At the end of Picnic, Madge packs her bags and leaves town to follow Hal. Inge's desire to portray young love as sexually charged and rebellious revealed an America hidden behind the perfect world so often depicted in 1950s entertainment, a world that would further reveal itself in the films, music, and plays of the coming decades.
While ignoring the realities of the Cold War, the Korean Conflict, and other prevalent threats of the era, television and film generally tried to convey American life as romantic, carefree, and lighthearted, subscribing to an unwritten code of conduct. Picnic suitably reflected those ideals. When Madge leaves for a life with Hal, she bolsters the idea that sexuality, though wrong in a premarital situation, is a prelude to marriage. In the early-1950s, single women who engaged in sex were expected to marry their lover or face a life of social damnation.
The idea that sex might not lead naturally to marriage surfaces in Picnic when Madge chooses to remain behind after Hal leaves. The conventions of sexuality and marriage are maintained for both couples; Rosemary and Howard will marry and an eventual union is implied for Hal and Madge.
Inge uses Rosemary's story to provide the conventional ending in Picnic, the one expected by a 1950s audience. After she and Howard engage in drunken sex, Rosemary insists that Howard do the honorable thing and marry her. Her entrapment of the reluctant suitor provides some humor in the play. Rosemary and Howard are unconventional lovers, both older and yet both naively expecting a different outcome from their tryst: Rosemary expects a more romantic Howard, one who wants to marry her while Howard expects that nothing has changed and that Rosemary will simply continue dating him. Instead, Rosemary seizes upon Howard as the only opportunity she will have for marriage.
Rosemary reaches out "pitifully toward Howard, not because she really loves him, but because she fears she will continue to live her life 'till I'm ready for the grave and don't have anyone to take me there.'" Howard underestimates Rosemary's desperation for marriage and the fact that he is her sole marital target. While funny, this element of comedy is also tragic, in that it reveals all of Rosemary's insecurities and fears and makes clear the stereotype that she represents: the spinster schoolteacher, too unattractive to marry and resigned to a lifetime of devotion to her students. Their romance contrasts with the Madge/Hal relationship
Jane Courant argued in Studies in American Drama, 1945-Present that these romances represent much more than "faithful renderings of cliches of culture, language, and behavior during a period characterized by extreme social conformity." She reminded readers that Inge's plays almost predicts the changes that would come in film and music in the next few years. The advent of films depicting freedom-craving bad boys like Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Peter Fonda seems to echo Hal's observations about his theft of a motorcycle. Hal stole the motorcycle because he "wanted to get on the damn thing and go so far away, so fast, that no one'd ever catch up with me." Just as importantly, they are the same needs that appeal to Madge, who finds Hal's story romantically exciting. When she says, "I think--lots of boys feel that way at times," she is also silently adding--and girls, too.
The sexuality of music and dance that Inge incorporates into Act II establishes the mood for the sexual encounters that follow. When Hal begins to dance with Madge, the act is seductive. His stage directions refer to their dance as a "primitive rite that would mate the two young people." Inge is confirming that music and dance can serve as a prelude to physical love, planting the seed of fear that would flower in many parents' suspicions of teenagers and rock and roll. Inge used Madge and Hal to establish a picture of youthful love and sexuality that was just on the horizon.
In an interview that he gave to writer Walter Wager in The Playwrights Speak, Inge said that he was not a social activist and that he thought very little in political terms. Yet later, in the same interview, he stated that he saw a new generation of American youth "challenging the cliches of the established culture ... [and] creating cliches of their own." It is this questioning of convention that Inge tries to capture in his play. Madge rejects the image of beauty that encapsulates her life. She wants to be noticed and admired for qualities that have nothing to do with her appearance. She also wants more than the American Dream marriage ideal that her mother envisions in a union with Alan. She recognizes her intellectual limitations and laments her future as a clerk; it is her jealousy of Millie's academic achievements that creates much of the sisterly conflict in the play. But while Madge may be less intellectual than her younger sister, she is pragmatic. At the play's ending, when Madge is challenged by her mother, Madge tells her that she does not believe that loving Hal will provide all the answers. She acknowledges Hal's poor record with women and his lack of economic prospects.
When Flo tells Madge that Hal "will never be able to support you ... he'll spend all his money on booze. After a while there'll be other women," Madge replies, "I've thought of all those things." Isolated in this last scene, these words indicate that Madge is rejecting reality in favor of romance, but that perception ignores Madge's earlier expressions, her stated desire to leave town and find freedom. It ignores her longing glances toward the train and her fear that the entire town has to offer is a lifetime of clerking in a small store. This information makes Madge's decision to follow Hal far more plausible. To her, Hal represents the best opportunity for escape from the nothingness of small town life, from an existence based solely on beauty. At the beginning of the play, Madge is waiting for something better to come along. By the end of the third act, she has found that something. In leaving she is taking a chance, but she is also hoping to insure that she will not end up one of the lonely, aimless women of this small Kansas town. She has escaped.
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