Glass Menagerie Symbolism

A detailed Summary of Glass Menagerie Symbolism

Why do authors use symbolism in their writings? Could it be that they use symbolism to give life to something that seems so simplistic? Therefore making the reader look beyond the surface. In the short play The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams uses symbolism throughout the story to give a deeper meaning to the characters and scenes he describes. As a result, this symbolical approach made the characters come to life.

In The Glass Menagerie, the main characters are Laura, Amanda, Tom, Jim, and Father. Each character can be found with symbols that best represent them. Laura 's two symbols are Blue Roses and her glass menagerie, Unicorn. Amanda 's yellow dress and bathrobe can express her love she has of the past events. Tom 's symbols are the movies and poem writings. Jim's symbolizes himself as a gentlemen caller for Laura. The Father 's portrait portrays his abandonment of the Wingfield family. Laura is a hypersensitive young girl. She spends all of her time in a world of glass ornaments and isolated in her apartment. Even though she tries several times to participate in the outside world, she is too fragile. The Blue Roses represent the uniqueness of Laura. Blue Roses do not exist in this world or even if there i

Amanda is a middle-aged southern woman whose husband has abandoned her. She spends her time reminiscing about her seventeen gentlemen callers, and nagging at Tom and Laura. She is completely depending on Tom for financial support of the family and a responsibility for Laura's future. Amanda dreams back to the time when she was a young girl wearing her yellow dress. Those certainly were better days. The past was a wonderful experience for her compared to the reality, in which she is an abandoned wife

with two children. Mr. Wingfield was cruel to leave the family, but Amanda still loves him. She wears his bathrobe and often looks at the portrait of her husband. She can't put the past behind her. Amanda is obsessed with her past as she constantly reminds Tom and Laura of that one Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain. When Jim arrives, Amanda is dressed in the same girlish frock she wore on the day that she met her husband. She regresses to her childish days of entertaining the gentleman callers. She chooses to live in the past. Moreover, she hoped that the gentleman caller is not handsome because Mr. Wingfield is handsome and he won her heart in a second. She doesn't want Tom to be a drunkard with no manners while eating, and she doesn't want him to be a smoker. She wishes good luck, happiness, and success in the future for her children, but she rather live in a life of illusion and recall on all of her past experiences.

s, it is not by nature. This rose is different from other roses just as Laura is different from other girls. The color blue represents the sadness and depression. Laura felt these feelings at home because, she is not as popular as Amanda, and she cannot succeed in college, like Amanda wants. Amanda's expectations cause Laura to feel bad when she doesn't meet her requirements

Some common words found in the essay are:
Tom Wingfield, Amanda Laura, Mountain Jim, Tom Laura, Glass Menagerie, Business College, Blue Roses, Laura Jim, Laura Father, Laura Tom, glass menagerie, outside world, gentleman caller, fire escape, blue roses, unicorn unique jim, shoe warehouse, roses represent, yellow dress, life jim, shoe factory tom, past amanda,

Approximate Word count = 1227
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English