The Glass Menegerie

Accepting Reality: Symbols in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie

Symbols are concrete objects, images, characters, places, or actions emphasized throughout a literary work that represent an underlying abstract idea or concept. In his piece The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams uses symbolism in order to develop multifaceted characters and to convey the recurring themes of the impossibility of true escape, and the difficulty of accepting reality, that permeate the drama. The most influential symbols throughout The Glass Menagerie are the three characters of the Wingfield family: Amanda, Tom, and Laura, each of whom represent a different stereotype of humanity. By interpreting these characters as symbols, Williams communicates a message about humanity and various themes of life within the pages of his play. Williams’ use of symbolism helps the play generate meaning because they allow the reader to know the characters’ personalities and innate characteristics. Viewing the major characters as symbols helps to highlight and assist the major themes of The Glass Menagerie. Amanda Wingfield, mother of Laura and Tom, suffers from a “great but confused vitality” in which she clings “frantically to another time and place” (Williams in Schlib and Clifford, 344). Amanda’s demeanor keeps her out of touch with reality, and she constantly recalls her youth and her “glory days” which serve as a testament to her preference to live in the past as well as a source of embarrassment for her children. She is protective to a fault, and effectively stunts Laura’s growth and independence by babying her, despite stating her desire for Laura to step out into the world. Amanda is constantly preventing Laura from doing much of anything, from clearing the table to doing the dishes, in order to “stay fresh and pretty” for gentlemen callers (Williams 1). Amanda represents wishful thinking and the inability to let go of the past. Because The Glass Menagerie is a play set in memory, all of Williams’ characters blur the line between reality and exaggerated imagination, yet Amanda’s character epitomizes the symbolic reference of being stuck in a fantasy world and unable to extricate oneself. Amanda herself is symbolic of the counterproductive fantasizing and both the allusion to and illusion of reality that takes hold of all members of the Wingfield family. Amanda’s character embodies the difficulty of accepting reality. While her children are not motivated by social and financial success, this is what Amanda longs for. Her extreme attachment to these values is exactly what prevents her from accepting the reality of her situation. Amanda is unwilling to accept that she is anything other than the pampered belle she was in her youth, or that she may be responsible for the unhappiness and flaws of her children. Laura’s fragility and peculiarity, and Tom’s lack of desire to become a successful businessman sends Amanda to retreat further into her illusion of a wistfully distorted reality. Furthermore, the dingy apartment that serves as the setting of the play functions as a fully-operating place inside Amanda’s dream world. Within the apartment, Amanda has full access to her two adult children and they cannot escape from her. She dictates when meal-time is, when to be excused from the dinner table, as well as the proper way to chew food, to name a few (Williams 1). Nearly every action that takes place within the apartment leads to Amanda segueing into her constant reminiscing about her past. The apartment is symbolic of Amanda’s presence and space, and within the walls of the apartment, there is no place to hide from her influence. Additionally, Amanda’s character truly shines through when the gentleman caller, Jim, arrives for supper. In her element, the show Amanda puts on brings her right back into her youthful, carefree glory days, when she received “seventeen! - gentlemen callers… one Sunday afternoon in Blue Mountain” (Williams 1). The charade of charming and doting upon a gentleman caller only pushes Amanda further into her delusions and moves her further out of touch with reality.
Laura Wingfield is a painfully shy woman who suffered from pleurosis in high school and the experience was crippling both physically and mentally. She sustained a limp and is forced to wear a brace on one leg, but she also cannot function in normal social settings due to the mental ramifications of her disability. Laura is symbolic of the natural desire to fit into society, but her lack of socialization from extreme shyness prevents her growth and fosters her detachment from reality. Laura escapes reality via two key symbols in the play, the Victrola and her glass menagerie. The Victrola is the music player Laura listens to to escape her mother and reality (Williams 2). Tom describes Laura’s peculiarity to his mother by stating that she “lives in a world of her own- a world of- little glass ornaments… she plays old phonograph records and – that’s about all—” (Williams 5).
Laura’s glass menagerie, while the central symbol of the play, is also representative of her character: fragile and delicate and will break if ever removed from their safe place on the shelf or put under any degree of stress. The menagerie also represents the fanciful, imaginative world to which Laura devotes herself—a world that refracts the lively colors of the rainbow when held in the correct light but precariously teeters on an unstable base of fragile illusions. Tellingly, Laura’s favorite glass ornament is the unicorn, which symbolizes how out of tune she is with reality. An imaginary beast, the gentleman caller Jim makes a comment referencing this, saying “Unicorns, aren’t they extinct in the modern world?” (Williams 7). Laura feels akin to the unicorn in that she feels like she stands out, different and isolated from “normal” people due to her disability. Unlike the unicorn, however, Laura is unable to embrace her uniqueness and instead chooses to live in a fantasy world. Symbolically, it isn’t until the unicorn falls and the horn breaks off as Laura and Jim waltz around the apartment that Laura begins to gain small shreds of confidence as she begins to feel some semblance of normal having had an attempt at socialization. Whereas she previously felt isolated and different, after the unicorn loses its horn, Laura imagines the unicorn had an operation to remove its horn to feel less “freakish” and takes heart in that “now it is just like all the other horses” (Williams 7), a sentiment that she too shares about herself.
Tom Wingfield is the breadwinner, who ventures out into the real world to work and support his family. While Amanda stays within the confines and comfort of the apartment and deludes herself into believing she is in charge and must take care of her family, Tom is the one who actually works and makes money. Despite this, he is also a dreamer and a poet, nicknamed “Shakespeare” by his old high school buddy and subsequently the gentleman caller, Jim (Williams 6). Tom symbolizes anyone who has ever felt hindered by his living situation from chasing his dreams. He represents the natural desire for independence, the confidence to start his own life, yet also represents the feeling of obligation to stay for the benefit of his family for which he feels responsible. In one outburst with Amanda, Tom states: “For sixty-give dollars a month I give up all that I dream of doing and being ever!” (Williams 3). In an effort to escape the fantasy world in which Laura and Amanda live at the apartment, Tom escapes to the movies on a daily basis to get a taste of the real world, and to escape his burdens of familial responsibility and to get out of the apartment.
The fire escape at the apartment is also symbolically linked to Tom, for while it is a stairway that is meant to be used to flee a crisis, the fire escape is actually one of Tom’s favorite places, which shows his desire to escape the apartment and the life to which he feels tied down. Tom’s frequent trips to the fire escape to smoke, or just to sit, are symbolic of him testing the waters of escape. The frequent trips foreshadow his ultimate decision to leave and follow in the footsteps of his father who “fell in love with long distance” (Williams 2) and eventually get away from his dead-end life at the apartment with Laura and Amanda.
Finally, although he played a smaller role than those in the Wingfield family, the introduction of the gentleman Jim provides a sliver of outside reality into the Wingfield’s isolated illusion. Amanda manages to be the only member of her family not to learn from the encounter, who, after Jim leaves, retreats back into her private world, proving her utter detachment from reality. However, Laura gains confidence from the experience, her fragile and delicate demeanor seems to strengthen a small bit. After the unicorn loses its horn, Laura shows some degree of acceptance with herself and attempts to greet normalcy and society. After Jim’s encounter, Tom gains resolve to leave the apartment in Saint Louis once and for all, descending down the fire escape steps one last time to pursue his dreams as a poet and author.
Tennessee Williams’ use of symbolism helps the play generate meaning because they allow the reader to understand the characters’ personalities and innate characteristics. The themes of the impossibility of true escape and the difficulty of accepting reality are intertwined within the fabric of each character’s personality. The Glass Menagerie is enhanced by Williams’ use of symbolism because they aid in the development and depth of the characters, who are the vehicles by which the recurring themes of the drama are transported and conveyed.

Works Cited
Williams, Tennessee. “The Glass Menagerie.” Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for
Readers and Writers. Fourth Edition. Ed. John Schilb and John Clifford. Bedford/St. Martin’s: 2009. 343-392.

Cited: Williams, Tennessee. “The Glass Menagerie.” Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Fourth Edition. Ed. John Schilb and John Clifford. Bedford/St. Martin’s: 2009. 343-392.