Albee makes numerous literary allusions throughout the play but here he focuses in particular on Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. When talking to herself at the beginning of the scene, she references "The Poker Game," the painting based on the scene in which fragile Blanche comes in on her animalistic brother-in-law Stanley's poker game. Secondly, when he comes in with the snapdragons, George quotes a line of dialogue from Williams' play "Flores para los muertos," flowers for the dead. In Streetcar, that line foreshadows Blanche's imminent spiritual and emotional (though not physical death). While George's use of the line foreshadows his announcement of "sonny-Jim's" death, it also proceeds the spiritual decimation of his and Martha's marriage.