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Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Cusins's Drum

A number of objects assume crucial symbolic significance in the play. As Undershaft remarks, Cusins's ubiquitous drum, for example, symbolizes his relation to the Salvation Army. Like the drum, the Army is but an instrument for his Dionysian fervor.

Dummy Soldiers

Also of note are the dummy soldiers strewn about the stage in Act 3. These dummies underline the omnipresence of the murders that support this utopian of Perivalee St. Andrews. It is also not for nothing that the idyllic community has also been erected in the shadow of explosives. As we recall, for Undershaft these murders distinguish the military industrialist from common "moralist," establishing the former as a man of action. Within Undershaft's schema, such murders are necessary to society's redemption.

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