Edward Albee's (1928) play Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1961-62) exhibits concern with the crises of faith of contemporary western civilization. This thematic concern is rooted in two sources.
First it establishes a link with the dramatists of the thirties such as Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953), Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) and Arthur Miller (1915-2005). These dramatists had in their plays critiqued America as it moved from "confidence to doubt." In a land of success they wrote obsessively of the unsuccessful. Their characters such as Blanch Du Bois in Street Car Named Desire(1947), Joe Keller in All My Sons (1947), Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman (1949) and Maggie the Cat in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) all lead "posthumous lives." These are souls that have been lost as a consequence of the national myth of American Dream. In their delineation the authors simultaneously attack and present the potential dangers of "the unquestioned generalized acceptance of and participation" in this myth. This concern finds resonance in Edward Albee's comment when he describes his work as "an examination of the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacency, cruelty, and emasculation and vacuity, a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen."
Secondly Albee deploys techniques of Theater of Absurd. Albee often begins with a seemingly realistic circumstance that is abruptly interrupted by an absurd or surreal element or event. As for example in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? incidents such as the moon that goes down and soon comes up again and the hysterical pregnancy of Honey. Therefore in doing so he shares alo...
... middle of paper ...
....
To summarize then Albee's work captures dissipation of the American Dream on one hand and an acute existential angst manifest in the Theater of Absurd. He however does proffer a solution wherein characters must strip themselves of all illusions a first step of dealing with the truth.
Biblio:
Bigsby, C.W.E, ed. Edward Albee- A Collection of Critical Essays. New Jersey:Prentice Hall, 1975
Dozier, Richard. "Adultry and Disappointment in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?" Modern Drama Vol11. No 4, (Feb 1969): 432-436.
Miller, Jordan. "Myth and the American Dream: O'Neill to Albee" Modern Drama Vol7 (Sept 1964): 190-198.
Wardle, Irving. "American Theater Since 1945." American Literature Since 1900: Penguin History of Literature, Vol 9. Ed. Marcus Cunliff. USA: Penguin, 1994. 205-236
...e Companion to American Drama, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2010. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.
The movie Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was created based on a play with the same name by Edward Albee, which was already a huge success in New York in 1962. For that reason, it was a great risk and challenge for the director and the actors to create a movie based on a play with such high standards.
Perkins, Geroge, and Barbara Perkins. The American Tradition in Literature. 12th ed. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print
...tack on society. By referring to well known contemporary texts, Albee mocks the attitudes that their works sanction. The characters are created as before and after pictures of the results of relationships based in delusion, with clear links to moments in history acting as sounding boards for each others thoughts. Their intoxicated states allow, for the first time in a long while, for their true feelings and motives to be revealed, and for all the secrets and lies that have formed the keystones to their marriages to be removed finally allowing a true test of their strength. Unsurprisingly, what is left very quickly collapses: a warning to others and a wake-up-call to society. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is an outcry against the thoughtlessness and conforming nature of Western culture and an attack on those who not only live, but sanction, such a lifestyle.
Perkins George, Barbara. The American Tradition in Literature, 12th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print
Emily Dickinson once wrote “Much madness is divinest/Sense-To a discerning Eye.” Often in literature, a character’s madness or foolish action plays an important role. Such is the case with the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? written in 1962, by Edward Albee. The author develops and revisits the inner conflict of Martha, the protagonist, which results from the struggle between her and society throughout the plot to highlight the theme of struggle between reality and illusion. Martha’s madness is used by Albee to reveal characteristics of American society in the 50s and 60s that reveal the seemingly mad behavior as reasonable.
Perkins, George, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia of American Literature. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1991. Print.
in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. California State University, Stanislaus, 24 Oct. 2011. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
Works Cited “American Literature 1865-1914.” Baym 1271. Baym, Nina et al. Ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature.
Downer, Alan S. American Drama and Its Critics. Chicago, University of Chicago Press [1965]. pp. 218-239.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "Essay date 1935." Twentieth-Century Litirary Criticism 9. Ed. Dennis Poupond. Detroit: Gale Research, 1983. 316-317
Gainor, J. Ellen, Stanton B. Garner, and Martin Puchner. Old Times. 1971. The Norton Anthology of Drama. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2009. 1018-042. Print.
Work Cited Woolf, Virginia. A. Mrs. Dalloway. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc., 2005.
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman criticizes the American Dream and the means some (i.e. Willy Loman) use to achieve the Dream through many different symbol and motifs; however, the title Miller selected for his play is an overlooked aspect of his criticism towards the Dream. He uses the title to build layers of understanding for his denunciation of the American Dream.