Significance Of Laura Wingfield In The Glass Menagerie By Tennessee Williams

Significance of Laura Wingfield The Glass Menagerie written by Tennessee Williams is a reflection on his real life conflicts. Laura Wingfield represents his real life sister who was disabled physically, but also emotionally. Laura plays a very shy and sensitive girl who does not speak a lot during the play but holds great significance for the overall meaning of the play. All of her own conflicts are added conflicts from other characters. She deals with her mother, Amanda, who is trying to relive her own early adulthood through her and her brother, Tom, who she is miserable with his own life. She carries the guilt that her brother cannot go follow his dreams and has to help take care of her because their father left the family. Laura Wingfield …show more content…
Laura is emotional because she never gets a chance to speak her mind She finds her happiness doing what she wants to do, which was go to the zoo and take care of her glass menagerie. Her taking care of her glass menagerie represents her taking care of herself which is why I think she found interest in doing so because since she is crippled she cannot do anything for herself, which eases her guilt that she feels from having to have Tom stay and take care of them. I think Tom and Amanda speak frequently about what they want for themselves and what they plan to do with their life whereas Laura’s whole life was controlled by her mother who is planning her life out for her, and she never gets a chance to say what she wants to do with her life or what makes her happy, which can make a person emotional because she bottles all of her feelings inside. Her glass menagerie set resembles her greatly. Laura and the glass figurines are both very fragile and if dropped they will break. I think Tennessee Williams did this on purpose to show that eventually Laura will break one day, which ended up happening in scene four. At the end of scene four, Amanda and Tom were having another argument, which was worse than all the others. Tom was throwing things and one of the items he threw ended up breaking Laura’s glass menagerie. I think instead of having Laura become upset, crying and trying to get them to stop arguing, Tennessee Williams made the glass menagerie breaking as a way to show Laura’s heart being broken because her family can’t get along. This scene was important because it showed that Laura was disappointed that she could no longer keep the family