Literary Analysis of The "Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams

“Oh. Laura, Laura I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be!” The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is a memory play that emphasizes the impossibility of true escape. During 1929 to 1939 the country took a downturn as the stock market crashed and caused the great depression which affected everybody financially. In The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, He uses literary devices like simile, symbolism, and imagery to reveal the impossibility of true escape. Tennessee Williams uses symbolism to help show the impossibility of true escape.

Tennessee Williams uses symbolism to emphasize the impossibility of true escape by showing Tom spending a lot of time on the fire escape. “Tom enters, dressed as a merchant sailor, and strolls across to the fire escape. There he stops and lights a cigarette.” Tom strolling around on the fire escape and spending a lot of time there smoking resembles how Tom will try to escape and nearly escape and then escape. Except he doesn’t truly escape because he still holds the memories of Laura. Symbolism is used to show the impossibility of true escape when Tom gets in an argument with his mom and goes to the movies.

“Where are you going? I’m going to the movies!” This is evident that symbolism is used to show Tom wants to escape his reality but can’t. Every time when things at his house get unbearable he leaves the house and heads to the movies. To conclude Tennessee Williams uses symbolism to convey the impossibility of true escape. Tennessee Williams uses Allegory to help show the impossibility of true escape. Tennessee Williams uses Allegory when Amanda talks about her husband when she is referring to her past. “Slight disadvantage like that, they cultivate other things to make up for it develop charm and vivacity and charm! that all you have to do! One thing your father had plenty of was charm!.

This is evidence that this is Allegory because Amanda always refers to her husband in a bad way because she blames him for putting her in this position of being a single mother while she could have been married to a landowner. This shows that Amanda never truly escapes because she doesn’t find another husband and she is still stuck with Laura when Tom leaves. Tennessee Williams uses Allegory when Laura refers to her past when she was in high school and liked Jim O’Connor.

Tennessee Williams uses Allegory when Laura refers to her past when she was in high school and liked Jim O’Connor. “I said pleurosis – He asked me what was the matter when I came back. I said pleurosis he thought that I said blue roses! so that’s why he always called me that after that. I didn’t care for the girl that he went out with Emily Meisenbach. Emily was the best-dressed girl at Soldan”. This is allegory because the lesson that Laura learns when she refers to her past is that she was too shy with people. She states that she didn’t care for the girl that her crush Jim went out with was because she was too shy.

In conclusion, Tennessee Williams uses allegory to show the impossibility of true escape. Tennessee Williams uses imagery to help show the impossibility of true escape. The author uses imagery when Laura describes her glass menagerie collection to Jim. “Little articles of it, they’re ornaments mostly! Most of them are little animals made out of glass, the tiniest little animals are in the world. Mother calls them a glass menagerie! Oh, be careful — if you breathe, it breaks. This shows how Tennessee Williams uses imagery to show the impossibility of true escape because like the glass menagerie Laura also has the same characteristics of being fragile and delicate. When Jim starts conversing with Laura she starts to open up and becomes more confident but when Jim announces to Laura that he is engaged to Betty she recurs back to her fragile and delicate personality.

Another example of the author using imagery is when Laura is telling Jim how she was shy in high school. “You were shy with people! I tried not to be but never could overcome it, no I never could.” This gives us an idea of how Laura acted with her peers in high school and how she tried to socialize and make friends but could never overcome her shyness. This is evident that Laura never truly escapes her being shy and delicate because at the end of the book she returns to her old personality. In conclusion, the author uses literary devices such as imagery to prove that the characters never truly escaped. In The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, the author uses literary devices like simile, symbolism, and imagery to reveal the impossibility of true escape. He also uses these literary devices to help develop the characters and the story which leads to them not escaping their reality. In conclusion, the author uses these literary devices to point out how each character never truly escapes. Laura keeps being shy, Amanda keeps living in her fantasy life of her past, and Tom holds the memories of Laura when he leaves.