The band is playing "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise" but Tom tells us, "All the world was waiting for bombardments." What is the world scene, and what [possible significance could it have for this play?

After dinner, Tom reads a paper (the headline reads, "Franco triumphs") as Amanda and Laura clear the table and do the dishes. This is referring to WW2. After being produced in Chicago in 1944, the play arrived in New York in 1945, the year the war ended. For Americans, the most significant historical event of the first half of the 1940s was the entry of the United States into World War 2.