back together again. The broken unicorn is the symbol for Laura herself now.
The language of the play is far more intelligent and poetic than one would expect from the socioeconomic class to which the Wingfields belong. This is an intelligent family which is able to express itself well. At the same time, the language is down-to-earth. Its poetry is the poetry of the people, not the poetry of universities.
What Williams want to mainly express with his characters is their emotions, not ideas or theories. At the same time, when he needs to have an idea expressed, the language is able to express that idea. Tome, for example, expresses social and economic ideas in the opening speech of the play (1344).
But Williams' language is intelligent mainly because it is able to show these emotions, even when the characters might not be trying to show those emotions, or even when they are trying to hide their emotions. Laura does not want to show all her emotions to Jim, the gentleman caller, but her language reveals what she is feeling anyway. When Jim bumps the table and breaks the unicorn's glass horn, Laura reveals her hopes for his love by acting as if she does not care that the unicorn has been broken. In fact, at that moment, she does not care about the unicorn, or any of the glass animals of the menagerie, because she believes she is going to have love at last. The language carries her feelings of hope for the future and her lack of interest in the unicorn and the other glass animals, at least at that moment: "I don't have favorites much. It's no tragedy. . . . Glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you are" (1383). Of course, soon she will find Jim is engaged already, and language fails her. All she says after that is "a souvenir" when s
...