The Psychological Costs of Societal Ideals in The Glass...

It is an innate desire of all human beings to be successful. Indeed, with success comes a feeling of personal accomplishment, fulfillment, and pride. The prospect of such a future can drive many into great lengths to achieve their goal. While the ideal images of accomplishment may differ slightly from person to person, they are all ideals constructed by society. Unfortunately, society has a tendency to idealize these standards, placing them on a level that is both unreachable and impossible to achieve. As such, these unattainable images of success have driven numerous individuals into misery and hopelessness as they desperately attempt to reach that impossible ideal. For many, their own inevitable failures ultimately result in†¦show more content†¦In order to cope with this harsh reality, Amanda unconsciously utilizes certain psychological defense mechanisms. Although these mechanisms allow individuals to positively handle stress, they pose a danger because the reduction of stress can be so appealing that the defenses are maintained and become habitual (Defense Mechanisms 168). Amanda specifically experiences the defense mechanism of denial, in which an unpleasant reality is ignored and a realistic interpretation of potentially threatening events is replaced by a benign but accurate one (Defense Mechanisms 169). She successfully replaces her present reality with an idealized vision of her past in the South by obsessing over past events and by viewing the world as if she were still living in that idealized past. A common personal anecdote of hers is the Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain when she received seventeen!-gentlemen callers! Why, sometimes there werent chairs enough to accommodate them all (Williams 1782). As L.M. Domina states, in continually reliving this Sunday afternoon, Amanda is able to retain a sense of her own popularity, a sense of success rather than of the failure in her life. In other words, she has become mentally dependent upon he r idealized Southern