Symbolism in the Glass Menegerie
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Symbolism in The Glass Menagerie
From the beginning, the figure of the narrator shows that Williams play will not follow the conventions of realistic theater. The narrator breaks the conceptual “fourth wall” of naturalistic drama by addressing the audience directly. Tom also tells us that he is going to give the audience truth disguised as illusion, making the audience conscious of the illusory quality of theater. By playing with the theme of memory and its distortions, Williams is free to use music, monologues, and projected images to haunting effect. Tom, as narrator, tells the audience that the gentleman caller is a real person‹more real, in many ways, than any other character‹but he also tells the audience that the gentleman is a symbol for the “expected something that we live for,” the thing for which we are always waiting and hoping. This naming of a character as both real entity and symbol is characteristic of Williams work; both of these aspects of the gentleman caller are important to the overall impact of the Play. The allusion to Guernica and the turmoil in Spain, juxtaposed to the uneasy peace in America, establishes a tense atmosphere as the plays background.
There is symmetry between the uneasy peace of the time period and the uneasy peace in the Wingfield house. Just as America stirs restlessly with the uneasy peace before the Second World War, Tom seethes with the need to escape his home and set out into the world‹as his father did before him. The fire escape, a visually prominent part of the set, is an important symbol for the imprisonment that Tom feels and the possibility of a way out. In his stage directions, Williams characteristically imbues the fire escape with symbolic weight, saying that the buildings are burning with the “implacable fires of human desperation.” Tom addresses the audience from the fire escape, and his positioning there, standing alone between the outside world and the space of the apartment, points to the painful choice he makes later in the play. In order to escape, he must escape alone and leave his mother and sister behind.
This is the first scene where the audience sees Laura taking care of her glass menagerie. The glass menagerie is the most important symbol for Laura and her fragility. Her engagement with the tiny animals reveals how painfully afraid she is of interaction with other humans. The qualities of glass parallel Lauras characteristics: like the tiny glass animals, she is delicate, beautiful in her oddness, terribly fragile. The little collection, like Laura, in an entity that is locked completely in the realm of the home. The animals must be kept on a little shelf and polished; there is only one place where they belong. In a similar way, Laura is kept and cared for, dependent on her mother and brother for financial support. The Blue Roses are another important symbol of Laura. The image of blue roses is a beautiful one‹and it is the image that is on the screen at the start of Scene Two. But blue roses are also pure fantasy, non-existent in the real world. Laura, like a blue rose, is special, unique even, but she is also cut off from real life. When Tom accidentally breaks some of the pieces in the glass menagerie, the incident foreshadows Lauras heartbreak later on in the play. The event emphasizes the collections fragility, and so metaphorically we are reminded of Lauras fragility. Tom is the one responsible, and the pain of his position is made clear. As much as he would like to live his own life, his actions have a great effect on the well-being and security of his mother and sister. By being reckless, he destroys the pretend-world of his sister. Later on, he chooses to live his own life rather than live up to his responsibility for her security.
One of the plays important themes is the conflict between the desire to live ones own life and the responsibility for ones family. Toms wages pay the bills, but Amanda continues to treat him as a child. She confiscates and returns his books, and during their argument she attempts to control their discussion as an adult controls an argument with a little boy. Toms fascination with the movies and the magician shows his need for fantasy and escapism. Tom is always dreaming of fantastic places far from St. Louis, and for now he escapes through the illusions offered by the movie house and the stage magician. He dreams of leaving home, but his responsibilities for his sister and his mother have so far kept him in the Wingfield apartment. What he sees at the magic show is directly connected to the theme of conflict between Toms responsibility for his family and his need to live his own life. The magicians most impressive trick becomes a symbol for what Tom wishes he could do to make a clean, easy escape, without