The Glass Menagerie
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In Tennessee Williams, “The Glass Menagerie”, symbolism is used to show how badly Tom wants to escape reality, and how Amanda wishes for days gone by. The fire escape is the one common symbol for both of them.
For Tom, the fire escape symbolizes his escape from his over bearing mother, Amanda, disabled sister, Laura. Tom uses the fire escape to literally leave the apartment, only to escape to an unreal world of movies and drinking. Of course, he also uses it to go to work at a job in the shoe warehouse, which he completely abhorres. When he returns home, he is
questioned by both his mother and sister concerning his whereabouts. He only tells them
that he has been at the movies. This only upsets Amanda because she can tell that he has
been out drinking. She becomes afraid that he is going to turn out like his father, who was a
drunkard and walked out on them. Amanda has a tendancy to be extremely over bearing in her ways, by dictating exactly how Tom and Laura should live their lives. Tom has had enough of this and only wishes to leave the apartment for good. His ultimate goal is to use the fire escape to “escape” his current life and become a merchant marine.
For Amanda, the fire escape is her way of living through her daughter, Laura. Laura is disabled in the fact that she has pleurosis and has one leg shorter than the other. At the time that the story is set, that is a crippling disability. Amanda believes that Laura should leave the apartment and go to business college in order to provide an income into the home to support herself and her mother. Laura, however, due to her disability, has always been rather introverted and shy. She feels out of place at school, and begins to skip her classes. When her mother finds out about this, she is extremely upset and begins to tell Laura that