Emotional Limitations In Elizabeth Bishop's The Man-Moth

Emotional limitations cause discontent when our ailments control our decisions and hold us back. In Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, “The Man-Moth” and in Tennessee Williams's, The Glass Menagerie, the male protagonists in both stories face limitations. These emotional limitations drive The Glass Menagerie’s Tom to make irrational choices that were made when the dissatisfaction became too much to bear; this similar situation is found with “The Man-Moth’s” Man-Moth.

The negative effect and discontent caused by emotional restriction found in Tom’s life are comparable to the hardships the Man-Moth faces as the result of his personal limitations. This causes these two men to live with discomfort, which leads them to become irrational and cloistered.

Tom does not have a healthy relationship with his mother because he emotionally limits himself; Tom creates tension between him and his mother by not opening himself up to

Much like Tom, the Man-Moth shuts himself out of the world and tries to survive the world through his own bubble and accomplish his dreams: “The Man-Moth always seats himself facing the wrong way. He cannot tell the rate at which he travels backward” (Line 29/32). By facing backward, the Man-Moth doesn’t know how fast he is going. This can relate to the Man-Moth dreams, and that even though he wants to achieve them, he feels pressured or overwhelmed by these goals, and instead doesn’t make any progress toward this goal. The Man-Moth’s goal, to get to the hole in the sky, the moon, is something that is “rare, although occasional” and whenever he “visits to the surface, the moon looks rather different to him” (10/11). His rare, but occasional visits means that his goal of reaching the moon does not happen often but at specific times of occurrences. This can imply that he is not very serious about his goal and isn’t very focused on