How would you decribe the relationship between the mother and daughter in The Glass Menagerie.

It is a psychologically complex relationship that exists
between Amanda and her daughter Laura in Tennessee Williams's The Glass
Menagerie. While Amanda cares for her child, she is at times rather cruel to
her. A deeply flawed character because she distorts reality to fit her desires,
Amanda often does not acknowledge Laura's own will.  For instance, in Scene 2, as Amanda
does not have the courage to attend the DAR meeting, she instead visits the Rubicum
Business College where Laura is enrolled.  However, there she discovers that Laura has
not been attending class.  After tearing up the typing charts that are on the wall,
Amanda, having stared at Laura and drawn a deep breath and dabbed at her eyes with a
handerchief, asks her daughter,

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"What are we going to do, what is going to become
of us, what is the future?...I'm just bewildered---by
life."

When Laura explains
that she became so upset that she had thrown up, she attempts to declare her
independence and explain that she has gone to the parks and the art
museum:

"It
wasn't as bad as it sounds.  I went inside places and warmed up....I visited the
penguins every day!"

Ignoring
this, Amanda cruelly replies,"You did all this....just for deception?"  Hurt, Laura
looks down, and confesses, "I couldn't face it."  But, Amanda critically asks of
Laura,

"So
what are we going to do the rest of our lives?  Stay home and watch the parades go
by?....We won't have a business career--we've given that us because it gave us nervous
indigestion!...What is there left but dependency all our
lives!"

Besides Amanda's
cruelty to Laura in her disappointment, there is the element of worry for herself and
her own future that enters Amanda's lines.  For, once the business college is no longer
an option for Laura, Amanda calculates that Laura simply needs to develop charm so that
she can find a husband.  In this way, both Laura and she will be cared
for.

In Scene 4, Amanda uses Laura to communicate with Tom
indirectly. This tension bothers the delicate Laura.  Then, in Scene 7 while ostensibly
wishing for a gentleman caller for Laura, and while dressing Laura to make her look her
prettiest, Amanda exploits Laura as she attempts to recreate her own youth when the
caller comes. 

But, before he arrives, Amanda refreshes the
apartment with covers for the furniture, new curtains and sofa pillows, and a
lovely rose-colored paper lantern with a new floor lamp.  When the caller does arrive,
Amanda emerges in "a girlish frock of yellow voile with a blue silk sash," a dress she
had worn when gentlemen called upon her. Again, she has ignored Laura's will and
attempted to satisfy her own imaginings.

In a rather
turbulent relationship with her daughter, Amanda wants comfort for herself, she does not
acknowledge her daughter's own will, and she selfishly refuses to see Laura for who she
really is.  Yet, while she is cruel and tries to manipulate her daughter so that
she will be self-sufficient as well as able to financially assist her mother, Amanda
does make sacrifices for her daughter.  First of all, she has worked at Famous and Barr,
a retail store, in order to pay for the $50.00 course that Laura has not taken. 
Secondly, she is willing to sacrifice and perform the drudgery of selling magazine
subscriptions over the phone.

Like Laura, Amanda lives in
illusions, but she sometimes forces these illusions and aberrations and peculiarities
upon her daughter. Indeed, theirs is a conflicting relationship.