The Power of Memory & Indirect Influence in A Song for Coretta, The Glass Menagerie and Dead Man's Cell Phone

J.M. Barrie's musing that "God gave us memories that we might have roses in December" (Barrie "Courage") alludes to how easily the human mind falls into temptation. As imaginative creatures, humans often fabricate parts of their past to match what they wish to believe about their life history. Pearl Cleage's ASong for Coretta, Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie and Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone all revolve around the fluid concept of memory.In the case of these three particular plays, memory centers around people no longer in the main characters' lives: Coretta Scott King and Gordon have died while Mr. Wingfield has abandoned his family.Coretta and Mr. Wingfield's stage absence emphasizes how their disappearance affects the other characters in the plays on a nostalgic level. Gordon's combined death and stage presence reveal how perception molds memory, as well as how death can ennoble even mostly immoral people.

Memory is a matter of perception. As Tennessee Williams states in the beginning of Scene One, "Memory takes a lot of poetic license." No two people remember an event the exact same way. Therefore, anyone can easily recall something that never actually happened, or at least not in quite the same way the person thinks. Nostalgia, a form of memory, hinges upon longing for a person or time or place that never was. All of the play's characters are subject to these two mind traps in one way or another.

In A Song for Coretta, Keisha, Helen, Gwen, Mona Lisa, and Zora all hold their own memories of Coretta Scott King because she is an admirable historical figure. But the women, whether they realize it or not, wait in line for the funeral to see the symbol-the lady who represents legendary achievement and the ideals of a generation-more so than the flawed human being. All five of the characters in this play associate Coretta with Black America's fight for justice and racial equality. Zora captures this intangibility in the opening of the play, when she speaks into her recorder:

"It's a cold and rainy night outside of historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, but that doesn't seem to matter to the hundreds of people...who have left...their homes and come here to say Good-bye to Coretta Scott King, widow of...Martin Luther King, Jr., a woman they have never met. For those born after the civil rights era who never experienced [Jim Crow laws], it is difficult to understand what motivates these... waiting people to stand [for hours] for the briefest glimpse of a stranger...some said simply that she was a great lady. Others that she was the heart of the civil rights movement. Some said they just wanted to be a part of history. Witnesses to the end of an era. Whatever their reasons, they have all been touched by something they cannot define." (Act One, Scene One.)

All five of the women waiting in line at Coretta's funeral exhibit nostalgia. None of them except for Helen ever met Dr. King's wife and, even so, Helen was only a small child when she spoke to the Civil Rights figure. They really only know Coretta based upon her public persona and what they have learned about her in the media and in classrooms; yet no persona equates the entirety of a human's multi-faceted character. Considering how far they have traveled-Mona Lisa comes from New Orleans while Gwen comes from Iraq-it unlikely that these women would have met under any other circumstances. But Coretta, or perhaps more so her accomplishments, resonates with all of them, despite their varied socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. Thus, memory these women hold of Coretta serves to connect the characters in the play, almost like a guiding spirit.

Sixteen years absence can distort a person's perception of another just as much as fame. How his family remembers Mr. Wingfield, the father and husband in The Glass Menagerie, evidences how memory can distort even those one knew intimately. In the play, Mr. Wingfield exists through two layers of memory, according to how Tom remembers his mother, Amanda, remembering him. One of Amanda's tirades indicates how she romanticizes her run-away spouse:

"Well, in the South we had so many servants...All vestige of gracious living! Gone completely! I wasn't prepared for what the future brought me...But man proposes-and woman accepts the proposal! To vary that old, old saying a bit-I married no planter! I married a man who worked for the telephone company! . . . A telephone man who-fell in love with long-distance!" (Scene Six).

Amanda remembers her husband both to illustrate days of past wealth and glory, as well to single him out as the scapegoat for the family's current misfortune. Amanda claims that she and her children live in near-poverty precisely because she married Mr. Wingfield. Supposedly, she could have married one of several powerful planters from the Mississippi Delta and never had to worry about supporting her children. Yet, because Mr. Wingfield is not there to defend himself, Amanda can easily blame her husband for her family's economic troubles and her children's failures. Whether or not Mr. Wingfield's wanderlust really motivated him to abandon his family is mysterious. As negligent as he seems, it is quite possible that Amanda or one of the children did something to make him leave with valid reason. Whatever the case, Amanda euphemizes in her memory her husband's motivation for leaving likely because she does not want to accept the reality and claim responsibility for her own actions. Amanda could have responded to her husband's disappearance in multiple ways, but she chose not to divorce him, not to re-marry, not to enter the workforce, not to attend night school. Perhaps that is why Amanda constantly badgers Tom and Laura to improve themselves and prepare themselves for the future. Amanda regrets not being more proactive in her own life and wishes to live, at least in part, vicariously through them.

Amanda is not alone in her wistful thinking, however. The way Jean tries to redeem Gordon in the afterlife in Dead Man's Cell Phone shows how tempting it is to try and tweak memories into near fairy tales, rather than letting them more accurately reflect the truth. Jean desperately wants Gordon to be remembered as a good, moral person by his mother, brother, wife, and mistress. Thus, she guards his cell phone to answer all of his calls and, in doing so, prolong his life by not revealing he has died. As such, the people Gordon knew during his life remember him longer and more fondly than they would have without Jean's interference. Jean even embarks on the strangely altruistic mission of convincing Gordon's family, for example, that they were in his thoughts the last few minutes before he died, and presents them with mundane gifts (a saltshaker, a knife, a spoon) that he supposedly left for them. It is only during Gordon's posthumous appearance that the audience realizes that Jean's fabrication of Gordon could not be farther from the truth. During his lifetime, Gordon sold organs on the black market, cheated on his wife for years, never told his mistress that he loved her, and bullied his brother. Obviously, he had several major ethical flaws, but Jean convinces herself that Gordon was a decent, compassionate person nonetheless. She so deeply disillusions herself that as she prays for Gordon's soul, Jean lies and tells God, "I only knew him for a short time, but I think that I loved him, in a way." The play therefore demonstrates how easy it is to admire a stranger because you can project any fantasy onto them. It also shows how death can ennoble people, even those like Gordon, because you only have memories that people like Jean can manipulate as reference, rather than the breathing human being to remind you daily of his flaws.

While Coretta's and Mr. Wingfield's death all seem to equally affect characters who knew of them, Gordon's death most greatly affects Jean, a total stranger. Because the protagonist did not know Gordon personally or otherwise, he must appear in the play to show the audience just how much his behavior and personality contradicts Jean's portrayal of him. The contrast between Jean's vision of Gordon and the reality heightens the absurdity and humor of the story, therefore contributing to the all-around whimsical atmosphere. Presenting Coretta and Mr. Wingfield on stage as Ruhl does Gordon would take away from Song for Coretta and The Glass Menagerie rather than augment them. Coretta and Mr. Wingfield themselves are not nearly as important to the story as how the characters react to their absence. Coretta's absence shows how a single, outspoken figure's death can bring people across generational, cultural, and socio-economic borders together based upon common ideals. Mr. Wingfield's absence, on the other hand, puts Amanda's proneness to fanciful notions and her need to live at least partially through Tom and Laura in relief.

The benefit of citing Coretta, Mr. Wingfield, and Gordon through the plays reinforces the power of memory and nostalgia. Coretta, Mr. Wingfield, and Gordon's absence create a central void in Song for Coretta, The Glass Menagerie, and Dead Man's Cell Phone that characters in all three of the plays struggle to understand or accept. This struggle constitutes the crux of each play's plot and helps the audience members begin to analyze their own experiences with interpreting the past.

Works Cited

Barrie, J.M. "Courage." Classic Literature Library. 28 February 2009.

http://www.classic-literature.co.uk/scottish-authors/james-barrie/courage/>

Cleage, Pearl. Song for Coretta. New York: Dramatist's Play Services, Inc., 2006.

Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. New York: Dramatist's Play Services, Inc., 2006.

Ruhl, Sarah. Dead Man's Cell Phone. New York: Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 2007.