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The Glass Menagerie Symbolism Essay

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Recommended: Symbolism and the role it plays in the glass menagerie

Many symbols are used in The Glass Menagerie and related to the characters. They reflect reality of each particular family member. All the symbols revolve around the idea of the family to hide from reality and escape the pain. This is the main purpose.
A very important symbol in the play is the glass menagerie and, especially, the unicorn from the collection. This symbolizes Laura. Laura is a character who is living in denial with her little glass menagerie. As it says in the characters’ list of the play about Laura: she “…having failed to establish contact with reality, continues to live vitally in her illusions…” (751). She had a childhood illness that left her crippled. “Stemming from this, Laura’s separation increases till she is like a …show more content…

Unicorn is not like all other normal animals just like Laura is different from all other girls. She has a physical defect that she is worried about and she is terribly shy. She and her mother want her to be normal like a unicorn would be a normal horse without its horn. When the gentlemen caller Jim accidently brakes Laura’s unicorn, the unicorn losses its horn just like Laura starts to see herself in a new light that she should no longer allow her shyness to cripple her. She was not even upset about the …show more content…

The fire escape is literally an escape from the house. It is a way out for the Laura, but especially for Tom. The fire escape is something we see from the beginning of the play. It perfectly represents a way out temporary or permanently. Tom is looking for a way out of the family and the household. Every day Tom goes to movies. Aslo, he frequently stays on the fire escape of the apartment to smoke a cigarette. Tom has a dialogue once with his mother on the fire escape, as he goes to smoke, about the invited for the dinner gentleman caller his mother asked for. In addition, Tom has a long dialogue about leaving the apartment with this gentleman caller, as he is his friend from work, on the fire escape before getting to the table and after meeting

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