ng men sometimes had for adventure and romance. A similar symbol to the movies was the poster of the Merchant Marines, which Tom aspired to join but, his mother, Amanda, criticized him of being a “selfish dreamer”, and kept him from reaching for his ambitions. Another symbol, which dealt with both Amanda and Laura, was Jim O’Connor. Laura looked at Jim as her greatest fear, reality. She was scared of facing up to life , so she ran from any connection to the outside world. Amanda believed that Jim was a perfect example of “the common man,” a person with no real outstanding quality, in fact Jim was rather awkward, which was seen when he danced with Laura. Jim reminded Amanda of the days of her youth, when she went frolicking about picking jonquils and relishing in her “seventeen gentlemen callers on one Sunday afternoon.” Although Amanda desired to see Laura settled down with a nice young man, the invitation of Jim was obviously made so that Amanda could live vicariously through her daughter and remember what it felt like to be wanted. The collection of the glass animals signified Laura’s escape into her carefree happy world. While Laura played with the glass figurines it set her in a place where she could hide and be safe. Amanda told Laura to practice typing, instead Laura played with her glass animals but, as soon as Laura heard Amanda walk up the fire escape, she quickly hid her collection to hide her secret world from others. When Tom left to go to the movies in an angered rush, he accidentally broke some of Laura’s glass animals. The shattered glass epitomized Laura’s understanding of Tom’s responsibilities toward her, and finally understanding that she was the main reason he could not live his life the way he wanted to. One of the pieces that was broken, a unicorn, was broken by Jim. The Broken unicorn directly characterized Laura as a person....
