Symbolism in the Glass Menagerie

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Symbolism in the Glass Menagerie

                                                                           John Bailey    June 2009

In the play “The Glass Menagerie,” Tennessee Williams the author presents the glass menagerie as a metaphor for the Wingfield family and other families during the Great Depression. The author highlights the concept of the family’s vulnerability and how easily it can be shattered like glass. Laura shares a connection with the glass, and through the descriptive stage directions the audience can view the bond that links her to the collection. Williams uses foreshadowing through the breaking of a symbolic figurine to show the events that will occur within the Wingfield family and how everything will be forever different and broken, just like the figurine.

A menagerie is a varied mixture or a collection of foreign animals that are kept especially for exhibition. The glass menagerie is a metaphor for the Wingfield family. Each character is a different piece of glass that when together composes a family within a menagerie. Through their differences from the outside world the Wingfields a menagerie that is stared at for being different from the rest of the world. Laura and Tom are dreamers, but they cannot act on their dreams and desires. Amanda lives in the past and is separated from her children by this. The family composes a collection of a strange mixture of personalities that cannot incorporate themselves into the world. For example, Tom describes Jim as his “best friend at the warehouse,” but the audience later questions this, as he is unknowing of his friend’s engagement.

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“Glass is something that you have to take good care of,” and similarly a family must be taken care of to flourish. The members of the Wingfield family all strive for what they personally believe will be best for them or the family, without really understanding what that means. The inability to understand each other and take care of the family causes it to slowly fall apart. Laura is the person who holds the family together through their differences for as long as possible. She is the force that causes Tom to stay and endure the life he hates, and ...

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