The Glass Menagerie

"The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams is widely regarded as one of the finest plays in all of American literature. The story is about a small family living in St. Louis, Missouri, and it takes place during the late 1930's Great Depression. Throughout the play, Williams uses many symbols to give different meanings and themes; however, the dominate symbol is the glass menagerie. The three main characters in "The Glass Menagerie" are symbolic of the menagerie itself. Like the tiny glass animals, Laura, Amanda, and Tom are trapped by fragile illusions and are unable to move forward from a world of fantasy into reality. However, of the three main characters Laura is the most important to the play because she is the axis around which the characters, the play, revolve.

From the title of the play to its symbols and characters, everything is relevant to Laura. "The Glass Menagerie" is Laura's collection of little animals which represent the facets of her personality. Like her collection, Laura is delicate and easily breakable. Glass is transparent, but when filled with light, it creates a rainbow of color. Similarly, Laura, who is almost non-existent, is beautiful when one looks in the right light. Bert Cardullo wrote in "The Explicator", [t]he physically as well as emotionally fragile Laura escapes from her mid-twentieth-century urban predicament in St. Louis, to which her family has migrated from the rural-pastoral South, as someone of a Romantic temperament would, through art and music - through the beauty of her glass menagerie, the records she plays on her Victrola [...] (....)". This is true; the menagerie is the only world Laura devotes herself to. The old records Laura plays on the Victrola are strong reminders of Mr. Wingfield, and this is not coincidence; Williams wants Laura to allow Mr. Wingfield to live through her. This world that Laura lives in is colorful and enticing, but it is based on fragile illusions. She lives in a world locked completely inside her home and head. Throughout the play, Williams reminds the audience of Laura's importance. She holds the family together. It is her pleas to Tom that often solve the arguments. Williams writes as Laura, "Tom, speak to Mother this morning. Make up with her, apologize, speak to her! (...)". According to Bert Cardullo of "The Explicator" "[...] Laura's name signifies her affinity for the natural together with the transcendent: 'Laura' is somewhat ironically derived from the laurel shrub or tree, a wreath of which was conferred as a mark of honor in ancient times upon heroes and athletes; and "Wingfield" brings to mind the flight of birds across a meadow (...)" So Laura's "heroic" antics, when trying to keep the flock together should come as no surprise, but ironically, Laura is the only reason that Tom remains in the household; he must "look out for her". She is dependent upon him for financial and emotional support.

Tom has a dual-role, playing both the narrator and Laura's brother. Since the play is through Tom's memories, the audience sees the importance of Laura in his life through numerous references. Tom promises, "'I am the opposite of a stage magician.' 'He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth.' 'I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion (...)'". Later Tom refers to another stage magician, Malvolio the Magician, and he says, "'[b]ut the most wonderfullest trick of all was the coffin trick' 'We nailed him into a coffin and he got out