Popular Dance Music
73
who earlier in Tom’s memory play built their dreams on “Waiting for the
Sunrise.”
Analogues between Laura and the swallow shed further light on her fate and
Tom’s painful memory of his sister’s plight. Like the swallow, Laura has trouble
“flying” (her crippled leg prevents her from being like regular girls) and she
certainly desires a home in someone’s heart. But when Jim asks her to dance,
she responds “I—can’t dance . . . I’ve never danced in my life” (224). But for a
few fleeting moments in Jim’s arms Laura becomes the “graceful” bird happy in
his embrace. Reassuringly, he urges her on “Just let yourself go,” “Not so stiff—
easy does it,” and “Lots, lots better” (225). Thinking she has found her
Gentleman Caller, Laura relaxes and believes she is freed from a lonely future.
But her flight is short-lived as she and Jim "'suddenly bump into the table, and
the glass piece on it falls to the floor. Jim stops the dance"" (225). Then ensues
his feigned courtship, telling Laura she is “very different from anyone else” and
that “being different is nothing to be ashamed o f’ (227). He insists that
“Somebody needs to build your confidence up and make you proud instead of
shy and running away—and blushing. Somebody -ought—to kiss you, Laura”
(228). All these promises occur as “La Golondrina” plays hauntingly across the
alley at the Paradise Dance Hall, transforming the Wingfield’s shabby, small St.
Louis apartment into a magic space for Laura. For a few minutes it is as if the
song became her self-fulfilling prophecy. But, of course, it does not. As soon as
Jim, kisses her, he brands himself a “Stumblejohn,” and confesses that he is
engaged, abandoning Laura, leaving the swallow alone, heartbroken, denied the
homeland promised by the singer of the Mexican waltz. Through the music of
this song about the swallow, the memory of his lonely sister will haunt Tom
Wingfield in every production of his Glass Menagerie.
As with the two other popular tunes Williams includes in his stage
directions, “Waiting for the Sunrise” and “Dardanella,” he discovers in “La
Golondrina” even more symbolic ways to express his nostalgic memory of the
past. Mining the significance of the swallow in classical mythology, Williams
was afforded with yet another way to characterize his sister’s pain through this
popular music. Ironically, the bird was associated with fertility, a talisman of
Venus, a role never fulfilled by the reclusive, self-negating Laura. Further
intensifying Williams’s painful memory of his sister, the swallow in “La
Golondrina” calls to mind the Christian symbolism associated with the bird. For
centuries, the swallow stood for fertility, as well as the Incarnation, the Word
becoming flesh (“Swallows”). The Christian allusions that the swallow offered
Williams thus complemented the other religious symbolism he wove throughout
Menagerie (e.g., the candelabrum from the Church of the Heavenly Rest [210];
Jim’s arrival being likened to the Annunciation). “La Golondrina” thereby gave
him another opportunity to blend the secular (Jim’s coming into Laura’s world)
with the sacred (the Incarnation). However, this beloved Mexican melody may
be the cruelest song in the play, for it does not transport the wounded Laura