Grandma's Body
Because this is a play, a reader can only imagine what Grandma looks like, and an audience pictures Grandma as she is portrayed onstage by an actress. In exploring the theme of age in the text of the play, however, Albee conjures some specific imagery relating to Grandma's aging body. Grandma says, "My sacks are empty, the fluid in my eyeballs is all caked on the inside edges, my spine is made of sugar candy, I breathe ice; but you don't hear me complain. Nobody hears old people complain because people think that's all old people do. And that's because old people are gnarled and sagged and twisted into the shape of a complaint."
The hat
A major point of contention within the story that Mommy tells Daddy about the hat is its color. Mommy believes the hat she bought was beige, because that's what the clerk at the store told her. The chair of her women's board, however, alleged that the hat was wheat-colored. This caused Mommy to go into a tizzy, go back to the store and make a scene about being misled about its color. The store clerk goes into the back and then gives her the same hat. It is absurd that such a large scene is made over the color of a hat.
Grandma's Boxes
When Grandma first enters, "she is loaded down with boxes, large and small, neatly wrapped and tied." She puts all of the boxes at Daddy's feet, and Mommy tells Daddy about the fact that Grandma used to wrap up her school lunches in the exact same way. Mommy tells Daddy, "I used to say, 'Oh, look at my lovely lunch box; it's so nicely wrapped it would break my heart to open it.' And so I wouldn't open it." The boxes are so perfectly wrapped that Mommy doesn't even want to open them.
The Young Man
When the Young Man enters, Grandma immediately notes how attractive he is, admiring his muscles and telling him, "You ought to be in the movies, boy." The Young Man is self-aware about how attractive he is, describing himself as a "Clean-cut, Midwest farm boy type, almost insultingly good-looking in a typically American way. Good profile, straight nose, honest eyes, wonderful smile..." It is almost as though the image of the Young Man, his handsomeness and wholesomeness, is an unattainable ideal, a specter rather than a reality.
