How Does Williams Explore the Theme of Entrapment in the...

The characters in this play seek flight – How does Williams explore the themes of entrapment and flight? Tennessee Williams explores the theme of entrapment and flight through symbolism and motifs that depict a want for escape, relationships that portray entrapment of each other and conventions of a play, such as scenery, stage directions, narrative and dialogue that heighten these ideas as a whole. The opening scene sketches out the scenery and initial symbol of entrapment for all the characters - the flat which is ‘always burning with the slow implacable fires of human depression’. As Williams describes, the flat is a symbol of depression, formulated by the era the play was set in, the 1930s - just after the Wall St. Crash, in which†¦show more content†¦In terms of Laura herself, the glass menagerie in the central symbol to the play and represents, not only the different aspects of Laura, that is delicate and fragile, but also how Laura is trapped within a cabinet - within the fantasy world of glass figures. This links into the phrase ‘left on the shelf’, the idea that Laura, being part of the glass collections, has been left away from leading the normal life of romance which she fantasises about with Jim, showing how she has trapped herself on the shelf by being out of touch with reality, trapped within the cabinet. Linking on from the glas s figures being symbolic of Laura, the delicacy could be seen as symbolic of her disability, something Laura also believes traps her from being ‘normal’. However, this links onto the next aspect of exploring relationships, and in many ways Amanda is responsible for Laura’s belief that her disability entraps her. In Scene 2, Amanda’s entrapment of Laura becomes evident in three different lights, Laura’s fear of disappointing Amanda, Amanda’s overbearingness as a parent and the idea planted in Laura’s head by Amanda that her disability my hinder her in life. This becomes more apparent when Laura states to her mothers ‘I couldn’t face it’, referring to the fact the disappointment that would received if Laura had told Amanda that she ad quite the typewriting course. This shows how Laura feels there is a