Max’s Cane Symbol Analysis

Max’s cane (referred to in the play as his “stick”) represents his sense of masculinity and the loss of power he experiences in his old age as he becomes less essential to the household. Though Max was once his family’s breadwinner (he worked as a butcher, a physically demanding and violent—and therefore masculine in Max’s eyes—profession), he has long since retired and has thus become less essential to the household. As such, he can no longer command authority as he once did. Unable to ignore how old age has diminished his former power but also unwilling to accept it, Max spends most days cranky and full of resentment. Though he communicates most of that resentment verbally, degrading his sons or pitting them against one another, sometimes Max’s resentment boils over and he resorts to physical violence, wielding his cane as a weapon, as when he strikes Sam in Act 1. 

With its phallic shape, the cane also represents Max’s diminished sense of masculinity—and his deluded belief that he can cling to his masculinity and the power it grants him even as old age takes its toll on his body. Max’s cane proves an effective weapon, but that effectiveness is undermined by the reason that Max wields it in the first place: he is physically frail and requires assistance to walk. Though Max might resent the fact that his physical strength, his sense of masculinity, and the authority these things once granted him over his household have diminished, the cane symbolically illustrates the futility of any attempt to halt this loss of power. Max is not immune to the ravages of old age, and his hold on power was only ever tenuous and temporary.