Symbolism in the Glass Menagerie Essay

Symbolism is used in the memoir The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, whenever the phrase “glass castle” is used. When someone in the book refers to the “glass castle” they are talking about a hope for the future of the Walls family. Rex Walls, her father, always promised that “Once he finished the Prospector and we struck it rich, he’d start work on our Glass Castle” (Walls 25). The “glass castle” represents the hope she has as a small child, because she was an optimist, who believed in a bright future for herself and her family. It also represents the hope she had as an adult, because a glass castle is fragile, and one wrong move can send the whole thing crashing down, just as one wrong move could send propel her life into chaos. As an author,

The symbol the author talked mainly about is the Glass Castle, it represented so much in this book and got them through many years especially for Jeanette it stand for hope and for the better though there father rex walls couldn't physically build the glass house. I really didn't think the kids really cared about the house the dad had in mind not only because they lost faith in the fact that the dad been saying that for far too long but because it always stand for something more family, love and represent what the family went through and pain they went through for the better life they have now living. This imaginary glass home was there all along they may not have seen it but it was right in front of them the whole time it was there family, as long as they were together there glass (huge, fancy, stone house) remained it was where ever they were together. The castle shows by using a physical object to represent an idea or emotion the power of family and love the strength of it can get you through any blocking or stopping things of life. We are like the glass huge, fancy, stone house we are delicate and breakable we break easily and time is very valuable/very dearly loved before we fall into pieces and slip but we fall together and together we are not alone we will pick up the pieces together and it won't matter how long it takes because we'll get through together because no one gets left behind.

Tom is unable to forget what his father has done and his memory of the details of the photograph and the postcard highlights his feelings of displeasure towards his father. As the play develops, we see Mr. Wingfield being a contributing factor to Tom’s departure from the Wingfield household. In fact, Tom cites his father as both an example and excuse for his departure. In scene 6, Tom explains to Jim “I’m like my father. The bastard son of a bastard!”

   Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menagerie, describes three separate characters, their dreams, and the harsh realities they face in a modern world.  The Glass Menagerie exposes the lost dreams of a southern family and their desperate struggle to escape reality. Williams' use of symbols adds depth to the play. The glass menagerie itself is a symbol Williams uses to represent the broken lives of Amanda, Laura and Tom Wingfield and their inability to live in the present.

In the beginning of the play, Laura sees herself as “crippled” and not “expecting any gentlemen callers,” for she is extremely shy and unconfident. Furthermore, she embodies her collection of glass menagerie, for when Tom hurls his coat across the room “It strikes against the shelf of Laura’s glass collection... [and] Laura cries out as if wounded.” Laura’s action in this scene symbolizes her frailness and how she is a piece of the glass menagerie. Being part of the glass collection, Laura is confined to the shelf which the collection is on. This metaphorical representation of Laura depicts how she prefers to stay inside rather than going out into the world and becoming truly independent. Nonetheless, when Jim, the ticket to break out of this confinement, arrives, there is a shift in Laura’s character. As Jim talks to Laura, her “shyness is dissolving in his warmth.” Moreover, the unicorn piece which is symbolic of Laura and was once addressed as “lonesome” loses its horn in an accident. When its horn is gone, Laura states, “The horn was removed to make him feel less - freakish! Now he will feel more at home with the other horses, the ones who don’t have horns.” (Scene 7:6-9) Laura has lost her metaphorical horn and therefore she fits in with the rest of the world. For once in her life, Laura feels normal and her shell is broken as she dances and engages with Jim. However, Laura’s escape is not complete liberation, for even though Laura has liking towards Jim, the so thought gentleman-caller, Jim is engaged and has a fiance. This shows that Laura and her family will not truly escape from their setbacks even if a glance of hope, such as Jim, arrives for a moment in their lives. Therefore, at the end of the play, Laura’s “silliness is gone and she has dignity and tragic beauty” for “glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you

In the play, The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, Williams uses many symbols which represent many different things.?Many of the symbols used in the play try to symbolize some form of escape or difference between reality and illusion.?The first symbol, presented in the first scene, is the fire escape.?This represents the "bridge" between the illusory world of the Wingfields and the world of reality.?This "bridge" seems to be a one way excursion.?But the direction varies for each character.?For Tom, the fire escape is the way out of the world of Amanda and Laura and an entrance into a world of new dimensions.?For Laura, the fire escape is a way into her own world. A way to escape from reality.?Amanda perceives the fire escape as a way

In the play “The Glass Menagerie” of Tennessee William, he wrote a drama play to emphasize readers about the life is at a standstill the Wingfield family. Through of the Wingfield family, he uses many symbols which represent many things, but the important main symbolization is fire escape that shows three main characters; Tom Wingfield, his fire escape is the way out of Amanda and Laura. Amanda Wingfield, hope gentlemen callers to enter their lives, and Laura Wingfield, who wants in her own world by collecting unicorn animals. They express successfully in the play by using the fire escape portrays each of characters as literal exist from their own reality.

In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams beautifully encapsulates man’s desire to escape from uncomfortable emotional and physical situations. Whether he’s showing a young man trapped in a factory job he hates, an aging single mother who mourns for her life as Southern belle, or a young lady who fears that she’ll spend her life alone, he clearly demonstrates these desires and fears for his audience. Williams shows us through the actions of his characters how humans handle a wide variety of uncomfortable situations, and how these situations dramatically influence one’s ability to thrive. The playwright doesn’t seem to believe in the idea of “bloom where you’re planted”, and the desire to escape becomes a major theme of the play, demonstrated across multiple characters in a wide variety of ways. Creative individuals often do not thrive in noncreative, industrial environments. Williams demonstrates this clearly in this “memory play”, which carries many autobiographical element. Tom Wingfield represents his own character, Williams himself, and also serves as a narrator, making him quite the complex character. Williams’s uses Tom to show how an emotionally complex, creative individual can quickly feel trapped and tied down in a factory job, longing to get out, see the world, and pursue a job with more creative elements. Tom’s escapism, drinking, and evening theatrical adventures all reflect the life of the playwright himself, as Williams was known to struggle with alcoholism

In the book City of Glass by Cassandra Clare, the main character, Clary, travels to a place called Idris to save her mother. While this happens, her and her brother strive to hold in their feelings of love with each other as problems start stirring with their father who tries to take over the whole mythological world. Clare uses a powerful symbol, the Morgenstern ring, (a family ring that gets passed down from generation to generation), to symbolize different events and emotions among the characters in the book. As the text develops, the symbol does as well; over time it grows with different powerful meanings.

People who are different are sometimes seen as inferior individuals with subordinate lives. Tennessee Williams, playwright of the famous, The Glass Menagerie, exposes these ideas through the development of the character Laura, while tying her to strong symbolic features such as her glass unicorn in order to show the audience everyone has hope. On the surface, Laura is seen as a bleak character with an empty future, but with the symbolism utilized by Williams, Laura’s tremendous strength is revealed as she recognizes her abilities as well as a positive future for herself. At first, the breaking of the glass unicorn can be seen as a troubling experience for Laura, because throughout the play the reader has seen her emotional attachment with

In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams uses the phrase or nickname Blue Roses to symbolize Laura’s difference from the social mean, which reveals how her hopes and dream impact her. Blue Roses are different from normal roses, something you would never see in nature. Jim astutely identifies this when he says:

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

Tennessee Williams gives us no indication that Tom's escape from his father, Amanda, Laura, and Jim ever happens - what is most compelling about the play is that Tom passes to the reader and the audience the responsibility of making meaning out of his life.

All of the characters in The Glass Menagerie have specific symbols in the play representing

Set in St. Louis Missouri prior to World War II, Tennessee Williams reflects back on his deeply tragic and dysfunctional familial experiences in, “The Glass Menagerie”. Williams brilliantly incorporates real aspects of society to reveal how they contributed to the nonreal aspects and the conflicts which affected his family. The real aspects of the play which had a significant impact on the lower middle-class families such as the Wingfields included, the economic hardships surrounding the Great Depression, the fall of the American south, society’s intolerance towards homosexuality, and many threats abroad. Although Williams play was merely a series of hazy memories, the nonreal aspects combined with the major societal conflicts contribute