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The Living Room

The living room is a central setting in the play and we often see characters sitting there, going about their own business. The characters in Mary and Harry's house are never doing anything together, instead pursuing their own respective activities alone. At any given moment, one person will be drinking tea while another watches the television. This lack of togetherness reaches its peak in the final scene, when everyone pursues their own activities without speaking to one another, a tableau of domestic alienation.

Stoning the Baby

In the middle of the play, Fred and his friends stone Pam's baby to death in its pram, a horrifying display of aggression and violence. It is an uninterrupted and horrifying sequence of events, and the audience must sit and watch in complicity with the violence.

Len on the floor

After Harry, Mary, Pam, and Len have a huge fight, Len goes to his room and lies on the ground with his ear to the floorboards, listening to see if Pam has brought anyone back to her room. It is an image of just how attached to Pam Len is, and how he is devoted to spying on her—even after she has rejected and abused him time and again.

Harry's bandages

While Len is lying on the floor, Harry comes in in long underwear with a bandage wrapped around his skull. He looks like a patient in a hospital, but he is simply nursing himself after Mary poured hot tea water on his head. It is an image of a person who has endured a great deal of violence, taking care of himself because no one else will.