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 memory of the narrator and protagonist, Tom Wingfield. Williams uses several symbols throughout the play, but he primarily focuses on the title of the play as the most important symbol throughout. As the title of the piece tells us, glass menageries are collections of glass animals. Laura Wingfeild, Tom's sister in the play, is the collector of these little glass animals. Laura is a very special person who struggles both physically and emotionally. She collects them as her own way of coping with her physical disability and her emotions. One glass animal from his collection in particular that the author, Williams, uses to symbolize and compare it most is the unicorn. The unicorn symbolizes loneliness and unusualness, directly intended to represent Laura. Most importantly, the unicorn represents a very strong connection and similarity between Laura and how she is perceived. In scenes one and two, we get a picture 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 they have a future. Rather than finishing, she stops to focus on her glass collection. Instead of inspiring Laura to do what's important to her, her mother selfishly explains that collecting glass is not a future and that she has seen what being addicted can do for yourself. The author shows how unusual and lonely Laura can be in the first scene, in comparison to how unusual and lonely the unicorn is. To illustrate this, Amanda tells Laura to “stay fresh and pretty!” - He's... middle of paper... his gentleman caller and his old high school crush. As they talk about each other, Laura shows Jim her glass collection and lets him hold her unicorn of all animals. She told him: “if you breathe, it breaks” (1692)! This statement symbolizes Laura and how sensitive she is and if she is not careful she will collapse. Jim ends up breaking the unicorn, which is another symbolization of Laura. She is like the broken horn of the unicorn, because Jim leads his until it ultimately destroys the hope of finding a lifelong partner. Tennessee William's uses this symbolization of the broken unicorn horn in particular to represent Laura and her fragility. Once broken, she collapses and loses all hope. Therefore, the unicorn represents Laura exactly as she is and helps those reading to better understand its significance..