The setting of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, like many elements in the play, has symbolic value, and the setting is in the memory of the character of Tom and so is not meant to be fully realistic. As narrator, Tom stands outside the action even as he will be part of the action, commenting from the sidelines as he remembers. The play symbolizes Tom's development as a human being and a writer, and the incidents of the play are particularly important to his understanding of himself.
An important part of the setting is the collection of glass figures. The fragile glass creatures are just like Laura, the sister, and yet it is when the Gentleman Caller accidentally breaks one of the figures when he is dancing with Laura that Laura is contradictorily set free from her dream world. In a larger sense, this sets Tom free, allowing him to escape from the home after he has a fight with Amanda because the Gentleman Caller is already engaged. Escape is in fact a recurring motif, from the escape effected by the father years before to Tom's escape, never to return. Escape as a theme is always bittersweet, and in addition it is never complete--Tom carries his memories with him and cannot truly escape from Amanda and his sister and the room in which they live. He carries the setting with him.
The picture of the father is prominent on the set of the play, and this picture symbolizes escape. This picture is given added prominence as Tom refers to the father as a fifth character:
This is our father who left us a long time ago. He was a telephone man who fell in love with long distances. . . (Williams 30).
The father is the only one who makes a complete escape, at least as far as we know; if he remembers the family wistfully, we do not know it. The picture on the mantel is not the only symbol of escape in the scene. For Laura, the glass animals are an escape. For everyone, the ever-present fire escape is a means of g...