Inge wrote this play in the 1950s, the politics of which were defined by two correlated movements: the return to normalcy, after World War II, and the push to exclude otherness, marked by the Cold War and the Communist witch hunt.

This play is very much part of the first movement, though in the character of Dr. Lyman you can see the hidden menace so common to the period: right in the middle of all this innocence, there is this…predator.

As far as Inge's own political orientation, his work was not overtly political in the sense of being aligned with a formal movement. He did tend to write works critiquing society, and exposing hidden troubles, but these are more of a social emphasis than a formal political agenda.