Tennessee Williams' play, “The Glass Menagerie”, describes the life of a strange but intriguing character: Laura. Because she has a slight disability in her leg, she lacks the confidence and desire to socialize with people outside her family. Refusing to be forced into reality, she often escapes into her own world, which consists of her records and collection of glass animals. This glass menagerie has great significance throughout the work (as the title suggests) and is representative of several aspects of Laura's personality. Since the glass menagerie symbolizes more than one characteristic, its images can be considered both coherent and fluctuating. The glass menagerie continually signifies Laura's love. Like the glass menagerie, the only people who see its unique beauty are those who take the time to look at it in the right light. One of the first people outside the family to see Laura's livelier side is Jim, a friend of her brother's and an old high school crush. While having dinner at their house, Jim becomes interested in Laura's collection of animals and glass discs. They remember high school, and when Jim starts to understand why she's so shy, he says, “You know what I think is your problem? Inferiority complex! Do you know what it is? That's what they say when someone underestimates themselves!” Seeing her now as the vibrant creature she is, Jim is intrigued by her exotic beauty. While Laura's entire collection represents her personality, the unicorn in particular symbolizes her unique and rare soul. When he shows Jim his menagerie, he declares that the unicorn is his favorite. “Aren't they extinct in the modern world?” Jim replies. He also says that the unicorn must be lonely because he is not like other horses. It seems that the unicorn is Laura's favorite because she can easily identify with it, with its beauty, its uniqueness and its solitude. At the beginning of the story she “shines” when people choose to see her in the right “light,” which is love. or attention. However, at the end of the show, when Jim accidentally breaks the unicorn's horn, it is no longer exotic or unique. At first, Laura calls this “a blessing in disguise” – that he made her normal. But when he reveals to her that he is engaged to another woman, her hopes are shattered just like the unicorn's horn. Now the unicorn is just like all the other horses, so she decides that he is better suited to Jim than to her. When he asks her what she's giving it to him for, she replies, "A—souvenir..." Then he hands it to him, as if to show him that he had shattered his unique beauty. This incident changes her in the way that a piece of her innocence that made her so different is now gone. She is still as beautiful and fragile as the menagerie, but just as she gives Jim a piece of her collection, she also gives him a piece of her heart that he will never be able to win back. Laura and her menagerie are both in danger of being crushed if exposed to the indifferent reality of the world