The Glass Menagerie

The Glass Menagerie

In The Glass Menagerie there are many main symbols these are stage

props, stage lighting and stage sounds. In regard to stage props the

main ones are the glass menagerie, the fire escape and Mr. Wingfield’s

picture. Also in terms of stage lighting the main symbols are the

candles, spotlight and the moonlight. And finally the main symbols for

stage sounds are the Glass menagerie music, paradise dance hall music

(PDH) and Laura’s Victorola. Tennessee Williams generally uses

symbolism in the play to deepen our understanding of characters and to

emphasis the play’s themes. The characters we understand in the play

throughout this are Tom, Laura, Amanda, and Jim. The themes that are

particular highlighted are dreams, time, communication and

imprisonment.

One of Tennessee Williams’s first main symbolic symbols is his use of

stage props. My first main focus is on the glass menagerie itself.

First of all the glass menagerie symbolises Laura‘s delicacy, just

like glass the reason for this is because Laura is very fragile and

can easily be broken, mentally and physically. There is one specific

part in the play where Jim is admiring her menagerie. There is one

glass object that Laura really likes which is a unicorn, so she picks

it up and gives it to Jim then Jim accidentally drops it. As it hits

the ground the horn from the horse falls off, this breakage of the

horse‘s horn could symbolise Laura’s heart being broken by Jim. Laura

used to really admire Jim when they were in school together, but now

that she knows that he is engaged her heart has been broken. When the

horn from the horse falls off this could also symbolise Rose‘s

prefrontal lobotomy. In every play Tennessee Williams wrote, he

dedicated something to her, whether it be a character or a stage prop.

The unicorn also has certain uniqueness to it compared with the other

horses in the glass menagerie because of its horn, but if you take

away its horn, it becomes normal like the other ones. This is exactly

what happens to Laura; usually she never talks and is incredibly shy

but then when Jim comes around she finds that human communication is

better than talking to her glass menagerie.

Now one of Tennessee Williams‘s second symbolic props is the fire

escape.

A fire escape is meant to help you escape from a burning building of

course, but not in t...

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...f govern and there was a very big

problem with slavery because the Negro’s as they were called, were

being kept as slaves and made to pick cotton from the cotton fields.

The war lasted for 4 years and the people who come out on top were the

Yankees. What effects did the war have on the country though? Well

first of all slavery was abolished therefor there was no cotton

picking and the Negro slaves had more privileges for example they got

to vote for the next presidential election.

Spanish civil war

The Spanish civil war began in 1936 and ended in 1939. This time there

were lots of nations involved. The fight was between the nationalists

(the bandies) who were made up of Germany and Italy, and the

republicans (goodies) which are made up of England and France. The

nationalists were very strong, powerful and rich they also had

powerful leaders by the name of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, but the

republicans had England and France and later on in the battle the

Russians came for support. During the war the nationalists were

planning to attack by dropping bombs on the republicans they hit many

public buildings but they also missed most of their major army

basses.