hunter a fighter He dreams of adventure and passion just like Williams himself Tom s guilt after leaving his family reflects Williams s own feelings Williams left home to follow his art but could never forget his sister and mother In Scene Tom says Blow out your candles Laura and so goodbye This line shows his painful guilt and love Laura as Williams s Sister Rose Laura Wingfield is based on Williams s sister Rose Williams Rose suffered from mental illness and was later kept in an institution Williams loved her deeply and always felt guilty for her fate Like Rose Laura is shy and fragile She lives in a small world of glass animals Williams shows her delicacy through soft light and gentle music Her favorite glass unicorn reflects her purity and difference When Jim breaks it she says in Scene Now he will feel more at home with the other horses This line shows her quiet pain and calm acceptance Rose s weakness and isolation haunted Williams all his life He wrote The Glass Menagerie and other plays to express his guilt and love for her Amanda as Williams s Mother Edwina Amanda Wingfield represents Tennessee Williams s real mother Edwina Williams Both are strong talkative and live in memories of the past Amanda often recalls her seventeen gentlemen callers refusing to face reality In Scene Amanda says I m not thinking of just you but of my hopes and ambitions for you This shows her loving but controlling nature Like Edwina she dreams that her children will fulfill the goals she missed Williams s bond with his mother was filled with both love and conflict He respected her but felt trapped by her emotional pressure just as Tom feels with Amanda The Setting as Williams s Own Home The Wingfield apartment in St Louis is similar to Williams s own home His family also lived in a small apartment during the Great Depression Like the Wingfields they struggled with money and disappointment The absent father mirrors Williams s harsh distant father Mr Wingfield s smiling photo symbolizes escape and loss This feeling that Williams shared toward his father The Glass Menagerie as Artistic Symbol The Glass Menagerie itself is a symbol of Williams s artistic soul Just as Laura loves her glass animals Williams cherished his writing Both are delicate beautiful and easily broken Through his art Williams created beauty out of pain In Scene Tom says I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion This line sums up how Williams used imagination to express truth The play itself becomes his emotional confession In short The Glass Menagerie is Tennessee Williams s own life in dramatic form Tom Laura and Amanda are his family brought to the stage Through memory and art he turned sorrow into beauty The play remains his most heartfelt and personal creation