In Scene Two of The Glass Menagerie, choose two objects that might represent symbols in this scene. What are they symbolic of?

You might find it useful to examine Amanda's speech in
this crucial scene when she is confronting Laura about her deception and asks her what
kind of life they will have in the future if she doesn't train herself up to get some
kind of employment. Amanda paints a bleak picture of what future they can expect, but in
her speech she signals two symbols:

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So what are we going to do the rest of our lives?
Stay home and watch the parades go by? Amuse ourselves with the glass menagerie,
darling? Eternally play those worn-out phonograph records your father left as a painful
reminder of him?

Note how the
phonograph records are shown to be a symbol of Laura's father, and we can see how
important they are to Laura (and, by implication, the memory of her father itself) by
how she repeatedly plays them. Likewise, the glass menagerie becomes a powerful symbol
of Laura's fragility and isolation. Of course, this symbol is developed more fully later
on in the play when Laura talks to Jim about the menagerie's importance to
her.