The_Glass_Menagerie

The Glass Menagerie Symbolism: The Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams uses symbolism throughout his classic play The Glass Menagerie. Through the eyes of Tom Wingfield, a character in the play, the reader gets a glance into the life of his family. Tom’s mother, Amanda, is a southern belle desperately clinging to her past. Tom has a sister named Laura and she is a twenty-something woman that is too fragile to function in society. Tom is a struggling young poet working at a shoe warehouse to pay the family’s bills. Williams uses symbols to effectively express the theme of The Glass Menagerie. The theme seems to be that of hopeful aspirations followed by inevitable disappointment and having dreams, which are destroyed by harsh realities of the world. Symbols are a major part of this play. Symbols used in this classic play are the fire escape, Laura’s “glass menagerie,” and rainbows. One major symbol presented in the story is that of the fire escape, which has a different meaning and function for each of the Wingfield characters. For Tom, the fire escape is a means of escape from fire, not the type of fire that burns structures down but “the tom, laura, glass, escape, fire, menagerie, symbol, play, world, laura’s, jim, hopes, symbolism, rainbows, mother, gentleman, caller, apartment, symbolic, amanda, after, wingfield, williams, vii, theme, symbols, story, seems, outside, hope, function, fragility, dreams, daughter, comes