The Glass Menagerie Symbolism Essay

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Symbolism is often heavily relied upon in all types of literature. They are used to better help the reader comprehend characters or scenes thorough the piece of literature. The use of symbolism is very key in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie (rpt. In Greg Johnson and Thomas R. Arp, Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 12th ed. [Boston: Wadsworth, 2015] 1136-1185) in helping the reader better understand the character of Laura Wingfield and her place in reality. One of the symbols used for Laura is her glass menagerie that she loves to collect. At one point in the story, as Laura’s brother, Tom, and mother, Amanda, are arguing, the menagerie is knocked into and the pieces go flying to the ground breaking. This causes Laura …show more content…
It is the oldest piece in her set at 13 years old. It always stands out next to all the horses because of its horn. Toward the end of the story, the unicorn gets knocked off the table as Jim and Laura are dancing. This cause the unicorn to fall to the ground and break its horn off. Now with its horn gone it is just like all of the other horses. This is very similar to Laura. She stands out in a crowd of people because of her being crippled. While her limp may not be as noticeable as she believes it is, she would love nothing more than for it to be gone and be just like everyone else. She does not want to stand out to people, she just wants to fade into the crowd. She gives the now broken unicorn to Jim as a souvenir but really she gave herself to Jim that night as they were dancing. She opened up to him like she has never done before, only to be shot down and sent spiraling right back into isolation. Tennessee Williams makes very good use of different literary elements in The Glass Menagerie, especially the use of symbolism. The use of these elements gives him the ability to intertwine many different meanings into a piece of literature that may just seem like it is there to entertain. His ability is put on great display in this story and very much so enhances the readers understanding of it all, especially
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