Glass Menagerie Essay

In Tennessee William’s play of The Glass Menagerie, the characters have difficulty accepting reality and the impossibility of escape. Amanda Wingfield, the mother, unlike her children, she is vulnerable to real-world values and longs for social and financial success. Her attachment to these values is what prevents her from finding out a number of truths about her life. Laura, Amanda’s daughter, finds herself in a private world in which she lives is populated by glass animals—objects that, like her inner life, are incredibly fanciful and dangerously delicate. Unlike his sister, Tom is capable of functioning in the real world, as we see in his holding down a job and talking to strangers. But, in the end, he has no more motivation than Laura does
to pursue professional success, romantic relationships, or even ordinary friendships. He would rather be infatuated with fantasies involved in literature and movies. All three of the Wingfield family members experience the difficulty of accepting reality and not being able to escape.
One major symbol in the story is the fire escape, which is presented in the first scene. The fire escape shows a connection between the world of reality and the imaginary world of the Wingfields. “The apartment faces an alley and is entered by a fire escape, a

Anderson 2 structure whose name is a touch of accidental poetic truth, for all of these large buildings are always burning with the slow and implacable fires of human desperation. The fire escape is part of what we see - that is, the landing of it and steps descending from it” (Williams 1654). The fire escape represents a different meaning and purpose for each of the characters in the story. For Tom, the fire escape is a way of escape from Laura and Amanda, which allows him to accept reality. He would rather stand outside and smoke than stay inside which shows how he wishes to be a part of the imaginary world. For Laura, the fire escape allows her to be in her own world and gives her a chance to deviate from reality. Laura views the fire escape as a way of no escape. Laura does not want to leave her apartment. This can be seen when Laura goes to the store and trips over the fire escape. The fire escape has a different affect on the characters in the story but the concentration on reality and the feeling of no escape is what the fire escape has in common with Laura and Tom.
The second symbol in the story is Laura’s glass menagerie, which is the play’s central symbol.
Laura’s collection of glass figurines brings out a few key pieces of her personality. Laura is considered old fashioned and delicate which reflects back to her figurines. It also brings out the imaginative world that she dreams of and the reality that she hopes to escape from. Glass is transparent, but, when light is shined upon it correctly, it refracts an entire rainbow of colors. It can be compared that Laura is very similar to the glass menagerie based on the idea that Laura may seem boring to people who don’t know her, but appears lively to those who are close to her. The glass menagerie also represents the vulnerability of memory and of the harsh reality that one wrong move can lead
the Anderson 3 entire universe to shatter. It is also the idea that a glass menagerie is an example of anything that is too beautiful and too fragile to survive in harsh reality. "She lives in a world of her own-a world of-little glass ornaments" (1676). For Tom, he sees Laura as a figurine that exists to escape reality. The glass menagerie reflects Laura and Tom as being vulnerable to reality and the means of escape.
The next symbol in the story is from Laura’s collection.
The glass unicorn is significantly her favorite figurine, which matches her unique personality. Jim O’ Connor, an engaged man who has an interest in Laura, points out that unicorns are “extinct” in modern times and are lonesome as a result of being different from other horses. As Jim begins to dance with Laura one day, the horns off the unicorn fell off. “I won’t speak to you – until you apologize” (1665). After the unicorns horns had broken off, Laura changes. Now that the unicorn resembles just another horse, it saddens Laura. It reminds her that the uniqueness of the unicorn is now gone. Laura decides to give the unicorn to Jim as a “souvenir”. The normalcy of the once polished unicorn, Laura believes, would be more suited for Jim. The glass unicorn proves to be the defining symbol as to what reality really means to
Laura.
The last symbol in the story is the nickname Jim gave to Laura. In high school, he gave her the name “Blue Roses”. “When I had that attack of pleurosis- he asked me what was the matter when I came back. I said pleurosis- he thought I said Blue Roses!” (1662)”. The name symbolizes Laura’s uniqueness, something that Jim and only Jim recognizes. Blue roses have this sort of mythical significance of being mysterious, or

Anderson 4 impossible to come by, this makes sense when you look at Jim’s description of Laura as a one-in-a-million girl. Laura sees the nickname as being a step closer to the world of her dreams. For Amanda, the flowers are reminiscent of the past and signify what she wants for her daughter. The difficulty to escape from reality in the play out in two different directions: from the real world into the world of memory and dreams, as Amanda and Laura demonstrate; or from the world of memory and dreams into the real world, as Tom desires. The Glass Menagerie identifies the difficulty of accepting reality and the impossibility of finding escape.