The Apartment

Pops and his extended "family" live in a large, rent-controlled apartment in a mostly wealthy area of New York City (Riverside Drive). The apartment, in its shabby opulence, represents the dreams of status and self-respect to which Pops clings throughout the play in the same way as he clings to his tenancy.

The Wheelchair

At the beginning of the play, Pops sits in the wheelchair his now-deceased wife used to sit in. At the end of the play, Junior sits in that same chair. For both men, the wheelchair represents both the past and their crippling ties to that past. At the end of the play, though, the fact that Junior is sitting in the wheelchair while Pops is up on the roof (a symbol of freedom and opportunity) suggests that while the son (Junior) has remained trapped in the past, the father (Pops) is...