In setting/world of the play, difference or the sense of difference implies or

generates exclusion. Elaborate with reference to Laura and the use of the
symbolism of glass menagerie in the play.

The play Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is a Memory Play which revolves around the
memories of the narrator of the play, Tom Wingfield who is also a character in it along with his
mother; Amanda, sister; Laura and a gentleman caller; Jim who appears in the final scenes. The
main characters from the play are living in the self-constructed illusionary cocoon of their
respective worlds yet separated from each other’s interests. While Amanda is living in the
receding Southern glory of the America in the late thirties, Tom is trying to es cape to the
entertainment industry to get far away from his own failure, and Laura, being shy and having
inferiority complex creates her own fantasy world to find comfort and sustainability amid
hopelessness.

The play is set in “The Wingfield apartment is in the rear of the building, one of those vast hive-
like conglomerations of cellular living-units that flower as warty growths in overcrowded urban
centers of lower-middle-class population and are symptomatic of the impulse of this largest and
fundamentally enslaved section of American society to avoid fluidity and differentiation and to
exist and function as one interfused mass of automatism.” It shows the rapidly changing socio-
economic landscape of America of the 1930s, grabbed by The Great Economic Depression
leading to widespread unemployment and poverty which did not allow the luxury and the
comforts of fantasy. Therefore the conflict between the modern realism and the comfortable
escapism destroyed many houses and hopes. “The apartment faces an alley and is entered by a
fire-escape, a structure whose name is a touch of accidental poetic truth, for all of these huge
buildings are always burning with the slow and implacable fires of human desperation. The fire-
escape is included in the set - that is, the landing of it and steps descending from it.”As the name
suggests, it is an escape from the fire of depression and frustration and dysfunction that rage in
the apartment. In the fourth scene of the play, we see that Laura slips on fire escape which
suggests that she is incapable of escaping from her situation and condition. On the other hand,
Tom quite often steps out on the landing of the fire escape to smoke, which suggests his eventual
escape. The Glass Menagerie suggests that the 1940s, marked by global conflict and upheaval,
were an escape from the dismal 1930s as Tom says that in the 1930s “the world was waiting for
bombardments”. The play presents the Spanish Civil War as a ray of hope for adventure and
change in the 1930s and as a prelude for the changes to come in the 1940s. America, like Tom, is
waiting for an escape from its dull existence. Tom says that war is “when adventure becomes
available to the masses”. This unique perspective views the violence of the 1940s as a relief to
Americans left dismal and desperate by the Great Depression.
As the theme of loss permeates the Wingfield household, it is enhanced by the innovative
techniques Williams employs, such as screens on stage, music, and lighting to blend text and
performance, illusion and reality. In Williams’s original script a screen device was used to
project images and titles on the stage. As Williams states in his production notes, “I do not
regret the omission of this device from the original Broadway production. The extraordinary
power of Miss Taylor’s performance made it suitable to have the utmost simplicity in the
physical production” what we see on the screen simply puts a bit more emphasis on the thematic
or symbolic significance of the action of the play. At times it refers to something from a
character’s past or fantasy, as when the image of Amanda as a young girl appears in scene Six.
The music is used to enhance the effect of drama and emphasize the theme of the play. A singe
recurring tune “The Glass Menagerie” written specifically for the play by Paul Bowles is used to
give emotional emphasis to suitable passages. It expresses the surface vivacity of life with the
underlying strain of immutable and inexpressible sorrow. It is primarily Laura’s music and
therefore comes out most clearly when the play focuses upon her and the lovely fragility of glass
which is her image. In addition to these innovative production techniques, Williams also
employs a creative literary technique by making Tom Wingfield both narrator and character in
the play, thus giving him poetic license to try to come to terms with the psychological loss that is
the genesis of the play which facilitates identification with a particular point of view.

The emotional turmoil and hopeless existence are the realistic portrayals which may, in a
different way, seem a little bit exaggeration. Amanda’s eloquence, Tom’s unprecedented
eagerness for modern entertainment and Laura’s extraordinary shyness actually refers to an
Expressionistic view of life to emphasize as well as criticize the American life of the thirties.
Tom, as narrator, gives us “truth in the guise of illusion”. He does this by giving us his
recollection of a certain time period in his life. As Dipa Janardanan says, “Through the use of
poetic license to present truth, Williams is able to seamlessly alternate between illusion and
reality. By the same token, Williams uses the image of loss to play within the dynamics of illusion
versus reality to allow each character to create his own individual reality. In effect, truth is made
more bearable by the use of illusion and the theme of loss becomes a universal truth.” For
example, Tom’s perceived dilemma of loss of physical space results in his retreat from the
relationship that he most treasured and, as a result, is not the freedom that he imagined. Tom’s
escape from his physical environment results in a psychological loss of space.

Laura Wingfield is shy and self-conscious of her disability and escapes to a fragile fantasy world
to escape her troubled existence. She retreats to imaginary, child-like, fantasy and “lives in a
world of her own”. She spends her time playing the old records her father left and looking at her
glass menagerie anthropomorphizing her glass ornaments, saying about her unicorn “he doesn’t
complain… and [he and the horses] get along nicely”. Rather than face the difficulties of her
existence, Laura escapes to a world of imagination and fantasy, a world as beautiful and fragile
as her “glass menagerie.”Laura’s escape from reality cuts her off from the rest of the world
because the fantasy to which she escapes is totally unique. The glass menagerie represents
Laura’s hypersensitive nature and fragility. This fragility is manifested physically in the glass.
She has the same kind of beauty – the translucent, other-worldly, delicate kind. Jim is the first
person to ask about the glass menagerie and Laura enthusiastically explains her own precious
item: “Little articles of it, they’re ornaments mostly! Most of them are little animals made out of
glass, the tiniest little animals in the world. Mother calls them glass menagerie!” Although the
glass menagerie is very fragile, Laura gives it to the Tom and shows her trust and reliability to
him. Especially, unicorn is represented as the special glass menagerie since it has its own horn,
are rare and unique just like her. When Jim asks that unicorns are not real, hence what purpose
can it serve; Laura’s answer provides us the distinctions between real and non -real/unreal
world.
Jim: Unicorns – aren’t they extinct in the modern world?
Laura: I know!
Jim: Poor little fellow, he must feel sort of lonesome.
Laura [Smiling]: Well, if it does, he doesn’t complain about it. He stays on a shelf with some
horses that won’t have horns and all of them seem to get along nicely together.
This conversations sums up Laura’s condition not from the outside and what other people see
her as, but rather from inside, what she thinks her own position is. She is like the unicorn,
who is a misfit in this ‘non-mythical’ world of realities where the living means one has to
accept the reality as reality. There is nothing called in-between or alternative reality. However
she likes to live in a fantasy world but the world would not accept her in that way. The person
like Jim, who has been convinced that the main stream life style of reality is the only reality,
and they, being agents of that reality, would try to explain the others about the benefit of
conforming into the norms. However, the fate of the unicorn is similar to Laura’s fate. When
Jim dances with and then kisses Laura, the unicorn’s horn breaks off. Jim’s advances endow
Laura with a new normalcy, making her seem more like just another girl. The breaking of horn
of the unicorn makes the unicorn looks like a horse. As Laura points out that this new broken
unicorn cum horse would “get along nice together” with the other horses. Similarly having
broken world of fantasy and belief the new broken Laura would have to get along nicely
together with other people who do not belong to the fantasy world of illusion. Here the
Symbolic change in her life is toward the crude realism. Right after this happening, Jim shows
the different attitude to Laura and confesses that he had engaged to Betty. This incidence
represents the breakdown of dream and eventually, Laura gives Jim the unicorn as a souvenir. In
the scene when Laura takes up her glass unicorn from the floor, the lighting is used to shine this
unicorn in order to emphasize the change in Laura’s attitude and also reveals the new start of
Laura. From the usage of lighting only toward the unicorn in dark stage, the director implied to
emphasize the important turning point of Laura. The breaking of the glass unicorn’s horn,
Laura’s favorite one, symbolizes the shattering of her illusions in life.

The stormy weather outside the Wingfield apartment continues to parallel the weather within
Laura in the last two scenes. In scene 6, when to her horror she is forced to join Jim at the dinner
table, “the white curtains billow inward at the windows and there is a sorrowful murmur and
deep blue dusk.” In fact, “outside a summer storm is coming abruptly.” immediately, “Laura
suddenly stumbles—she catches at a chair with a faint moan.” in this context, the storm is an
indicative of a greater threat. Significantly, the sky moans in tandem with Laura. Although the
storm is a symbol of falling fire in general, it also reflects Laura’s inner state, greatly magnifying
the significance of all that she represents, that she is the icon of something truly immense and
universal. Similarly, at the end of the scene, when Jim tells her about his engagement to Betty,
she “struggles visibly with her storm.” the revelation strikes her like lightning. This relates to the
overall theme of the play which is human desperation and fragility that the usage of weather
stimulates the atmosphere of desolation and darkness.

Candle represents Laura’s vulnerability and hopelessness in the world and creates desolate mood
in play. Also, there are numerous indications of Jim’s potential to complete Laura symbolically
related to the candle. In The Glass Menagerie, “Jim comes into the dining room, carrying the
candelabrum, its candle lighted, in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.” Since overall
lighting was not available because of Tom not paying the light bill immediately in the scene, the
candle light was the only source to illuminate and connect Laura and Jim. Because Tenneessee
Williams sought the dreamlike mood in this play, the usage of candle light fully represented the
fragile and sentimental mood. The candle represents fragile hope that she could have intimate
relationship with Jim, hope that Amanda’s dream of a Gentleman Caller providing a future for
Laura, and hope that if Laura is taken care of, Tom will be able to strike out on his own and
leave the shoe warehouse. However, as Jim says that he actually is engaged with another woman,
Laura’s hope changes into tragedy. The author Williams uses the contrast between candles and
lightning to conclude the play: “At the close of Tom’s speech, Laura blows out the candles,
ending the play.” blowing the candles, Laura put out her hope to escape her status and overcome
her disabilities and go towards the journey of self knowledge and acceptance.

The victrola is playing a part of Laura’s escape from reality, a private lonely world for Laura.
When Laura plays a record on it, she does not do so merely for enjoyment or to add a mode to
the room but often does so at times deemed inappropriate by her mother. In the context, “Laura
draws a long breath and gets awkwardly to her feet. She crosses to the victrola and winds it up.”
When Amanda mentions the concern about money, Laura actually feels guilty since victrola is
very expensive item at the period. Furthermore, victrola represents the connection with Laura’s
father. She plays the old records that her father left behind and draws enough security from them
to make it through whatever ordeal she’s facing. This is because Laura listens to her music for
comfort and release from the pressures she is under in her life. So, while the music of the
victrola and its old memories protects Laura from the real world, it furthers Laura’s illusions and
emotional fears. Like the unicorn, victrola symbolizes Laura’s fear of a reality that she can only
live in briefly.

In a nutshell, Tennessee Williams tries to express the human desperation and fragility by
describing the character Laura, using several literary devices and symbols. Tennessee Williams
portrays the stormy weather in the crucial moment of play and sets overall sentimental mood in
the play. Candle, which has the characteristics of easily blown, conveys idea of Laura’s hope
which eventually fails to achieve. Victrola symbolizes Laura’s isolation from the reality and also
makes safe zone for her that creates desolation as well as delusion for her. Also the title of the
play, the glass menagerie sufficiently expresses Laura’s delicateness. Because unicorn’s horn,
which makes unicorn special, is broken, Laura’s delusion toward the world itself also is
destroyed that she finally blows the candle at the end of the play. Like many people in America
during the Great Depression, Amanda, Laura, and Tom seek relief from their dreary lives by
escaping reality. Although each of them retreats to a different place, they all seek escapism for
the same reason, to help them cope with their place in life. Their escapes from reality, however,
also drive them farther apart from one another and, in Tom’s case, result in permanent
separation.

References
1) Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. Edited by Payal Nagpal.
2) Production Notes by Tennessee Williams.
3) Janardanan, Dipa, "Images of Loss in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, Arthur
Miller's Death of a Salesman, Marsha Norman's night, Mother, and Paula Vogel's How I
Learned to Drive." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2007.
https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/23
4) Boxill Roger. ‘The Glass Menagerie’ (1944). Tennessee Williams. 1987;61-75.
5) S. Roy, “Breaking of Illusion: A Journey of Symbolic Realism to Expressionism in
Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie”, sshj, vol. 2, no. 08, pp. 584-588, Aug. 2018.

Submitted By: Anushka Sahai,

Admission Number: 2715