just a man of dubious skills and Tyrone engaged him to save money. Tyrone’s materialistic life has disrupted the family for a very long time.
Members of Tyron’s family try to escape various difficulties in the family contributed by materialistic life. They resort into a world of illusion where they find the comfort that the real world doesn’t seem to offer. Tyron and his two sons also get refuge from drinking to escape from the consequences of materialistic life. Tyron materialistic nature goes to an extent where he monitors his whiskey to find out if other people have been stealing his supply. He also unscrews light bulbs located in the living room to save on electricity bill. It even becomes worse when Mary learns that Edmund has consumption. The couple gets into an argument about the institution that Edmund is supposed to go for treatment. As a result of his materialistic nature, Tyron chooses a low-quality low-cost facility. The conflict that comes up between Mary and Tyron is a clear indication that materialistic life is capable of tearing the family apart. As the argument about Edmund treatment goes on he notices how weak Edmund looks. He is fond of talking about his money philosophy. He argues that when he was young, he learned the value of a dollar. He says that the more someone owns a property, the more he becomes safer. He only thinks of material possession over his family and that lifestyle tears apart his family in very many ways.
Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel also bring an aspect of materialistic life. Materialistic life has also affected the Mundy family. Materialistic life is responsible for the social pressures witnessed in the Mundy family and results in the tragedy of a lack of direction and the tragedy of a family falling apart. The family suffers a great deal by losing two sisters, Rose and Agnes. As a result of poverty, Kate is the only member of the family who earns enough money to support the family. Rose and Agnes only do knitting, but when a new knitting factory opens up, their job becomes redundant. They are forced to give up their knitting. The play brings the Mundy girls as a close-knit family with Kate portrayed as the mother figure. However, materialistic life forces Rose and Agnes to emigrate to look for work after refusing to work in the knitting factory. The family unity that existed before ceases to exist anymore as a result of the decision made by the two girls to emigrate in search of work. As a result of materialistic life, they end up dying because of poverty and starvation in London.
The family that lived happily before is broken up because of industrial revelation. The opening of knitting industry implies that Rose and Agnes have no work but the materialistic life puts pressure on them making them leave in search of work. However, with no family around them, they end up dying in London. Michael laments, “As I said, Father Jack was dead within twelve months. And with him and Agnes and Rose all gone, the heart seemed to go out of the house” (Friel 74). (Page 74, paragraph six). The relationship between life satisfaction and material values is evident in the life of Ages and Rose. They are unhappy and unsatisfied, and to that effect, they decide to leave the family in order to attain material possession.
Conclusion
Considering the three novels, The Glass Menagerie, Long Day’s Journey into Night and Dancing at Lughnasa, materialistic life has been attributed to negative effects of the family. Materialistic life has been linked to falling apart of families as a result of the social pressures that it is attributed to. It has also been attributed to conflict and unhappiness among family members. In the three plays, the family is the major victim of materialistic life as members of the family suffer. The plays portray difficulty in balancing material possession and the social needs of the family which is an important unit in the social system. We can, therefore, conclude that the literary works and plays emphasize that there are problems right in the heart of the most important unit of society which is family due to materialistic life.
Work Cited
Friel, Brian. Dancing At Lughnasa. 1st ed. London: Faber and Faber, 1990. Print.
O’Neill, Eugene. Long Day’s Journey into Night. 1st ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956. Print.
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. 1st ed. New York: New Directions, 1944. Print.