Impossible Escape from Reality
In the play, The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, the Wingfields yearn to escape from their frustrating reality. Williams displays that the family inevitably lives in their own illusions to survive in inescapable reality. A close reading for three elements of character, plot, and symbolism reveals the family’s attempts to escape the reality end.
Williams uses characterization to show the difficulty of escaping reality. Tom escapes his disappointing reality by drinking, attending movies, or writing poems although these escapes are not ultimate solutions to his frustration. Eventually, he becomes a sailor, leaving his home; however, his mind is constantly haunted by Laura because of a sense of guilt and pity. …show more content…
The glass unicorn is a symbol of Laura’s fragility and loneliness. Laura feels that both the unicorn and she are lonely because they appear to be different from others. When the unicorn loses its horn, Laura responds positively: “Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise….It’s no tragedy….Now he will feel more at home with the other horses, the ones that don’t have horns…” (1430). She reveals that she is not comfortable in her illusory world, although she stays there most of time; therefore, the broken unicorn makes her feel better. However, she gives the broken unicorn to Jim as a souvenir. She feels that the normal unicorn in disguise now belongs to Jim, who is realistic and ambitious. She cannot comprehend her identity with the unicorn without a horn. This action indicates that Laura is not ready to escape her imaginary world and her reclusion; additionally, it is not possible for her to leave the security of her refuge. Judith J. Thompson states that “the symbolic moment of divestment is generally dramatized … through …shattering the concrete symbol which has been identified as the objective correlative of the character’s psychic reality” (685). Thus, Thompson insists that Jim’s breaking of Laura’s unicorn represents the catastrophe of Jim and Laura’s relationship as well as its illusion. He thinks that they are forced to face an impoverished reality;
In the play, The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, the Wingfields yearn to escape from their frustrating reality. Williams displays that the family inevitably lives in their own illusions to survive in inescapable reality. A close reading for three elements of character, plot, and symbolism reveals the family’s attempts to escape the reality end.
Williams uses characterization to show the difficulty of escaping reality. Tom escapes his disappointing reality by drinking, attending movies, or writing poems although these escapes are not ultimate solutions to his frustration. Eventually, he becomes a sailor, leaving his home; however, his mind is constantly haunted by Laura because of a sense of guilt and pity. …show more content…
The glass unicorn is a symbol of Laura’s fragility and loneliness. Laura feels that both the unicorn and she are lonely because they appear to be different from others. When the unicorn loses its horn, Laura responds positively: “Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise….It’s no tragedy….Now he will feel more at home with the other horses, the ones that don’t have horns…” (1430). She reveals that she is not comfortable in her illusory world, although she stays there most of time; therefore, the broken unicorn makes her feel better. However, she gives the broken unicorn to Jim as a souvenir. She feels that the normal unicorn in disguise now belongs to Jim, who is realistic and ambitious. She cannot comprehend her identity with the unicorn without a horn. This action indicates that Laura is not ready to escape her imaginary world and her reclusion; additionally, it is not possible for her to leave the security of her refuge. Judith J. Thompson states that “the symbolic moment of divestment is generally dramatized … through …shattering the concrete symbol which has been identified as the objective correlative of the character’s psychic reality” (685). Thus, Thompson insists that Jim’s breaking of Laura’s unicorn represents the catastrophe of Jim and Laura’s relationship as well as its illusion. He thinks that they are forced to face an impoverished reality;