The glass menagerie: themes and symbolism in Tennessee Williams

¶ … GLASS MENAGERIE is one of the masterpieces by Tennessee Williams. The play came out in 1944 and instantly became an American classic. The most important symbol in the play is that of the unicorn or the glass figurines that Laura holds so dear. They represent the fragility that Laura exhibits and also suggest something about sexuality and virginity. Laura is the sentimental core of the play because of her physical disability and her extremely fragile disposition that doesn't allow her the normal pleasures of life. She has never been on a date and her mother's overbearing nature makes it all the more impossible for her to live a healthy normal and useful life. Instead she feels burdened by the expectations of her mother and thus lives a psychologically crippled life. Williams describes Laura as "a piece of her own glass collection, too exquisitely fragile to move from the shelf" (129).

The play is pessimistic and depressing to say the least and try as you might, there is no real sign of hopefulness or optimism anywhere. Laura is doomed to a life of single hood and loneliness because she is painfully shy to meet new people and because she lacks the courage and vivacity required to make one's mark in the world. She could have learned to live normally had her mother not been so ruthlessly overbearing. Amanda is the reason her children have failed in their lives. She is the main reason Tom flies away and leaves everything depressing behind including Laura. Amanda expects Laura to flaunt her self-image while she knows that Laura is not like other girls. She is physically disabled and thus doesn't get out of the house and still she burdens Laura with her outrageous expectations.

Laura is just like the fragile glass menagerie she is so obsessed about. These glass figurines are symbolic of things mentioned above but at the same thing, they also indicate a childlike fixation on make-believe. This delicate girl lives an isolated life and her world is not real. The only time she gets a chance to enter the adult world and leave her fragile world behind is when a stranger Jim visits her one evening. The experience as tragic as it turned out to be did not really have to be used the way it had been. Instead it could serve as a very important breakthrough in Laura's life. But either due to Laura's own arrested development or her mother's dominating shadow, the incident was cited as a tragedy and Laura was further relegated to very dark corners of her existence. The world that understands grit and confidence could find no room for a girl like Laura who was psychologically crippled: "For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura -- and so goodbye" (237).