36 pages • 1 hour read
William IngePicnic
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1953A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Trains, Cars, and Buses
At the beginning of the play, Madge, Millie, and Flo hear the train whistling as it passes through the town. To Madge and Millie, the train represents the possibility of freedom, though in different ways that reflect differences in personality. Millie imagines taking the train out of their small town and going all the way to New York. Madge fantasizes about someone riding that train into town and rescuing her—taking her to Washington and giving her a more interesting purpose than becoming a housewife. Millie sees the train as a tool of her own agency, while Madge sees it as something that has the potential to disrupt her agency-less life and push her in a different direction. To Millie, the train represents adventure and the unknown. Madge isn’t quite ready to step out of the comfort of having others guide her life but knows that she wants more.
Flo, who seized agency when she was younger and regrets her choices, recognizes that the train only goes to Tulsa. In Flo’s experience, taking the path of adventure seems exciting but quickly leads to another dead-end town. Flo is far more interested in automobiles, which are a material part of the American Dream. Flo is impressed when Alan shows up with two cars, seeing them as a sign of prosperity. As owner-operated vehicles, cars also provide a much higher level of agency and flexibility than trains for those who can afford them—a commentary on agency and wealth more broadly. For Madge, marrying Alan would provide the luxury of travel, but her agency would still ultimately be subjugated to his. As Alan demonstrates when he accuses Hal of stealing his car, he reserves the right to revoke that agency.
Madge ultimately opts for the passion and excitement Hal offers. He’s running away and riding the rails into the unknown. Flo is certain that this path leads to pain and heartbreak but cannot convince Madge otherwise. For Madge, taking the bus to Tulsa is a more controlled action than Hal’s decision to hop on the train: She is electing to buy a ticket and travel to a specific destination. However, Madge is still trusting her intuition and youthful sense of invincibility by taking a leap to be with a man whom she has only known for a day. Meanwhile, Millie still dreams of escaping the predictability of small-town life, but she maintains her ambition of doing it through her own steam and agency.
Clothing
As a way in which people present themselves publicly, clothes reveal how characters see themselves, how others see them, and the interplay of these perspectives. When Helen hires Hal, he is a homeless drifter in filthy clothes. The dirt and clothing lead Flo to decide that Hal is nothing but a tramp who is unworthy of decent company. Having recently been robbed of everything, Hal is at his lowest point and has nothing but the clothes on his back. When he gives Helen his shirt to wash, the vulnerability of being naked embarrasses him, even though, as Millie points out, Alan wore even less when they went swimming. Hal’s boots are his only inheritance from his father, and they represent the burden and stigma of his rough childhood. His father saw them as a symbol of manhood and masculine pride—a symbol that Hal sheds when he has to run from the police, leaving the boots by the river.
For the picnic, Hal borrows clothes from Alan in an attempt to fit in. However, just as Hal doesn’t fit in with the people of the town, he also doesn’t fit into Alan’s clothes, inadvertently destroying them. First the jacket tears because it’s too small. Then Rosemary rips his shirt as she is humbling him and reminding him that he isn’t who he is dressing up to be. Millie also dresses up for the picnic in an effort to pretend that she is more like her sister than herself. Her day-to-day clothing protects her from the expectations and problems that come with being a woman. In a dress, Millie feels exposed: She sees how people treat her differently, and it makes her uncomfortable.
Early in the play, Flo is making Madge a dress just as she is manipulating the shape of Madge’s life. When Madge tries it on and stands next to Alan, the women joke that she looks like a bride. Flo tells Madge to save the dress for special occasions, just as Madge is expected to wait for sex or fulfillment generally. Putting on the dress against her mother’s directions is a small act of disobedience that serves as a catalyst for Madge rejecting her mother’s plan for her life altogether. Madge says that she isn’t sure why she put on the dress, just as she doesn’t seem to know why she follows her mother’s orders. When she changes out of her mother’s dress, Madge changes into her own person.
The Picnic
The first two acts of the play center on preparation for the picnic, which is a significant event in the life of the small town. The picnic also occurs on Labor Day, which is the last day of summer break. It symbolizes both the fading of the carefree warmth of summer and the fading of youth.
Beyond this general symbolism, the picnic represents particular things to individual characters. Flo sees the picnic as an opportunity to display her family’s social status through association with Alan Seymour’s family. She is proud to arrive in Alan’s nice cars and show off her attractive daughters. Flo also uses the preparations for the picnic to solidify Madge’s domestic role as a grown woman, requiring her to spend the morning in the kitchen when she would rather be swimming. When Madge chooses not to go to the picnic, she is rebelling against the woman she is supposed to be and becoming a woman in her own way
The picnic is a rite of passage for Millie, who suddenly has her first date thrust upon her because the adults decide that she is old enough to require an escort. Notably, this represents a shift in her personal agency, since she isn’t asked or given the choice as to whether she would like a date. This marks the beginning of Millie’s adult womanhood, which, if she remains in the small town, means passively becoming what she is expected to become.
Helen sees the picnic as a chance to revisit her own faded youth, just as she does when she hires young men to work for her. Like Howard, however, she understands that some things are for young people; she can look and fantasize, but not touch. Rosemary similarly makes the decision to forgo the picnic when she realizes that she has been hanging onto her perception of her own youth.
