I think you’ve been doing things that you’re ashamed of. That’s why you act like this. I don’t believe that you go every night to the movies. Nobody goes to the movies night after night.
The thing is that Tom actually does go to the movies night after night, but it just doesn’t make sense to Amanda why. Therefore, the movies, in regards to Amanda, represents her frustration of her son. She’s oblivious to that the fact that she keeps driving her son away. She also accuses Tom of being a “selfish dreamer”, attempting to stop him from entering the real world, because of her and Laura’s dependence of him.
The scarf, the picture of the father and coffin trick performed by the Magician Malvolio are also symbols of escape for Tom. Tom gives Laura the magician’s scarf is a very symbolic act. Tom informs Laura (also while being completely drunk) that:
This is a magic scarf…You wave it over a canary cage and you get a bowl of gold-fish. You wave it over the gold-fish bowl and they fly away canaries.
The use of the magician’s scarf on Laura that changes canaries to goldfish on the surface may seem as a lame attempt. The symbolic intentions and motives are that Laura will be transformed into a productive, independent and married individual, in order for Tom to be able to leave home with the assurance that she is well cared for and that Amanda is satisfied.
Tom’s father, the telephone man that he describes:
…fell in love with long distances
is to some extent a complex symbol in regards to Tom’s inner struggle. Tom both envies and resents his father at the same time, because he was the one who was able to escape “the trap” successfully. One the other hand, Tom resents him, because by doing so, he was left with all his responsibilities over the family and is too struggling to depart from his deranged mother. Both of them are driven out of their wits by Amanda. This is clearly shown when Tom admits to his mother while pointing to his father’s picture:
Why, listen, if self is what I thought of, Mother, I’d be where his is- GONE!
Another important symbol of Tom’s desire to leave home is when he discusses the coffin trick done by Malvolio the Magician to Laura. What fascinated Tom immensely by the trick is that he was able to get out of a nailed coffin without removing a single nail. He describes it as being:
…a trick that would come handy for me- get me out of this 2 by 4 situations.
This too has a deeper meaning of his desperate desires to leave home without causing any pain to anyone, most of all, to Laura.
Jim can also be seen as a significant symbol for all characters in the play. To Laura, Jim represents the one thing she fears and does not want to face, reality. Also, Jim is a symbol of "the common man”, a common person or even the outside world, in which she contrasts greatly with. As well, he resembles her past, reminding her of her unfortunate experiences and insecurities in High School.
To Amanda, Jim represents the days of her youth, when she went frolicking about picking jonquils and supposedly having “seventeen gentlemen callers on one Sunday afternoon.” Therefore, Amanda used Jim and the whole notion of a gentlemen caller to remind her of her past and hence, being able to relive it in the present world. Although Amanda desperately desires to see Laura settled down with a proper husband, it is hard to tell whether she wanted a gentleman caller to be invited for Laura sake or for her own. This also fits in with how Amanda doesn’t understand her children and how she feels the worst future for Laura is a future where she’s:
...stuck away in some little mousetrap of a room...eating the crust of humanity.
Amanda is completely incapable of realising that this kind of future does not pre-occupy Laura at all, and also can be argued that, perhaps this might even be a life that best suits Laura.
To Tom, Jim represents a guiltless escape from home. The reason why Amanda continuously prevents Tom from leaving home is mainly because of Laura’s dependence of him. With her disability, Laura has become a very timid person who is incapable of living an independent life. In Scene 4, Amanda makes a type of agreement with Tom in regards to Laura and his freedom.
I mean that as soon as Laura has got somebody to take care of her, married, a home of her own, independent- why, then you’ll be free.
Therefore, this makes Jim Tom’s only resort in successfully completing a clean escape.
The central symbol of the play is Laura’s Glass Menagerie. Her Menagerie is her escape from reality and provides a safe realm for Laura. The events that happen to Laura's glass affects Laura's emotional state greatly. When Amanda tells Laura to practice typing, Laura instead plays with her glass. When Amanda is heard walking up the fire escape, she quickly hides her collection. She does this to hide her secret world from the others. When Tom leaves to go to the movies in an angered rush, he accidentally breaks some of Laura's glass. The shattered glass represents Laura's understanding of Tom's responsibilities to her. Also, the unicorn, which is important, represents Laura directly. Laura points out to Jim that the unicorn is different, just as she is different. She also points out that the unicorn does not complain of being different, as she does not complain either. And when Jim breaks the horn off the unicorn, Laura points out that now it is like the other horses, just as Laura has shed some of her shyness and become more normal. When she hands the broken unicorn to Jim, this might represent Laura handing over her broken love to Jim, as Jim has revealed that he is engaged to be married.
The unicorn symbolises Laura. Laura is very different from normal young females. She is confined in her own little world. The unicorn and Laura are parallel in that both stand out. Jim notices and recognises the fact and asks “aren’t they extinct in the modern world?” He also says “You know- you are- well- very different!” When Laura opens up to Jim her fears begin to be extinguished, because this metamorphosis occurs she becomes more like an average or typical girl. When the unicorn breaks, Laura seems to be aware that change may be good and almost seems that she has yearned for it. When she says to Jim “Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise” he change becomes more apparent. The hornless glass animal is transformed into a normal glass figure when the unicorn breaks. Laura states: “I’ll just imagine the horn was removed to make him less freakish” also allows the reader to know that when Laura dances and converses with Jim, she too feels less “freakish”, because he treats her as though she was like any other female of her age.
Although the Wingfields are distinguished and bound together by the weak relationships they maintain with reality, the illusions to which they succumb are not merely familial quirks. The outside world is just as susceptible to illusion as the Wingfields. The young people at the Paradise Dance Hall waltz under the short-lived illusion created by a glass ball, another version of Laura’s glass animals. Tom opines to Jim that the other viewers at the movies he attends are substituting on-screen adventure for real-life adventure, finding fulfillment in illusion rather than real life. Even Jim, who represents the “world of reality,” is banking his future on public speaking and the television and radio industries, all of which are means for the creation of illusions and the persuasion of others that these illusions are true. The Glass Menagerie identifies the conquest of reality by illusion as a huge and growing aspect of the human condition in its time. It can definitely be argued that symbolism is indeed one of the foundations in the play. The Glass Menagerie is a theatrical piece filled with spectacular hidden meanings or symbolisms. This is very effective on the part of Tennessee Williams, because this allows each character’s inner struggle to be deeply felt by the reader or, most importantly, the audience.
The Glass Unicorn
The glass unicorn in Laura’s collection—significantly, her favorite figure—represents her peculiarity. As Jim points out, unicorns are “extinct” in modern times and are lonesome as a result of being different from other horses. Laura too is unusual, lonely, and ill-adapted to existence in the world in which she lives. The fate of the unicorn is also a smaller-scale version of Laura’s fate in Scene Seven. When Jim dances with and then kisses Laura, the unicorn’s horn breaks off, and it becomes just another horse. Jim’s advances endow Laura with a new normalcy, making her seem more like just another girl, but the violence with which this normalcy is thrust upon her means that Laura cannot become normal without somehow -shattering. Eventually, Laura gives Jim the unicorn as a “souvenir.” Without its horn, the unicorn is more appropriate for him than for her, and the broken figurine represents all that he has taken from her and destroyed in her.
“Blue Roses”
Like the glass unicorn, “Blue Roses,” Jim’s high school nickname for Laura, symbolizes Laura’s unusualness yet allure. The name is also associated with Laura’s attraction to Jim and the joy that his kind treatment brings her. Furthermore, it recalls Tennessee -Williams’s sister, Rose, on whom the character of Laura is based.
