The Glass Menagerie

In his play, "The Glass Managerie', Tennessee Williams uses the imagery of a glass unicorn to help convey the emotional anguish of the character, Laura. The unicorn symbolizes Laura's feelings of being "freakish" (scene seven) which has made her a recluse. It is in the second scene that the author begins to reveal Laura's obsession with her glass collection. Laura is lying back gazing into a crystal and seems to be lost in her own …

…established prior to scene 7. I now feel that the unicorn was a souvenir of Laura's broken heart and incurable withdraw from the real world. This notion is confirmed in the very last of the scene when we hear in Amanda's words that Laura is "crippled." This was to demonstrate that even Amanda, was ready to dismiss with the pretending and to admit that Laura would not be so easily won over to reality. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**