All Hope Shall Fade

Over The Glass Menagerie, for school.

            Perhaps the most commonly used symbols within literature are both light and darkness. They can mean a plethora of things: knowledge and ignorance, outlasting and suffering, survival and failure. In The Glass Menagerie, the overwhelming theme of the lights is that of hope. Lights appear within the play through traditional means, like the lamps and candles, but also through unusual ones such as rainbows and the glimmer of light that radiates from Laura’s glass figurines. Each of these represents a different aspect of that hope, from the mystical promise of the rainbow to the small optimism within the dim candles after the lights are completely snuffed out. Each source of light is destroyed or put out by the end of the play, and that symbolizes an end to that hope that each character clings to until the finale.

             As long as there is a light at the end of the tunnel, all characters can make it through any torture they are thrown into. During dinner, Laura, weak from seeing Jim once more, lies upon the couch, the new lamp Amanda has gotten “bringing out the fragile, unearthly prettiness” within her face (1814). The new light symbolizes a new hope, and since it was brought into the Wingfield household for dinner with Jim, it specifically shows the hope the family has placed within Jim to rescue Laura from becoming an old maid. Before dinner, Laura is described as “a piece of translucent glass touched by light, given a momentary radiance” (1806). The light is only “momentary”, a symbol of the momentary hope that she is given by the chance to please her mother. However, like all things that are merely fleeting, it must pass, and she soon discovers, to her shock, that the dinner guest is the one person she loved in high school, and she cannot bear the embarrassment of seeing him once more. Another light reference is made during the fifth scene, when Tom speaks of rainbows, which are light spectrums. In the Bible, a rainbow is shown to Noah after he has been in the ark for much time, a symbol from God of hope and of promise. However, the rainbows Tom refers to are “brief, deceptive rainbows”, which show the mere illusion of hope for the Wingfields (1800). In his final monologue, he again refers to rainbows, but they are “shattered” (1831). Again, this symbolizes the shattering of all hopes the family has.

During dinner, the lights go out, a foreshadowing of the end of the play, when all hope has gone for Laura. They are forced to light candles, which do not glow nearly as bright, which add to the dimly lit atmosphere the play is set under. At the end of the play, of course, Laura blows out the candles, a sign that she has finally accepted that she is without any hope. It is also a sign to the reader that there is to be no love in Laura’s life; the hope has left her for good, and she will never fulfill Amanda’s expectations for her. However, the most symbolic of all the lights is perhaps the light that is seen from within the glass menagerie itself. The glass is the essence of the story; it tells of Laura’s heart when she cannot say it herself. The central glass figure is the unicorn, which is also a symbol of hope and beauty, both of which Laura has at the time she offers it to Jim to hold. When it is broken, it is not only a symbol of Laura’s becoming like the rest, but also of the breaking of hope. When she offers the figurine to Jim, she gives him not only her heart, but also the light within the unicorn-turned-horse, and so the hope leaves her forever.

            By the end of the play, every source of light has been accidentally destroyed or intentionally put out. Since that light is a symbol of the small hope that each member of the Wingfield family has, it shows that by the end of the play, all of the hope is lost for them. Even the fire escape that Tom finally descends for the last time hints at light, or rather the escaping of it, since fire can provide the ability to see into the darkness. He has perhaps enlightened his footsteps away from the house with a final glimmer of hope, although, more likely, the absence of actual flames shows that he too is without any expectations.

Reviews

[Kelley Pascoe]

You write so beautifully . I know this was for a play for school but it made me think of how light effects us all in everything we do. A menagerie of light and darkness plays with our heart string everyday of our life.
Great review. Thanks for sharing.
Kelley Frost