Essay on Symbolism In Tennessee William's The Glass Menagerie

The symbol of fire ultimately represents the relationship with her family and how it affects her. One way this is shown is with her fascination and appreciation of fire. She is captivated with the fact that it can provide warmth and yet be destructive. She would

In the novel The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the theme of escape is presented by the use of three symbols. These three symbols include looking out windows, riding carriages, and the movement of swimming and boat riding. All of these symbols help Mrs. Pontellier realize that she wants an escape from her life. Edna feels inclined to escape throughout the novel and three symbols that prove this are windows, carriages, and movement.

Much like the kitchen, the birdcage is also used as a symbol for Mrs. Wright. In the play, Mrs. Peters finds the birdcage empty. The two ladies also find that the cage?s door hinge is pulled apart. The ladies conclude that someone had ?been rough with it.? The cage in the play suggests many things. A cage signifies imprisonment and captivity. This easily fits within the play and represents the confinement

Many people have certain symbols in their life that bring them comfort and represent who they are as a person. In Christina Baker Kline’s Orphan Train, symbols function to convey Molly and Vivian’s desire to maintain their connections to their pasts, their search for self-identity, and the trauma and loss they experience. Molly’s turtle tattoo exemplifies Molly’s personal identity and represents much of the loss she has experienced as a child. The loss, trauma, identity and longing to stay connected to her loved ones that Vivian has and experiences is symbolized by her Claddagh necklace. The charm necklace that Molly wears signifies the connection to her late father, her own character, and the loss she has experienced.

Through symbolism Walls was able to portray a deeper meaning to otherwise ordinary objects or events. She wrote, “A few days after Mom and Dad brought me home, I cooked myself some hot dogs…The neighbor lady who had driven me to the hospital was surprised that I didn’t run in the opposite direction from any fire I saw. ‘Why the hell would she?’ Dad bellowed with a proud grin. ‘She already fought the fire once and won’” (Walls 15). Fire represented hope and not giving up. Despite getting burned as a young girl, Walls was not afraid to approach fire again. This symbolized all the future challenges she would have to face, and no matter how much they would hurt her, she would rise back up. In addition, the Glass Castle that her father had envisioned represented hope and the American Dream. She explained, "Once he finished the Prospector and we struck it rich, he'd start work on our Glass Castle" (Walls 25). Even though the family was poor, they were chasing after that dream. The Glass Castle was a representation of happiness, stability, and all their worries coming to an end. It was glass because it’s fragile, and at any moment it could collapse. Symbolism played an important role in conveying ideas and

Tom ends the argument by calling Amanda an "ugly- babbling old -witch"(Williams 1875), and struggles to put his coat on, intent on leaving.  When he cannot put the coat on properly, he becomes frustrated with his clumsiness and flings it across the room, breaking some of the glass collection. Laura "cries out as if wounded"(Williams 1875).  This shows how fragile Laura really is and how she reacts when even the small balance of her apartment is shifted.  The most prominent use of this symbol comes at the crisis of the story, when Jim is left alone with Laura. The conversation turns to Laura's glass collection, when she remarks "glass is something you have to take good care of."(Williams 1900), again showing her fragility. More parallels are drawn between Laura and the glass collection with the introduction of the unicorn. Jim says, "Poor little fellow, he must feel sort of lonesome"(Williams 1902) to which Laura replies, " He stays on a shelf with some horses that don't have horns and all of them seem to get along nicely together"(Williams 1902).  The unicorn becomes a symbol for Laura because just like the unicorn she is different.  When Jim and Laura dance, and Jim accidentally knocks the unicorn off the table and its horn is broken off, it loses its uniqueness. Similarly, when Jim kisses Laura and then shatters her hopes by telling

Symbolism in any type of short story, poem, novel, or drama, can help a reader to better understand a character and their associated background. Through a symbol intricate details of a characters psyche can be revealed. For Jimmy, the letters he carries helps the reader to come to the conclusion that he is just a young kid at war; he does not necessarily believe in violence and surely does not wish to be in Vietnam. The reader can infer this because he is constantly distracted by thoughts of Martha and how he wished he were with her, “ Kneeling, watching the hole, he tried to concentrate on Lee Strunk and the war, all the dangers, but his love was too much for him, he felt paralyzed, he wanted to sleep inside [Martha’s] lungs and breathe her blood and be smothered.” (O’Brien 328). Similarly Kirsten carries a comic book that she uses to escape her reality. Despite not having much recollection of the Arthur, the man who gave her the comic, she finds purpose in this item. Readers can deduce this from the fact that although she should only carry what she needs to survive Kirsten still lets the comic take up storage space. PROOF QUOTE 11. Kirsten also finds solace in another thing that reminds her of Arthur; preforming Shakespeare plays. Similarly Christopher Thurman proposes the idea of the importance of Shakespeare within the post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven: “Shakespeare and classical music are

An example of imagery in this novel is fire. They use fire as a danger. The burning of the books was making the people mad, so the protest started. “The woman's hand twitched on the single match switch. The fumes of the kerosene bloomed up about her”. The lady who is protesting the burning of the books so she burns herself alive. This is showing danger because she is burning herself and a risk because she is taking a stand for her

The symbol of salvation is represented by the conch on the island. It also stands for power, as the boys decide to “let [Ralph] be chief with the trumpet-thing.” Whoever is holding the conch has the power to be the only boy allowed to speak, which is similar to the power of a church bell ringing to bring people together for a service or an extremely important announcement. Later in the novel, salvation is associated with fire, as “life became a race with the fire. … To keep a clean flag of flame flying on the mountain was the immediate end and no one looked further.” Keeping the fire burning symbolizes the boy’s humanity, so that when it is extinguished it can no longer be contained and the evil emerges from within the boys. Fire is associated with hope, warmth and friendship but it is the cause of conflict, destruction and death in the novel. By the end of the second chapter, fire has already taken its first victim – the little boy with the mulberry mark on his skin- who disappears during the

Another symbol is the season in which the story is set. In the summer the sun is warm and she feels light and good. The summer symbolizes her happy and innocent childhood but then, when she loses her myopic view on the world; when she realizes the truth about the dead man, her childhood is over. This is seen in the text in the two very last sentences on P.2 L.10-11: Myop laid down her flowers. And the summer was over. Her bundle of flowers is a symbol of her innocence and her laying them down symbolizes her putting away that innocence, suddenly not without any worries.

There are more significant symbols in the novel such as The Boy. The Man and Boy fight to survive many hardships, but through the darkness there is light, The Boy. He is very mature and cares for every stray person they pass. One person he cares for is a man named Ely, an old man with nothing but the clothes on his back, until he meets The Boy and his father." 'You should thank him you know, I wouldn’t have given you anything' "(McCarthy 173). The Boy wants everyone to survive and is willing to share his supplies even if it means he won`t have all the things he needs to live.

Throughout the play there are three main symbols; the bird, the bird cage and the jar of preserves. The bird symbolized Mrs. Wright and how she loved to sing because the bird was always singing. As the play progresses Mr. Wright grows annoyed with the bird and kills it. The canary’s death represented how Mrs. Wright is dead inside from her neglectful marriage. The bird’s cage symbolized the cage of a marriage Mrs. Wright was in. She felt trapped by her husband’s emotional abuse. When the bird cage broke, it represented the death of Mr. Wright and the freedom that Mrs. Wright felt after breaking free from her long, painful marriage. The last jar of cherry preserves symbolized how Mrs. Wright was still standing. After a failed marriage and losing her bird, which was the one thing she cared most about, Mrs. Wright managed

This is where the story takes a positive turn and where Mrs. Mallard begins to recognize her freedom for the first time. The open window is symbolically Mrs. Mallard’s connection to the world and fresh start at life. Sometimes we open windows to let new fresh air in and let the old air out. She was getting rid of her old life and was finally accepting and loving her freedom and the new opportunities to come after the death of Mr. Mallard.

Written in 1944, Tennessee Williams wrote a play during World War II when people were barely making ends meet. Centering on the Wingfield family, the story consisted of five characters: Amanda Wingfield (the mother), Laura Wingfield (the daughter), Tom Wingfield (son, narrator, Laura’s older brother), Jim Connor (Tom and Laura’s old acquaintance from high school) and Mr. Wingfield (father to Tom and Laura, and Amanda’s husband)- who abandoned the family long before the start of the play. The title, “The Glass Menagerie”, represented a collection of glass animals on display in the Wingfields’ home. At one point or another, these animals then represented each character when they couldn’t accept reality. The theme of this play were about the

            Laura appears to be the most important character in the play, perhaps the main character intended by Williams.  Although she also engages in a world of illusion, hers is much different then Amanda's.  She has no pretenses, no real faults to speak of.  She is who