Symbolism In The Glass Menagerie

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Term Paper Title	Symbolism In The Glass Menagerie
# of Words	925
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.7

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 ...

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