Glass Menagerie Essay

1014 Words5 Pages
The glass menagerie The glass menagerie, by Tennessee William, uses many symbols which represent many different things. Tom wingfield gives the reader an inside look into the lives of a common family living in the pre-war depression area. The members of the family experience a great deal, and their lives are made much more vivid and meaningful through Williams’ symbolism. Three well-crafted symbols are the fire escape, which represents hope and an escape to the outside world .The glass menagerie, which is a metaphor for Laura’s fragility and uniqueness. The last one is the rainbows, which symbolize unrealized hopes and aspirations. Those themes are revealed in a stylized, artistic manner, which is one, the reasons why the Glass Menagerie is a meaningful classic. At the beginning of the story, the author told Mr. Wingfield left his family for a life in the road. He used to work for the telephone company and fell in love with long distances. So, the situation of Tom father did not take his liability left Tom with all the responsibilities to take care the family including the overbearing mother Amanda and his disabled sister Laura. With all the responsibility on Tom shoulder, Tom forced to take a job at warehouse in order take care the need of the family and pay the rent. Tom is unsatisfied with his life, and he is always seeking for a way to escape his misery. In Tom’s eyes, the fire escape serves as a transit between the truth and the illusion. He detached himself to the reality, which in case that maybe he can escape from the reality. Tom’s way to remove himself from the reality is to go to movies every night after work. He pretends that he loves adventure when he says in the quote that “I go to the movies because I like adventure. Adventure is something I do not have much of at work, so I go to the movies.” (page 661). But Tom was trying to run away from his
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