We all know there’s more to Mad Men than the lush interiors and good-looking cast that meet the eye. It’s a show laden with symbolism, hidden in everything from individual characters to the books they’re reading and their vices of choice. From the Freudian to the downright literal, the objects and personalities that populate the show practically all have meaning. With that in mind, we’ve attempted what we’re sure is impossible: to create a dictionary of three-seasons’ worth of symbols and, very briefly, tease out their meaning in anticipation of Sunday’s season premiere. Any experiment of this nature is sure to be both reductive and imprecise, so give us your arguments and additions in the comments.
Adam Whitman, Don’s real brother: The return of the repressed
Adoption: The (literal and figurative) failure of Pete’s manhood
Annabelle Mathis: Roger’s fading youth
Ann-Margret/ Bye Bye Birdie : Innocence, exuberance (the kind you can sell)
The Apartment : Joan’s self-awareness
Babies: Potential; responsibility
Bert Cooper: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged in action
The Bible: Serious, life-altering contemplation; Jews
Betty: The Feminine Mystique
Betty’s BB gun: Agency
Betty’s psychiatrist: Classic sexism
Bloody Marys: Morning
Bob Dylan: The avant-garde, social change
Bobbie Barrett: Don’s female equal
Carl Winter: Peggy’s worst-case-scenario future
Carla: Pre-Civil Rights quiet racial oppression
Children: The metaphor for all that’s missing in Pete and Trudy’s relationship
Cigarettes: Anxiety
Conrad Hilton: A challenge; a male who out-alphas Don
The Draper kitchen: Domesticity; Don and Betty’s stable, suburban life
Don’s box of Dick Whitman stuff: Don’s double life; Don’s regrets
Don’s contract: Confinement, stability, commitment to the “Don Draper” identity
Don’s fedora: The epicenter of Don’s successful, put-together persona
Don’s valise: The possibility of starting over as someone else, somewhere new
Duck Phillips: All that is boring, stupid, privileged, and stuck up in the ad world; Pete in 20 years
Father Gill: Peggy’s Catholic guilt
Francine Hanson: The marital sob story that could await Betty
Freddy Rumsen: The death of the old-school adman
Grandpa Gene: Sally’s only true ally in the family
Greg, Joan’s husband: What “marrying well” meant in the early ’60s
Helen Bishop: Women’s lib, older version
Henry Francis: (Apparently) what Don can never be — upright, moral, frank in his affections
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Sally’s tragic precociousness
Horseback riding: Freedom
Hotels: Infidelity
Hotel bars: Glamor, possibility
Italy: Betty’s lost, Fellini-esque youth
Jackie and Marilyn: The girl you fuck and the girl you marry
Jewelry: Don’s way of compensating for bad behavior, showing affection
JFK: Youth, change
JFK assassination: What it looks like when the shit finally hits the fan
Jimmy Barrett: The rare person who sees through Don’s charade
Joan: The “Marilyn”s of the world; the male gaze, reflected
Joan’s accordion: Joan as performing monkey
Joan’s TV scripts: Joan’s potentially squandered intelligence, potential
Ken: Everything Pete will never be
Kodak: Picture-perfect family life, an ideal that Don will never know
Kurt: The Stonewall generation; Europe
Lady Chatterly’s Lover : Joan’s carnal nature; the stirrings of Peggy’s sexual awakening
Life magazine: Popular culture
Los Angeles: Escape
Lucky Strike cigarettes: Don’s powers of persuasion
Meditations in an Emergency : Could be Mad Men‘s alternate title
Midge Daniels: Don’s bohemian side
Paul: Pretentiousness
Paul’s girlfriend, Sheila: The Civil Rights movement
Paul’s neckerchief: Bohemian counterculture
Peggy: Women’s lib, younger version
Peggy’s mysterious pregnancy: Peggy’s repressed sexuality
Pete: Privilege
Pete’s rifle: Inferiority complex
Rachel Menken: Exoticism (she’s Jewish!), wealth
Railroad tracks: Escape
Richard Nixon: All that is evil, conservative
Roger Sterling: Don Draper in the future, if he’s not careful
Sally: Betty’s insecurities left over from her awkward youth
Sally’s dog, Polly: The love members of the Draper family can’t express for one another
Sally’s riding boots: Betty’s complicated love for Sally
Salvatore: Gay America, pre-Stonewall
Sardi’s: Show business
Scotch: Masculinity
The Sound and the Fury: Nothing compared to sex with Don Draper
Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce: A new beginning… or is it?
Suzanne Farrell: Youth, intelligence
Trudy, Pete’s wife: Frigidity
Valentine’s Day: Don’s (literally and figuratively) ailing heart
Washing machine: Betty’s sexual autonomy