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What Does The Glass Menagerie Represent

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Tennessee William incorporates many different symbols into his play, The Glass Menagerie. The symbols cover the breadth of the play and bring about a new meaning to details that are mentioned. A glass unicorn and blue roses are connected to the character Laura Wingfield, and a fire escape relates to the whole Wingfield family.

Laura’s unicorn represents her uniqueness. As Laura’s character is developed throughout the play, it is made clear that she has always been different from others around her. Laura’s crippled leg influenced her view of herself as she grew up, and it made her feel weak and nervous around those without physical defect. This weakness and hindered social ability made Laura extremely fragile. This fragility is represented …show more content…
When Jim O’Conner comes to the Wingfield home for Dinner, Laura begins to reach her breaking point. Her closed off world is breached for the first time, which results in a set of events. The first event that Laura encounters is her mother forcing her to open the front door for Jim and Tom. Just as putting pressure on glass will cause it to crack, Laura begins to crack under the pressure of her mother. As the evening progresses, Laura begins to open up to Jim. Laura shows Jim her glass menagerie and even dances with him. When Laura shows Jim her glass menagerie, she symbolizes herself opening up a part of herself that she has closed off from the rest of the world. During the only time that Laura has opened up to someone outside of her family, devastation occurs. Laura’s glass unicorn falls to the ground as Jim dances with Laura, resulting in the unicorn’s horn breaking off. The horn breaking symbolizes a part of Laura being broken. Just as the horn breaks off because of Jim, Laura’s uniqueness is also broken off because of Jim. In this brief moment, Laura begins to feel like a normal girl her age and her uniqueness is

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