Symbolism in The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie uses an extensive pattern of symbolism that
describes the characters of Tom,Amanda,Laura and Jim. Glass,light,color and
music constitute the substance of the dominant symbols and motifs,serving
to reveal deeper aspects of characters and underlying themes of the
play.Tennessee Williams wrote the play so that each character had a special
symbol which resembled their personality.But he didn't only give the
characters of the play a a resembling symbol;he also mentions the
apartment blocks to be hivelike conglomerations of cellular living-units
resembling a beenstock.The way he describes their location also has a lot
of symbolism in its roots because he describes them to be flowering as
warty growths in overcrowded urban centers.
Tennessee Williams used many symbolic aspects to describe Laura and
the world she lives in.In the play,Laura represents the very fragile,shy
and emotionally crippled girl.In her mind she lives in a world of glass
animals and doesn't have a connection to the real world.The managerie of
glass also represents the fragile relationships among all the
characters.The glass unicorn is most obviously a symbol of Laura--
delicate,sadly different,an anomaly in the modern world.The glass motif
recurs throughout the whole play in many other forms.When Laura dropped
out of college she constantly visited the zoo,a glass house of tropical
flowers that are as vulnerable as she is.During Laura's and Jim's brief
romantic encounter,Laura is gaining more confidence about herself.It seems
as if she is starting to escape her world of illusions.When they started
dancing together,Jim accidently knocked the little glass horse over.
Laura,who usually worships her glass collection more than anything
else,replied to his excuse;"He's lost his horn.It doesn't matter.Maybe
it's a blessing in disguise." and "I'll just imagine he had an
operation.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....".These two quotes give an impression that Laura is finally
escaping her illusive world.She thinks that she might have a chance to
survive the real world.What she doesn't know is that she is about to be
wounded by the news of Jim's engagement.After Jim tells her the news,she
gives him the unicorn as a souvenir and retreats into her land of the
glass menagerie never to come out again.
In the play,Tom is the adventure seeking man trying to escape
the prison Amanda is keeping him trapped in.To escape the real world,Tom
constantly goes to the movies.The movies make him think about all the
adventures he missing.It his little land of dreams.He is jealous of his
father who left his family and achieved what Tom always wanted,
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The crucible’s setting was in the year 1962, in the small Puritan society of Salem. One night some of the girls in the village were in the woods doing love potions when they were caught. The girls lied and said that witches made them do it. In an extremely religeous society the influence of witches was immensely frightening and as the thought to identify witches arose, so did mass hysteria of the...
Through the book, the reader learns glimpse after glimpse in a beautiful way Gatsby’s quest from being poor to becoming rich, from being together with his beloved to ending up alone.
Laura is the owner and caretaker of the glass menagerie. In her own little fantasy world, playing with the glass animals is how she escapes from the real world in order to get away from the realities and hardships she endures. Though she is crippled only to a very slight degree physically, her mind is very disabled on an emotional level. Over time, she has become very fragile, much like the glass, which shatters easily, as one of the animals lost its horn; she can lose control of herself. Laura is very weak and open to attack, unable to defend herself from the truths of life. The glass menagerie is an unmistakable metaphor in representing Laura’s physical and mental states.
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In Tennessee William's play, The Glass Menagerie, the character of Laura is like a fragile piece of glass. The play is based around a fragile family and their difficulties coping with life.
In Williams, Tennessee’s play The Glass Menagerie, Amanda’s image of the southern lady is a very impressive. Facing the cruel reality, she depends on ever memories of the past as a powerful spiritual to look forward to the future, although her glory and beautiful time had become the past, she was the victim of the social change and the Great Depression, but she was a faithful of wife and a great mother’s image cannot be denied.
At first, the only function of Nick in the novel seems to be to act as a reporter, telling us the truth by telling us his shrewd, objective perceptions. Then, as the novel progresses, it turns out that the opposite is the case, and he is siding with Gatsby to make this character stand above all others and shine. Nick Carraway could be one of the finest examples of reader manipulation in literature. But his sympathy towards Gatsby is exaggerated, not so much in actions, but in the much praised language of the novel.
Tennessee Williams employs the uses of plot, symbolism, and dialogue to portray his theme of impossible true escape, which asserts itself in his play, The Glass Menagerie. Each of his characters fills in the plot by providing emotional tension and a deep, inherent desire to escape. Symbolism entraps meaning into tangible objects that the reader can visualize and attach significance to. Conclusively, Williams develops his characters and plot tensions through rich dialogue. Through brilliant construction and execution of literary techniques, Williams brings to life colorful characters in his precise, poignant on-stage drama.
Did you know that most of the plays written and performed in twentieth century America where based off of what was happening in the world at that time? The Great Depression, new inventions, and The Great War influenced the ideas of plays. The twentieth century American history takes a role in the ways of life in The Glass Menagerie which is set after the Great Depression in the late 1930’s.
The Fantasy World of The Glass Menagerie In The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams creates a world in which the characters are disillusioned by the present. Amanda, Tom, and Laura achieve this disillusionment by resorting to separate worlds where they can find sanctuary. Each character develops their own world, far away from reality. Amanda frees herself from the harsh realities of life by constantly reminding herself of the past. To begin with, she continuously repeats the story of the "one Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain" when she received seventeen gentlemen callers (1195).
In addition, his sympathy towards the individuals in the city who cannot even fantasize, due to their necessity of work, shows his pensiveness, somewhat contradicting many characters in the novel. The world he has had a taste of, Gatsby’s world, is out of contact with the world which Nick is interacting with now. Gatsby’s experience is residing in West Egg, while the people surrounding Nick right now may never even see West Egg. Herein lies Nick’s thoughtfulness and observational
Another aspect of Laura’s personality, which is portrayed by the glass menagerie, is her extreme fragility. At first, Laura calls this “a blessing in disguise” – that he has made her normal. But when he reveals to her that he is engaged to another woman, her hopes are shattered, just like the unicorn’s horn. Now the unicorn is just like all the other horses, therefore, she decides it is more fitting for Jim than it is for her.
Memories seldom show reality as it occurs; instead, they exaggerate and emphasize the feelings of the event and forget the rest. [PP3] In Tennessee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie,” the memories of Tom Wingfield are layered with symbols of how he wishes to be free from his current life and the slow realization that he will never truly be free from his ties to the very household that drug him down. The prime examples of the symbolism shown in this memory play are Tom’s trips to the movies, Jim as a character, and the extinguishing of the candles.
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.