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The Glass Managerie In “The Glass Managerie”,by Tennesee Williams, symbols
are used to describe the characters in the play. Laura, a very frail and
insecure character from the play, lives in a world of illusions. Crippled with
one leg shorter than the other from a childhood illness, she lives her life
through her collection of glass animals. They provide Laura’s refuge from
reality. One particular glass animal the “fragile and rare” unicorn symbolizes
the character’s sufferings. The brilliant use of the imagery of the glass
unicorn helps express the emotional anguish of Laura. Only when the unicorn
loses its horn, and become like the other glass horses does Laura too break free
from her fantasy world and snap into reality and realize that she is not a
“freak” as she thought she was.
The obsession that Laura has for her glass
ornaments is first eminent in scene two where she is seated in her delicate
ivory chair, washing and polishing her collection. It is also in this scene
where it is obvious that her mother has criticized her many times for her
unusual fascination of the glass animals because at the sound her mother
approaching, she nervously shoves away them away. And before entering the room,
the mother, Amanda, peeks through the door to see what Laura is doing and
“purses her lips, opens her eyes very wide, rolls them upward and shakes her
head” (11). Amanda scorns Laura for deceiving her by pretending to go to
business school even though she dropped out. Her reason was that “it frightened
her so bad it made her sick in the stomach” (35). Because Laura does not have
the courage to live a normal sociable life, the glass animals in this scene
represent her hopes and dreams of another life. This fantasy life that Laura
longs for is probably why she thought she could get away with deceiving her
mother about going to business school. In scene three, the glass ornaments
represent Laura’s shattered emotion. Amanda and her son Tom gets into a quarrel.
Tom accidentally breaks some of Laura’s treasured glass collection as he rushes
out the door. Laura screams “My glass!--menagerie”(24), covering her face and
turning away. The shattered glass represents Laura’s shattered feeling as her
family is in turmoil. She turns away from broken glass because she wants to turn
away from reality. It is obvious that Laura feels at fault for the tension in
the house because in scene four, she persuades Tom to apologize to Amanda and
make peace. It is in this scene where Amanda tells Tom that Laura cannot spend
the rest of her life playing the Victrola and fooling with the pieces of glass .
The reference to the glass in this scene used by Amanda suggests Laura’s wasting
life. On page 16, Amanda’s fear is exposed when she ridicules Laura of how she
will stay home and amuse herself with the glass menagerie and eternally play the
worn-out phonograph records for the rest of her life. In scene five, Tom and his
mother discuss about the gentleman caller that Tom has invited over for dinner
to meet Laura. Amanda goes on about what trait the man should have and not have
and Tom tries to snap Amanda into reality by telling her that she should not
expect too much of her crippled daughter who lives in a world of glass
ornaments. Because they love her so much , they do not realize what other people
visualize Laura as--a very different girl. In this scene Tom’s reference to the
glass refers to Laura’s different and fragile character. She is very fragile
because she gets sick at the slightest uncomfortable situation, such as being in
public or when she is asked to eat dinner with the gentleman caller. In scene
six, page 57, when Amanda desperately asks Laura to open the door for the
gentleman caller, Laura is very hesitant and tells her mom she’s sick. Amanda
goes on saying she’s sick too of her nonsense and asks why she can’t be a normal
person. Laura ends up very sick and ends up lying down on the sofa during the
dinner. Amanda tries to cover up by telling the gentleman caller that she got
ill from standing over the hot stove. Amanda just could not face the fact that
Laura was indeed very different from other girls. In scene seven, Laura explains
the significance of her glass managerie to the gentleman caller, Jim O’conner.
The conversation carried on by Laura and Jim coincides with Laura’s self. When
she is describing the ornament to him, she is actually describing her self.
Laura tells Jim how fragile her unicorn is. On page 83, scene seven she tells
him “be careful-- if you breath, it breaks!“ She goes on saying that its
thirteen years old. This is a perfect description of Laura.
A very fragile girl
who acts like a thirteen year old--innocent and unaware of the real world around
her. Jim acknowledges that unicorns do not exist and on page 83, he says “poor
little fellow, he must feel sort of lonesome.” And Laura says “well, if he does,
he doesn’t complain about it. He stays on with some horses that don’t have horns
and all of them seem to get along nicely together.“ This means that Laura knows
that she is different from other people but it does not affect her as much as
other people would think it should. After the conversation, Jim asks Laura to
dance. Laura is stiff like glass and has a hard time loosening up. Then
suddenly, while they’re dancing, they bump the table where the unicorn is and it
falls on the floor and breaks its horn. To Jim’s surprise, Laura smiles and acts
like nothing happened. She says it makes him feel less “freakish” and “he will
feel more at home with the other horses, the ones that don’t have horns” (85).
This symbolizes Laura’s transformation to a more normal person.
She has shed
some of her shyness by opening up to Jim. Jim’s attention has given her hope
that she could be more ordinary. Laura really snaps into reality when when she
finds out that Jim is engaged to be married. She hands the unicorn to Jim and
tells him it‘s a souvenir. The unicorn is a souvenir of the breaking of Laura’s
illusion that her disability is a permanent barrier between her and the outside
world. In parting with the treasure, she seems to be saying that she does not
need to fantasize anymore. The author’s use of symbolism, in this case the,
glass managerie, is a way to describe the characters on a figurative level. He
uses a lot of symbols, such as the fire escape, blue rose and the gentleman
caller to name a few, but none has more of an impact of the meaning of symbolism
as does the glass managerie. The glass animals as a whole represents Laura’s
fantasy world, whereas the unicorn itself symbolize Laura’s emotional anguish.
Only when the unicorn loses its horn does Laura too become more like ordinary
people.
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