During the first part of this scene, Amanda’s conduct does show that she knows how to entertain and that she is not overly distracted by the lights going out. She is also very careful to use this as an excuse to get Tom into the kitchen so as to leave the gentleman caller with Laura.
The scene between Laura and Jim O’Connor gives us our first view of Laura as a person. Suddenly, she comes alive as an individual, unique and different, but with her own charm that goes much deeper than the superficial gibbering of Amanda.
Note that as the scene progresses, Laura rapidly gains confidence in herself and begins to lose some of her shyness. She relaxes enough to show Jim her glass menagerie, a collection that she treasures and that she would not readily show to just anyone. It is then that she explains her preference for the unicorn, which like Laura, is different from the other animals; its uniqueness makes it Laura’s favorite. Symbolically, the unicorn here represents Laura’s own self. She is also different and unique. But she, like the unicorn, doesn’t complain about being lonesome or unique, and like Laura, the unicorn is the most delicate of all the animals in the collection.
After looking at the collection, Jim proposes to Laura that they dance. He is still trying to build up her ego and to prove to her that she is not as different as she thinks herself to be. In other words, he is trying to break through to Laura; But the dance is used also as the method by which the unicorn is broken, and Jim’s clumsiness can also break the delicate Laura.
As soon as the unicorn is broken, Laura maintains that now it does not feel as freakish and looks more like the other horses. Symbolically, Laura is feeling more normal now than she has ever felt. Even though Jim seems to the audience a rather ordinary young man, to Laura he is quite exceptional, and he has achieved his aim of bringing Laura somewhat out of her world of retreat.
After Jim makes his awkward confession about his engagement to Betty, Laura gives him the broken unicorn. Here the symbolism may be variously interpreted. We may see the broken unicorn as Laura’s broken hopes, or we may say the broken unicorn is no longer unique like Laura but instead it is ordinary like Jim; or it may represent her broken hopes for love and romance, and she gives the symbol of her love to Jim to take away with him since he has broken her as well as her unicorn. That is, symbolically he takes away her broken unicorn and her broken love.
Some people may wish to quarrel with the presentation of this scene in a memory play; that is, if the play is presented as Tom’s memory, then he couldn’t possibly know what took place in this scene.
With Amanda’s sudden attack on Tom for his allowing them to make such “fools of ourselves,” we must remember that it was Tom who tried to get Amanda not to make a fuss, and that even Jim says Tom didn’t know that he was engaged. But Amanda, realizing her own mistake, cannot take the blame for it. Suddenly, her charm leaves her, and we see her as just a nagging woman who cannot face reality. Here also her illusions leave her, and she even refers to Laura as “crippled.”
