The Glass Menagerie Essay

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

A crippled leg and lack of socialization part her from the normalcy of life. She finds her escape within her collection of glass animals that sit on display in her living room. As the story progresses, one gets the feeling that the glass figurines are a representation of Laura herself. That they are one and the same. She spends days escaping from reality by listening to her father’s records and cleaning her collection. In the beginning of the play this glass symbolized her altered reality, a world where something as fragile as herself; her glass, could coexist without altercation or damage. When she shows her collection of glass figurines to Jim, she talks about how delicate and fragile they are. She is actually verbalizing her own characteristics when saying this. These translucent delicate pieces of glass cause Laura to lose herself from the judgment of her mother or the realness of reality. It symbolized the internal retreat Laura felt, all while perpetrating her beauty and love. Her unicorn figurine seems to directly symbolize her. Unicorns are unique and rare, just like she

In both plays it is seen that the characters experience difficulty with recognizing what is a fantasy and what is reality. Amanda and Willy both deny their childrens’ underachievement and blames and accept that the destiny of their kids exists in their grasp. Consequently, they envision their kids as being something they are not, trying to shroud their childrens’ disappointments. Such illusions permit Amanda and Willy to feel fruitful in framing Laura and Biff's lives. Amanda denies Laura as a challenged person and adjusts any individual who trusts her to be along these lines, all throughout the play. Willy impacted Biff's conviction that he had been a sales representative for Bill Oliver. Biff starts to scrutinize this after the meeting that

However, the characters’ desires to break from reality are most predominantly shown by their actions. In the novel, Williams uses the symbols a blue rose, fire escape, and movies to show how each person escapes reality. Movies represent Tom’s escape from the reality of being the man of the house

Movies are the number one influential driving force for society today. You constantly see your favourite books, comics or plays turn into incredible movies. When one walks into a movie theatre, it is almost expected to see at least a couple of film adaptations being played somewhere in the venue. However, this wasn’t always the case. The Glass Menagerie is actually the first case of its kind to have implicated such thinking in the movie industry, with the iconic play receiving the honour of being turned into a movie.

Growing up, Tennessee Williams’ had a modest mother along with a loud and abusive father. Many children today grow up without their father being around. The outcome of being a child of a single parent could be great, but it is up to them to choose not to let one conflict get in their head. In Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, the author creates two characters, Tom and Laura Wingfield. Tom struggles to concentrate on occurrences that are right in front of him, learning that he will later regret his decision of leaving his family behind exactly like his father did, while Laura has trouble finding confidence, she comes to understand that lacking that confidence will only stop her from better preparing herself for the future.

     Laura is shown in the play as a shy and sensitive person. Laura is like this because she possesses a limp. She magnifies this limp to an extent where it affects her whole personality. Her oversensitive nature makes her think that people notice the limp and thus, she cannot live normally. Her inability to overcome the limp causes her to remove herself from the real world and live in a world of illusions. An imaginary world of glass animals provides Laura’s refuge from reality. But, her illusion is dangerous for her glass menagerie serves as a substitute for life rather than an escape. Her favorite animal in the menagerie is the unicorn, which she calls “freakish.” In one scene, she and Jim are looking at the unicorn. The scene shows freakish breaking and this presents Amanda with a revelation.

The Glass Menagerie is the central symbol in this play referring to how, “a collection of wild animals is kept in captivity for exhibition. It revolves around a strange or diverse collection of people or things” (Dictionary.com, 2014). Williams quoted from Jim, “You know what I judge to be the trouble with you? Inferiority complex! That’s what they call it when someone low-rates himself! I understand it because I had it, too” (Williams, 2013) p1047 I). Laura feels like she’s in captivity because lack of self-esteem and because of her disability.

The Glass Unicorn is one of the major and very interesting symbols in the story, it’s one small thing that has alot of meanings. Williams uses The Glass Unicorn to symbolize Laura’s fragility and how they are both so alike and sort of weird, Jim and Laura were discussing her glass figurine when he says “Unicorns - aren’t they extinct in the modern world?” (83).

Laura is often compared to her glass menagerie because she is very fragile and beautiful just like her glass menagerie. Laura’s exterior is very delicate because of her disability in her leg. Laura’s personality is also delicate because she freaks out at social challenges and disperses from them. Laura is very unique in numerous ways. That is where her nickname Blue Roses came from. Blue roses are very unique just like Laura. Jim noticed that Laura was one-in-a-million. Amanda was trying to make Laura something that she was not. Jim accepted Laura as she was and Laura loved him for

Whenever the outside world threatens Laura, she seeks solace and retreats to her glass animal world and old phonograph records. Amanda, her mother hints at the alternative of matrimony for fiasco in business careers and Laura "utters a startled, doubtful laugh. She reaches quickly for a piece of glass." (Williams SCENE 2. STAGE DIRECCIONS). The glass menagerie becomes her tactile consolation. The little glass ornaments represent Laura’s self and characterize her fragility and delicate beauty. In particular, the glass unicorn greatly symbolizes her. As the unicorn is different from all the other glass horses, it adds a unique quality and virtual "freakishness" to her very characteristics (Kapcsos).

For Laura, the fire escape is symbolic to show how interdependent she is on other people once she slipped and fell. It signified that she can’t even go outside alone without getting hurt. Laura always needs someone to be with her. The real world is too much for Laura; she could

Symbolism is an integral part of every play. The author uses symbolism in order to add more depth to the play. In Tennessee Williams’ play, The Glass Menagerie, he 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. Everyone in the play seeks refuge from their lives, attempting to escape into an imaginary world. Williams uses the fire escape as a way for the Wingfields, the protagonists of the play, to escape their real life and live an illusionary life. The fire escape portrays each of the character's need to use the fire escape as a literal exit from their own reality.

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 fire escape is a major symbol in this play. It represents a different symbol for each character. For Amanda, the fire escape is a way for her to be protected from the outside world, or reality. She cannot live in the present, and the lack of a front door makes it easy for her to avoid real life. She convinces herself that she isn't capable of leaving the safe haven she has created by locking herself inside the strange apartment. She has become trapped by her memories.