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Laura's Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie in "The Glass Menagerie", by Tennessee Williams, is used to describe, or symbolize Laura's character in the play. Laura, a very frail and insecure character from the play, lives in a world of illusions. Crippled with one leg shorter than the other from a childhood illness called pluerosis, Laura lives her life through her collection of glass animals that provide her refuge from reality. A "fragile and rare" particular glass animal called the unicorn symbolizes the character's sufferings. The brilliant use of the imagery of the glass unicorn helps express the emotional anguish of Laura. Only when the unicorn loses its horn, and becomes like the other glass horses, does Laura learn to break from her fantasy world, snap into reality and realize that she is not a "freak" as she thought she had been.
Laura's obsession of her glass ornaments is first eminent in scene two where she is seated in her delicate ivory chair, washing and polishing her collection. Her obsession is also prominent in this scene where it becomes obvious that her mother has criticized her many times for her unusual fascination of the glass animals because at the sound her mother approaching, she nervously shoves away them away. And before entering the room, the mother, Amanda, peeks through the door to see what Laura is doing and "purses her lips, opens her eyes very wide, rolls them upward and shakes her head" (65). Amanda scorns Laura for deceiving her by pretending to go to business school even though she dropped out. Her reason was that "I couldn't go back there. I--threw upon the floor! " (661). Since Laura does not have the courage to live a normal sociable life, the glass collection in this scene represents her hopes and dreams of another life. This fantasy life that Laura longs for could be why she thought she could get away with deceiving her mother about going to business school.
In scene three, the glass ornaments represent Laura's shattered emotion. Amanda and Tom get into a quarrel, and Tom accidentally breaks some of Laura's treasured glass collection as he dashes out the door. Laura screams "My glass!--menagerie"(665), covering her face and turning away. The shattered glass represents Laura's shattered feeling as her family is in turmoil. She turns away from broken glass because she wants to turn away from reality. It is obvious that Laura feels at fault for the tension in the house, hence the reason why she persuades Tom to apologize to Amanda and make peace in scene four. It is in this scene where Amanda tells Tom that Laura cannot spend the rest of her life playing the Victrola and fooling with the pieces of glass. The reference to the glass in this scene used by Amanda suggests Laura's wasting life. In scene two, Amanda's fear is exposed when she ridicules Laura of how she will stay home and amuse herself with the glass menagerie and eternally play the worn-out phonograph records for the rest of her life. In scene five, Tom and his mother discuss about the gentleman caller that Tom has invited over for dinner to meet Laura. Amanda goes on about what traits men should have and not have and Tom tries to snap Amanda into reality by telling her that, she should not expect too much of her crippled daughter who lives in a world of glass ornaments. Since they love Laura so much, they do not realize what other people visualize her as--a very different girl. In this scene Tom's reference to the glass refers to Laura's different and fragile character. She is very fragile because she gets sick at the slightest uncomfortable situation, such as being in public or when she is asked to eat dinner with the gentleman caller. In scene six when Amanda desperately asks Laura to open the door for the gentleman caller, Laura is very hesitant and tells her mom she's sick. Amanda replies "she's sick too ---of your nonsense! Why can't you and your brother be normal people?" (678). Laura ends up very sick, and Amanda tries to cover up by telling the gentleman caller that she got ill from standing over the hot stove. Amanda just could not face the fact that Laura was indeed very different from other girls.
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In scene seven, Laura explains the significance of her glass menagerie to the gentleman caller, Jim O'conner. The conversation carried on by Laura and Jim coincides with Laura's self. When she described the ornament to him, she was actually describing her self as a fragile unicorn. Laura tells him, "be careful-- if you breath, it breaks!" (68). She also includes that her glass collection is thirteen years old, which is a perfect description of her. Laura is a very fragile girl who acts like a thirteen year old who is innocent, and unaware of the real world around her. Jim acknowledges that unicorns do not exist and says "poor little fellow, he must feel sort of lonesome" (60). Laura replies with, "well, if he does, he doesn't complain about it. He stays on with some horses that don't have horns and all of them seem to get along nicely together" (60). This means that Laura knows she is different from other people, but it does not affect her as much as other people would think it should. After the conversation, Jim asks Laura to dance. Laura is stiff like glass and has a hard time loosening up. Then suddenly, while they're dancing, they bump the table where the unicorn is and it falls on the floor and breaks it's horn. To Jim's surprise, Laura smiles and acts like nothing happened. She says it makes him feel less "freakish" and "he will feel more at home with the other horses, the ones that don't have horns" (61). This symbolizes Laura's transformation towards a more normal person. She has shed some of her shyness by opening up to Jim. Jim's attention has given her hope that she could be more ordinary. Laura really snaps into reality when she finds out that Jim is engaged to be married. She hands the unicorn to Jim and tells him it's a souvenir. The unicorn is a souvenir of the breaking of Laura's illusion that her disability is a permanent barrier between her and the outside world. In parting with the treasure, she seems to be saying that she does not need to fantasize anymore. The author's use of symbolism, in this case the, glass menagerie, is a way to describe the characters on a figurative level.
Williams uses a lot of symbols, such as the fire escape, blue rose and the gentleman caller to name a few, but none have more of an impact than the significance of symbolism as does the glass menagerie. The glass animals as a whole represents Laura's fantasy world, where as the unicorn itself symbolizes Laura's emotional anguish. Only when the unicorn loses its horn does Laura too become more like ordinary people, instead of living a fantasy life through ornaments.
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