What’s Up With the Ending?

The Old Man gets the last word in the play. Now that Eddie and May have scurried off, he's free to just keep living in his own little imaginary world where he's married to Barbara Mandrell.

Self-delusion and fantasy—and the way fantasies can somehow become equal to reality, in the minds of some—have been big topics in the play, so the Old Man's reprise of his Mandrell story is pretty appropriate as a capper to the play:

"Ya' see that picture over there? Ya' see that? Ya' know who that is? That's the woman of my dreams. That's who that is. And she's mine. She's all mine. Forever." (584)

In addition to just fantasizing that he's with a star, it seems important that the "woman of [his] dreams" is "his." Like with Eddie, control is a big thing for the Old Man, so the illusion of possessing his ladylove must be his favorite fantasy of all time. More than a little hypocritical, given that he wasn't even able to be faithful to one woman, but whatever floats his boat.