! Look! I'd rather somebody picked up a crowbar and battered
             out my brains - than go back mornings....For sixty-five dollars a month I give up all that I dream
             of doing and being ever!" What he wants is to escape his miserable life, and so drinks too much,
             wastes away much of his time at the movies, and dreams of joining the merchant marines. He is
             frantic to escape his mother and her unreal expectations; but he is prevented from doing so by his
             love for his fragile sister. Just as the picture of Mr. Wingfield, Malvolio's coffin trick represents
             some more of the great symbolism used throughout the play. Malvolio's coffin trick is a token of
             Tom's suffocating lifestyle. The first aspect, Malvolio's similarities with Tom, refers to each of
             their life-threatening situations. Malvolio faces literal death by suffocation if he does not
             successfully escape the coffin. Conversely, Tom faces figurative death by emotional and spiritual
             suffocation if he does not find a way out of his present situation. The coffin, the second aspect,
             symbolizes the lifestyle from which Tom is striving to escape. Tom looks at his life as a "two-
             by-four situation" (45). He fears living the next fifty-five years of his life working in the
             basement of a warehouse, performing mundane tasks, and making a mere sixty-five dollars a
             month. Although he loves his family, he cannot tolerate the thought of spending the rest of his
             life in a cramped apartment, supporting his family, living with the const
             ...