Part one of term paper
"I have a poet's weakness for symbols." So states Tom Wingfield, narrator and major character in Tennessee William's timeless play “The Glass Menagerie”. Through the eyes of Tom, the viewer gets a glance into the life of his family in the pre-war depression era; his mother, a southern belle desperately clinging to the past, his sister, a ...

Part two of term paper
... are destroyed by the harsh realities of the world. Symbols are a major part of this play, as Tom, the narrator, is a poet, and admits he has a weakness for symbols. One major symbol presented in the story is that of the fire escape, a symbol that has a different meaning and function for each character. For Tom, it is a means of escape from fire, not the type of fire that was considered in its building, but “the slow and implacable fires of human desperation.” This is especially true of Tom' ...