The Glass Menagerie is a modern American play written by Tennessee Williams in 1944. The Glass Menagerie involves the genre of tragedy and family drama in the aftermath of the Great Depression . The play is based on the memoir of the narrator and protagonist, Tom Wingfield. Williams uses several symbols throughout the work, but focuses primarily on the title of the work as the most important symbol throughout the work. As the title of the work tells us, the glass menageries are collections of glass animals. Laura Wingfeild, Tom's sister in the play, is the collector of these glass animals. Laura is a very particular person who struggles both physically and emotionally. He collects them as his way of coping with his physical disability and his emotions. One glass animal in particular from her collection that the author, Williams, uses to symbolize and compare her to most people is the unicorn. The unicorn symbolizes loneliness and rarity, directly intended to represent Laura. More importantly, the unicorn represents a very strong connection and similarity to Laura and how she is perceived. In scenes one and two, we get a glimpse of Laura's personality before the unicorn is mentioned. Laura's mother, Amanda Wingfield, wants nothing more than for Laura to get a business degree so there will be a future for them. Instead of finishing, he stops focusing on his glass collection. Instead of inspiring Laura to do what she cares about, her mother selfishly explains that collecting glass is not a future and she has seen what addiction can do to one. The author shows how unusual and lonely Laura can be in the first scene, compared to how unusual and lonely the unicorn is. To illustrate this, Amanda tells Laura to “stay fresh and cute! He is... middle of paper... the gentleman who calls her and her old high school crush. As they talk about each other, Laura presents Jim with her glass collection and allows him to hold his unicorn among all the animals. He tells him: “if you breathe, it breaks” (1692)! This statement symbolizes Laura and how sensitive she is and if she isn't careful she will fall apart. Jim eventually breaks the unicorn, which is another symbolization of Laura. It's like the broken horn of the unicorn, because Jim leads his people to ultimately destroy themselves by believing that there is hope of finding a lifelong partner. Tennessee William uses this symbolization of the broken unicorn horn in particular, to represent Laura and how fragile she can be. Once destroyed, it falls apart and loses all hope. The unicorn therefore represents Laura exactly as she is and helps the reader to better understand her importance.