The movies represent a form of escapism mainly for the character-narrator Tom, who finds no other stimulation in his life. He is bored in his ill-paid job in a shoe factory and exasperated at home by his mother's constant nagging, so he goes to the movies as much as he can. They feed his rich inner life of fantasy, allowing him to imagine himself in all sorts of exciting, indeed lawless, roles.

However Tom is not so wrapped up in the movies that he can't see that they are essentially a form of delusion for the American public at large, who use them for fulfillment instead of actively trying to make a better and more rewarding life for themselves (see his conversation with Jim, scene six). The play suggests that the movies distract people too much from real-life problems, both social and personal, which need to be addressed.

Some of the many symbols in The Glass Menageriethat hold the most significance serve to illustrate the inner traits of the characters. 

The symbol of perhaps most importance in the play is the figurine of the unicorn in Laura's glass menagerie. The unicorn, as a mythological creature, does not belong to our common, real world. Laura is that unicorn; she is not fit to live in the real world. Moreover, her disability makes her walk and behave in a unique way, much like the unicorn's horn makes him unique. The fact that the unicorn is made of glass is allegorical to Laura's fragile nature, which is prone to be shattered should anything rough happen to it. Therefore, when Jim and Laura accidentally bump against the menagerie, making the unicorn fall and break the horn, Laura's explanation for it was very much like explaining how she feels at that same moment with Jim: finally, normal.

LA U R A [smiling] I'll just imagine he had an operation. The horn was removed to make him feel less - freakish !

[They both laugh.] Now he will feel more at home with the other horses, the ones that don't have horns. 

The fire escapeis mentioned quite a lot in the stage directions as well as it is referred to in the play. It serves as the constant foreshadowing Tom's own escape from the house. It also serves as the reminder of how Tom's father also left the family. Before the abandonment issues occur, it is in the fire escape landing where Tom retires to smoke and think about the things that really matter to him. It is his personal escape mechanism. In all, the fire escape is precisely that: the way out the door and forever.

I descended the step of this fire-escape for a last time and followed, from then on, in my father's footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space .

The larger-than-life photograph of Tom and Laura's father still remains as a central object of decoration in the Wingfield home. He, who abandons the family, is continuously remembered through that picture. This is an obvious symbol of the inability of Amanda to let go of the past and move forward. It is explained to us the following way

There is a fifth character in the play who doesn't appear except in this larger-than-life-size photograph over the mantel. This is our father who left us a long time ago [...].The last we heard of him was a picture postcard from Mazatlan, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, containing a message of two words - 'Hello - Good-bye!' and no address.

The name "blue roses", which is the nickname that Jim O'Connor gives Laura when they are in high school is symbolic of Laura's unique nature, much like the unicorn is also a symbol of her. Blue Roses was meant to be the word "pleurosis", which is a condition that Laura develops in high school. However, the delicate nature of a rose of a mythic color is embodied by Laura's own delicate and unique personality. It is also a symbol of how Jim did pay attention, and cared about, Laura, after all. 

The candlesused during Jim's visit reflect the family's inability to pay utilities, hence, being only able to find their way through the feeble light of candles. The Wingfields do not seem to be able to keep up with the real world, even with their bills. Hence, when Tom wants Laura to blow her candle he is both hoping for them to, one day, catch up, and for her to just leave his memories, and sadness, for good. 

In The Glass Menagerie, Tom lives a relatively boring life. His job at a shoe factory is tedious and doesn't pay well, and at home, his mother constantly nags him. He is his family's only provider, but he dreams of becoming a poet. With almost everything in his life so disappointing, he often goes to the movies to escape. By doing so, he hopes to immerse himself in the adventures of the stars on the screen. The films symbolize escapism and are a way for Tom to imagine all the ways his life could be more exciting. He dreams for a life full of adventure and romance.

However, Tom understands that the movies do not provide real fulfillment. He laments that Hollywood stars have adventures on the screen, but Americans sit in dark rooms to vicariously live through those escapades. He thinks it would be better for people to take active steps to take exciting chances and better their own lives. Every time Tom goes to the movies, he knows he has to leave the theater eventually and return to his own boring life. Williams might be hinting that movies offer too much escapism; people turn to them as a way to feel better about their lives for a short time, but they are not a substitute for true fulfillment.

Tom's opening speech that provides the background to the drama is significant in a couple of ways.  The first is that it establishes the drama's trajectory.  Being able to provide the guidance as a narrator figure, we are introduced to the Wingfield family through Tom's eyes.  It is significant that he leads us through this exploration.  He does not glorify himself in this process, but rather details a family whose internal struggle defines the emotional cruelty and interplay we are to witness:

I am the narrator of the play, and also a character in it. The other characters are my mother, Amanda, my sister, Laura, and a gentleman caller who appears in the final scenes. He is the most realistic character in the play, being an emissary from a world of reality that we were somehow set apart from. But since I have a poet’s weakness for symbols, I am using this character also as a symbol; he is the long delayed but always expected something that we live for.

Another layer of significance is how the speech is constructed.   The first part of it is factual, almost undeniable.  There is a listing of characters and it is almost nonchalant in its description.  To an extent, Williams uses to this to represent the Wingfield family.  On face value, they seem no different than any other American family.  Yet, as the speech continues, the symbolic analysis emerges.  The discussion of "a world of reality" and being distant, as well as the notion of "something long delayed, but always expected something that we live for" become evident in this description.  This is significant because the speech makes a pivot from the literal to the symbolic, from what is true and verifiable to what is difficult to ascertain.  This parallels how the reader comes to understand the Wingfield family.  On surface, they seem quite typical.  As the drama unfolds, they will become more complex and more dynamic, representing the polarities of human emotional experience on an intimate level.

Amanda, Tom and Laura's mother is both a symbol and an image in the play.  Symbolically, she represents a time gone by, a genteel time, when a lady was called upon by her gentleman callers and her future was secured through a prosperous marriage. 

 Laura, on the other hand has no such environment on which to rely for her future.  Amanda, between her behaviors, attitudes and her southern charm, keeps the old south alive in the play, so that the reader is constantly imagining what her life was like.  On the other hand, Amanda's image, of a washed out old debutante who is stuck in the past reflects the hopelessness of the situation in the family.

Tom keeps the image of his missing father alive through his attitude toward Amanda. Tom is a symbolic stand in for his long gone father.  Amanda, in the end, chases Tom away too. 

Laura, like Amanda will end up alone.  After Laura has her romantic interlude with her old high school friend, Jim, and he leaves abruptly because he is getting married.  It is easy to imagine that Laura will never leave the house again.

The dreary apartment reflects the melancholy of the lives of the characters.  The darkness that Tom leaves his mother and sister in is both figurative and literal.  They are left in physical darkness as they face the darkness of their uncertain future.  A future that at the end of the play consists of no income, no job and no prospects.   

Besides the obvious symbolism of the menagerie itself (especially the unicorn’s losing its horn), Williams has made liberal use of symbolism in the dialogue and in the details of the Wingfield household.  For example “(My father) fell in love with long distance” is symbolic of his having deserted the Wingfield family (it can be argued that the very name of the family is symbolic).  For Tom, the fire escape balcony where he goes to dream is symbolic of the ship deck of a boat (he ends up in the Coast Guard) from where he can see the world and find adventures (and the music drifting up to him is symbolic of the romantic life just out of reach).  The movies he goes to are also symbolic of his desire to get out of his real-life situation.  The Gentleman Caller calls Laura “Blue Roses”, transforming symbolically her disease, pleurisy, into something unique and beautiful.  The whole play works this way; what appears as a normal family is actually a symbolic setting for being trapped in the romance of the past (Amanda’s flaw), unable to escape it and join the real world of the present. To address the unicorn symbolism, when Tom swings his jacket (symbolic of his unrest at being trapped there, and of his anguish to depart on an adventure of his own) and knocks the horn off the unicorn, Williams has transformed the mythic creature from a make-believe Romantic world into a real-life horse, a creature of the real world.

The glass menagerie is the play's ultimate symbol of Laura Wingfield's complicated personality. The fanciful nature of the menagerie evokes Laura's flights of fancy. She is someone who often retreats into her imagination, and her aversion to business school reflects that disdain for cold reality. The menagerie's ability to refract multiple colors also parallels Laura's inner beauty, which is not immediately apparent to the people who encounter her casually. Unfortunately, the most obvious link between Laura and the glass menagerie is that both are fragile. Glass breaks easily, just as the delicate Laura is easily hurt when her illusions are shattered.

The little glass unicorn in the collection is the most symbolically significant. Special to Laura, it also represents her uniqueness, just as the unicorn is special among horses. The unicorn's traditional withdrawn nature also parallels Laura's own retreat from the world. When the glass unicorn's horn is accidentally broken off, it symbolizes Laura's becoming "normal" in her interaction with Jim, showing she is not entirely the fairy-tale creature her mother and brother think her to be. However, Jim's revelation about his girlfriend is emotionally devastating to Laura, a kind of desertion in and of itself, causing her to retreat into her fantasy world with a heart as easily broken as her glass figurines.

The Glass Menagerie contains many symbols, for example, the glass animals that Laura keeps are symbolic of her own fragile nature, both physically and emotionally. Disappointment and disallusionment are two themes that run through the play.  Laura is distracted by her interest in the fake world that she enjoys as she polishes her glass animals.  Too afraid to mix in the real world, afraid of rejection or criticism, or failure.

The apartment's closeness to the dance hall is symbolic of the Wingfield's being just on the edge of real happiness in life, but never included. This ties in with the surreal quality that exists in the Wingfields apartment, not quite reality, but a dream-like hell for the characters, one that they cannot wake from.

The lights going out during the dinner with the gentleman caller, Jim, is symbolic of the darkness that will descend on the family, since Tom has decided to abandon the family, just like his father so many years before.  Appearances vs. reality, the family almost looks normal, but underneath the appearance, the reality is very different.

Blue Roses, Jim's high school name for Laura is symbolic of how different she is from other girls.  Not red like most roses, or pink or white or yellow, but blue, also relevant to the way that she feels, and how she will be disappointed by Jim.  Appearances vs. reality again, Laura is not really that different from other girls.

The fire escape symbolically provides the only relief that Tom can get from the frustration that he feels with his mother.  Like a tool used to run from real fires, the fire escape allows Tom breathing room when things get too heated inside the apartment.  Escape is a theme that is consistent with the character of Tom, who longs to leave his life in the apartment behind.

Different symbols relate to different themes, I believe.

For example, the glass menagerie relates to the theme of social outcasts.  One of Tennessee Williams' favorite themes is what is society's obligation to societal misfits?  Laura represents this clearly, and her disappearance into the world of her crystal animals is symbolic of her inability to live in the real world.  When the unicorn's horn breaks off, she contends that it will be happier as it won't feel so "freakish" anymore.  Williams poses the question as to whether people who are different should change to be the same or whether there is a place in society for these different folks.  Another symbol that relates to this theme is the Victrola.  Amanda accuses Laura of using the Victrola as a way of avoiding reality.

Another theme you might consider is the theme of the past.  The old fashioned dress Amanda puts on for Jim's visit is symbolic of her inability to deal with the present.  She is more interested in reliving the glory of her youth when she was inundated with gentlemen callers. Another symbol that relates to this theme is the portrait of the father.  The portrait dominates the apartment, and his lack of physical presence is romanticized - a "telephone man who fell in love with long distance."  It is also a constant reminder to Tom that he is now responsible for Amanda and Laura.

There are more, but I'm out of room!

The collection of Laura's gala collection of small animal figures, especially her glass unicorn, stand for the fragility of the fantasy world into which she has retreated because of her mother's own retreat into the fantasy of her gentele Southern past, itself an exaggeration and a "collection" of distorted memories.  When Tom Wingfield breaks the "horn" off of the unicorn, turning it into an ordinary horse, Williams is demonstrating how fragile a fantasy is, ans how the "real" world is livable as well.  Williams is saying that our own world is in large part a fragile fantasy collection of memories.