The glass cage might imply a vacuum that the figure 's voice is unable to escape ; as if it is screaming in silence . Rueful later in life , Bacon said that he had " wanted to paint the scream more than the horror . I think , if I had really thought about what causes somebody to really scream , it would have made the scream ... more successful " . The work evokes memories of the Second World War . The glass enclosure of his 1949 Chicago Study for a Portrait is often seen as prophesying photographs of Adolf Eichmann 1961 trial before a Jerusalem District Court , when he was held within a similar cage . Bacon strongly resisted literal comparisons though , and stated that he used the device so he could frame and " really see the image – for no other reason . I know it 's been interpreted as being many other things . " Other critics saw similarities between the glass case and the radio booths of late 1930s broadcasters who warned against the impending calamity . Denis Farr notes that Bacon was sympathetic to George Orwell and referred in interviews to Orwellian " shouting voices ... and trembling hands ... convey [ ing ] the harsh atmosphere of an interrogation . "