Toy Gun (Symbol)
Toy guns are a symbol for real violence in the musical. Early on, Mickey and his brother Sammy are seen playing with toy guns with some neighborhood kids. As Sammy gets older, he gets in more significant trouble with the law. He flashes a knife at a bus driver and then later kills someone during a failed robbery. His eventual life of crime and imprisonment is foreshadowed by his playing with these guns. His initial penchant for these guns foreshadows how violence will become an inextricable part of his life, eventually resulting in him getting sent to prison.
New Shoes on the Table (Symbol)
Mrs. Johnstone is taken aback when Mrs. Lyons puts a pair of new shoes on the table. Her reaction is driven by the superstition that putting shoes on the table is bad luck. This becomes the refrain of the song "Shoes Upon the Table," which crops up every time the characters feel pursued by bad luck and fate. In this way, the shoes act as a symbol of superstition and destiny, as they are signs of bad luck.
Debt (Motif)
Debt is a motif in the beginning of the play. Mrs. Johnstone struggles financially, as she owes money to debt collectors and is also sad about having to give up one of her children because she doesn't have the resources to raise it. The song "Easy Terms" describes the way in which all of these problems will come to find her eventually, a fact that causes her a great deal of fear. Debt appears as a recurring motif as it highlights how Mrs. Johnstone's continually hard financial situation makes her life an endless series of debts being collected—both in material things and, later, the lives of her two sons.
Locket (Symbol)
Eddie receives a locket from Mrs. Johnstone with a picture of herself and Mickey, or so she says. She says he hopes he will remember them by it. However, the real significance of this gift is Mrs. Johnstone's hope to be somehow involved in Eddie's life in some way. She wants to keep the bond between them alive, despite not being able to ever see him. The locket works as a symbol of her unrealized relationship and emotional connection with Eddie.
Milk (Symbol)
Early in the musical, the milkman appears at the Johnstones' doorstep asking for money. Mrs Johnstone says she cannot pay him and he reminds her she can’t keep putting this off. The milk acts as a symbol of her persisting debts.
