The Glass Menagerie Literary Analysis

"The Glass Menagerie" uses quite a few different literary devices that help to convey the story. It uses elements such as imagery to aid in setting the scene of the text. It also uses allegory to express a hidden meaning behind the story. However, one of the most prominent devices that the author uses is symbolism. A few of the different forms of symbolism that are used are Laura's glass menagerie, the glass unicorn, and the fire escape. Laura's glass menagerie, as told by the title of the story, is the main element of symbolism in the story. The glass figures represent aspects of Laura's personality. Laura shares the aspect of delicacy with the figurines. Laura is usually dull around most people but to some people she is joyful and delightful,
One day after Jim makes Laura dance with him, Jim accidentally breaks the unicorn menagerie. The unicorn now is with out a horn, making it just a plain old horse. At one point Laura revealed that the unicorn was her favorite animal because the horn made it unique from the rest of the glass menagerie she collected. However, when the horn gets broken off Laura is seemingly happy because the fact that Jim just danced with and kissed her now made her a normal person. It is then revealed that Jim is engaged to another woman, and Laura decides to give Jim the broken unicorn to symbolize how he broke her. Lastly, there is the symbolism of Amanda being the "devouring mother." Amanda is a very overbearing mother. She is always critcizing the lives of her children. They could never live up to her expectations. She had complete control over evething that they did. Since she was getting old, and her looks were fading, she brought her children down to build herself up.This is a reason all of the children wanted to escape their situation. Tom was the main one. He often stepped out on the fire escapse to fantasize about his departure. "The Glass Menagerie" has a plethora of different literary devices in it. The author uses imagery to aid in developing the setting. He also used allegory to set an underlying meaning. The main devices that was used though was symbolism. The symbolism was carried out in many different ways and is what