The Glass Menagerie Symbolism

This essay sample essay on The Glass Menagerie Symbolism offers an extensive list of facts and arguments related to it. The essay’s introduction, body paragraphs and the conclusion are provided below.

Before I look into the symbolism used in scene five of the Glass Menagerie I have to look at the actual name of the play “The Glass Menagerie”. Tennessee Williams has used this choice of title to show how delicate and fragile Laura is in this play. She cares for these glass animals and polishes them with great care, protecting them from dangers that don’t necessarily exist in the Wingfield household.

This is also how Laura’s mother Amanda acts towards her only daughter who is terribly shy, withdrawn from the outside world and also crippled which Amanda chooses to ignore.

Williams set this play in a poor quarter of St Louis in the 1930s, a time of great change in more ways than on. In Spain Guernica was bombed by the Germans in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War, this created a lot of unrest between governments of the world.

There was a lot of uncertainty about everyone’s future. Also the 2nd World War was immanent and in everyone’s minds. Tennessee Williams use of names to symbolise certain things is done in an interesting and clever way.

The Wingfields apartment block is opposite the “Paradise Dance Hall”; the use of the word paradise triggers of lots of thoughts in my mind, one of these is the biblical reference to the Garden of Eden.

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God created a perfect place for Adam and Eve to live but Eve persuaded Adam to take liberties and were banished from their perfect world. The people attending the dance hall have no cares in the world; this is far from reality as I stated before. There is a loss of innocence about to take hold of the innocent American nation that no one can expect or plan for.

What Is The Meaning Of The Glass Menagerie

This Symbolism also shows how Amanda feels, her optimism about finding her young inexperienced daughter a husband to care for both Amanda and Laura. Since Amanda doesn’t accept the reality of her situation its like she is living in a fools paradise. She ignores the fact that her daughter doesn’t have the correct social skills to entertain gentlemen callers, as she is very reclusive and terrified of the opposite sex and also that Laura is crippled, Amanda must realise the more she ignores the fact it wont just disappear. Tom tries to point this out to Amanda and she doesn’t want to accept the truth.

As she had lots of gentlemen callers in her youth she keeps reminiscing about her days as a beautiful and well sought after southern belle. This behaviour although she doesn’t realise is damaging her already very fragile and frail daughter’s outlook on life. The use of music in this scene has a large impact onto what the audience feels, as the stage is not laden down with props the music sets the scene and also makes the audience aware of the characters feelings at that moment in the play. The titles of the songs are very symbolic and emulate the characters’ actions.

When the dance music “All the world is waiting for the sunrise! is played it is done so when Amanda is gazing at the picture on the wall of her estranged husband, who ran away to Mexico. He only sent the family a postcard, this was no use as all it contained was “hello, goodbye”. Amanda often just daydreams about the past it is almost as if she would rather be living in the past than actually in the present day full of uncertainty and worry. The choice of music is very well selected as when the directions for the music change the “dance-hall music changes to a tango that has a minor and somewhat ominous tone” This represents what is to come in the next chapter, the arrival of the gentleman caller, Jim.

He doesn’t know what is in store for him, and that he was invited under false pretences by Tom. This change in music also symbolises the change in mood of the whole American population with the uncertainty about the war and life in general. Most people would visit these dance halls as a way of escaping, just as Tom escapes to the movies every night to escape the harsh reality of his life. When Williams was actually writing this play he already knew about the war and the trouble in Spain so keeps including these different types of music to make the audience actually think about the time that the play was set.

Tom was just keeping his side of the bargain with his mother though, as soon as he brought back a gentleman caller for Laura, who was working and could provide for his mother and sister he could leave and follow his dreams of becoming a writer. Tom was going to invite anyone round as long as it meant he could leave his boring mundane life just working to keep his family and not actually enjoying the quality of life. At the end of scene five a single violin rises and the stage dims out, this suggests the optimism of both Amanda and of Laura regarding Jim the gentleman caller.

This could on the other hand symbolise something totally different and relating back to the ominous tango could symbolise the devastation that the people, the country and economy would suffer in the coming years. This play makes clever use of legends on the screen. At the back of the stage these words have real meanings, which the audience can relate to the play. The beginning of this scene opens with a legend on screen reading “Annunciation” this is relating back to the bible when the Angel Gabriel told Mary that she was pregnant.

This is like Tom telling Amanda that they will be expecting a gentleman caller, it is something that Amanda has always wanted for her daughter. It manifests the imminence of the gentleman caller. The use of the portrait hanging in the dining room of Tom and Laura’s father is a constant reminder of his disappearance. It is also a reminder to Tom of what his aims are, to leave the family, and hopefully never come back. To Amanda the picture is a constant reminder of her failed marriage and almost makes her even more insistent on finding the correct husband for Laura, which Laura does not appreciate at all.

She would prefer just to sit at home fussing over her delicate glass menagerie. Their father’s portrait represents the reality of life, there isn’t always a happy ending and make Amanda even more worried that Tom will leave in search of bigger and better things. As he always goes to the movies he will have seen how the other half live and want those things for himself and the only way he thinks he will ever get them is if he leaves his mother and sister.

The set itself symbolises a lot of different things for instance, the only way into the Wingfields apartment is through the fire escape. Amanda has romantic fantasies and imagines this rusty old fire escape being a “Mississippi” veranda with a swing chair on it, which is so far from the truth it is ridiculous, which emphasises Amanda’s resilience to facing the truth in the here and now. For Tom, the fire escape symbolises his desire to leave the apartment and make his way on his own doing what he wants to do and not complying to what his demanding mother wants him to do.

He also uses this fire escape every night to escape from the harsh reality of life by going to the movies that seem to be his sanctuary. The symbolism in this memory play exists on many levels not only is it in the dialogue but the visual as in the fire escape, the legends and the music. As Tom is looking back onto his life some aspects are fairly vague but all of the different props and dialogue used help create a more vivid picture of the Wingfield household in the audiences eyes.