Themes and Symbolism

Themes:

Relationship between Mother and Son: The relationship between Mrs. Venable and Sebastian was very odd.  The only thing important in her life was her son.  Her husband did not mean anything to her.  Their trips together kept her living and happy.  When she talked to the doctor, all she wanted to talk about was her son.  She even had allotted times everyday for them to have their strawberry daiquiris.  Sebastian loved his mother, and the readers never know if he felt as strongly as his mother did about always being together; however, it is assumed.  Mrs. Venable never thought of Sebastian as her son.  She always thought of him as her best friend and a traveling buddy.  The people in the towns they visited during the summer never considered them mother and son, and she was very happy about that.  The important thing about the relationship between Mrs. Venable and Sebastian is that even though they were mother and son, they never thought of each other in that way.

Insane vs. Sane: Many people in this play believed that Catharine was the insane person, but at the end of the play, we learn her story about what happened to Sebastian.  Even though her story seems quite strange, it is not too strange to make a person live in an asylum.  The things she saw in Cabeza de Lobo are hard to imagine, but she knows that she is telling the truth.  Some people might even believe that Mrs. Venable is insane because of the way she dealt with Sebastian's death.  She loved his strange garden and always showed it off to visitors, but most visitors thought of the garden as weird and not remarkable.  She also could never move on from his death but only wanted to punish Catharine.

Symbolism:

Poems of Summer:  Poems of Summer is the book of poems that Sebastian wrote when he was on his summer vacations with his mother.  The book represents Sebastian's life because there are twenty-five poems: one for every year of his life.

Garden: The garden represented the strangeness of the Venable family.  This garden was no typical garden.  It was more like a jungle in their backyard.  The Venables were not very conventional and neither was Sebastian's garden.