The Glass Menagerie By Tennessee Williams

Williams’s play is a tragedy, and one of quietude. He once expressed that “Glass Menagerie is my first quiet play, and perhaps my last.” It is a play of profound sadness, and through relationships between characters, portrays the “cries of the heart.” There is no cry more powerful that the cry and inner desperation of the heart. Williams’s has very little social context, but rather focuses on the conflicts within a domestic family. Such a focus is powerful, and the playwright expresses this power and importance implicitly through the estranged relationship between Amanda and Tom Wingfield.

   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.

The Glass Menagerie means the glass animals collected by Laura. Laura is as beautiful, fragile and vulnerable as the animals. The slight leg disability made Laura sensitive and inferior. As she was afraid to face the teachers and students, she dropped out. Her mother sent Laura to business school to learn typing in order to find a job. But Laura vomited during the speed typing exam as she was too nervous, so she had to drop out again. Laura was afraid of reality and only willing to stay in a fantasy world. Thus, she spent her day at home

It is fair to say she may be somewhat out of touch with reality due to a slight disability, in which her glass menageries comfort her. Amanda views her daughter, Laura as fragile, like glass. As the title of the play informs us, “The Glass Menagerie,” or collection of animals, is the central symbol. Her collection of glass animal figurines represents the different facets of Laura’s own personality. Comparable to the figurines, Laura is delicate.

In all their loneliness, Laura has collected a number of glass figurines that becomes known as “the glass menagerie.” This becomes a huge symbol in the play. The symbolism of the menagerie is representing Laura. All the glass is very fragile and delicate, just like Laura. She is very anti-social, and just a

The jonquils represent how isolation is detrimental to Amanda because she continuously clings onto her past. The past dictates so much of Amanda’s life that she judges everything based on her experiences. For instance, when Amanda relates advice to Laura on marriage, she rambles about her past instead, including the time she was showered with endless jonquils. Amanda raves about how everyone in town admired “Amanda and her jonquils” and how “every available space was filled with jonquils” in her house (Williams). Amanda, however, fails to recognize that Laura does not possess charm and vivacity, yet Amanda imbues her past onto

Laura’s glass menagerie represents her own emotional spirit. Laura had a minor physical impairment. Because of her physical appearance, she had a fragile and delicate inner appearance as well, like her glass pieces. Appearing weak to herself, outsiders were not able to see her true inner self and who she really was as an individual. The glass menagerie is a good comparative to Laura’s feelings about herself and how those around her also feel.

A Glass Menagerie is a collection of small, wild animals which can be put out for display for public view. Tennessee Williams's play “The Glass Menagerie”, is about a family with personalities so different that they do not get along. The family could be considered wild animals all in their own way. In the story, Laura’s menagerie breaks multiple times at the slightest touch. The title of the play “The Glass Menagerie is represented by the entire family because, like the menagerie, each family member displays fragile characteristics.

Laura is unable to survive in the outside world. She retreats into the apartment and her glass collection. Laura consumes herself with the “little animals made of glass,” and tells Jim that if “[he] breathes it breaks”. When Laura is describing the glass figures to Jim, she emphasizes how fragile they are. This is a comparison to Laura, meaning that she is fragile like the glass. It seems like Laura is describing herself when she talks about the glass pieces. While Jim was holding the unicorn, he accidently snaps off the horn, and Laura then replies with “its lost its horn, so it is like all the other horses”. I believe that this is foreshadowing what is going to happen between her and Jim. Just like the unicorn, Laura is broken by the experience, never to be

The first symbol in the play The Glass Menagerie written by Williams is Laura’s collection of glass menageries. These

The most important symbol in this play is the title itself, The Glass Menagerie. A menagerie is a collection of wild animals kept in captivity for exhibition; in this case it was Laura’s collection of glass animal figurines. The little figurines, especially the unicorn, represent a number of elements about Laura and the entire play itself. The glass is a symbol of fragility, which is also a key facet to the overall symbolism in this memory play. Like the Menagerie, Laura is unique, delicate, and somewhat childish.

All through the play every character observes reality to be difficult, so they carry on with an existence of fantasy. Additionally, the play's topic portrays the battle of tolerating reality, and attempting to get away from their way of life, loft and relationship. The emergency exit turns into the way out for every character of the play. Moreover, the story's name "The Glass Menagerie," permits the peruser to make an association with Laura's accumulation of glass creatures that symbolizes her sensitive state. The glass unicorn turned into an imperative image in the story on the grounds that it speaks to her.

introduction to the play is one as a gentleman caller. When Laura describes her glass animals to

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

The Glass Menagerie, a short play by Tennessee Williams delves into the inner workings of a multifarious family. The Wingfield family struggles together with the past, the yet to come and how to endure each other’s company. Williams’ production utilizes an extensive range of symbolization throughout the short story in order to parallel the struggles and triumphs each character manifests. From the iconic Mr. Wingfield picture frame, to the remedying getaway of the fire escape, Tennessee exposes the audience to a selection of symbols. Ultimately, if one symbol was to represent the story from start to end, the one of a kind transcendent glass unicorn encompasses the story best. The unordinary glass horned horse symbolizes illusion versus reality, and coupled with the story’s four prominent characters, crafts a curtain-raiser with powerful implications.