George and Martha’s child is one of the most important things in "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf" as his metaphysical existence is the central core of George and Martha’s Illusions, and thus the death of their child is begins the death of their life as it stands and the beginning of a life where there is no place for illusions. Albee makes the child appear religious by referring to the child as both a “fleece” and a “lamb”. The child is in act both. To us the child is seen as a “fleece” (page 129) a false idol like the golden calf. To Martha however the child is her “lamb” (page 129) much like the Lamb of God from the bible, “Lamb of god who taketh away the sins of the world”. However the child does remove realities problems but rather hides them, obscures them from normal perception. This is why the child must be exorcised. Had Martha not accidentally let the existence of the child out then George would not have been forced to perform the exorcism to end the dependence on the illusions they have created. This point ties quite neatly with the title, as the Child is the pivotal point upon which the illusions are built. By killing the child at the end of the story, George is challenging Martha to pick up his metaphorical gauntlet and face what is a new beginning and thus prove if she is afraid of a life without illusions.
In his play, “Zoo Story”, Albee uses truth and illusion in a different manner. Jerry
forces Peter to escape the conformist society he lives in. To stop pursuing the
“American Dream” and do what he wants to do. However Peter is only able to realise
this after he has killed Jerry. His death destroys the façade of the world he lives in and thus for Peter the truth has set him free. Martha is very much like Peter. She needs to have the illusions of the child destroyed so she can see the truth. That she is the slave of her illusions, and a victim of her own repressed emotions.
George, who seems to want to get back to some truthful interaction with Martha, he only sings the song when he tries to overpower Martha's disparagement of him, when Martha is necking with Nick, and when he tries to comfort Martha in the end. The song makes a mockery of the illusions that both couples have based their marriages on. If one looks closely at these three different moments, it is clear that George uses the song to stop Martha from revealing the truth about himself, to tease Martha for hiding from the truth behind an affair, and to give her courage to live without the phoniness they are used to. The song is consistently tied to moments in which the characters are projecting, or attempting to project, a false image. Finally, the song also ties into the theme of academic competition at the unnamed college where George and Nick work.
Nick and Honey also undergo a shattering of illusions. The illusion and they project is that of the happy, young, loving, up and coming couple. However the truth reveals that Nick and Honey also hide behind illusions. The truth behind their marriage is in fact is that their marriage is based upon a lie. as Nick reveals on page 60 " I married her because she was pregnant". George also discovers later that Honey has been secretly aborting children when she says, “I don’t want any children”. This shows that their relationship is not as childless as they show it to be. Nick’s false devotion to his marriage is clearly portrayed by the fact that Nick is willing to reveal secrets about his marriage to his hostile adversary, George. George is later able to use these against Nick in his game “Get the Guests”
The conversation, which begins on page 25, is the start of yet another major theme of the play. George and Nick both work at the same university, the University where Martha's father is principal. However this is where their academic similarities end. George and Nick represent two different ends of the academic spectrum. George represents history where as Nick represents biology. These are both very different subjects and yet these reflect or throw light upon the inner struggle of the play. I fact George is only hostile because the two subjects represent a struggle between the past and the future. George sees Nick as part of a threatening, totalitarian movement that is sweeping the world. That of progress. George seeks to maintain the diversity and differences that exist in the world rather than all being clones due to Nick’s experiments with “Chromozones”. Nick is show to be a character that has all his faults openly shown to the rest of the characters and the audience. He is superficial although he appears modest about his achievements as an academic and an athlete. Nick was also a middle weight boxing champion and this is a factor that is fairly important in the play as it gives Albee yet another reason to make Martha finding Nick attractive and for Martha to find yet more faults with George by reminding him of the boxing match that he and Martha had in the past.
Martha ( with great enthusiasm): BOXING! You hear that George?
George ( resignedly): Yes, Martha.
(ACT I, P. 37)
This makes George feel more threatened by Nick’s youth and vitality.
The analogy of a boxing match is used throughout the play. George physically may not be a match against Nick due to his age and lack of fitness. However mentally he is as clever if not more so than Nick despite the fact that he is shown to have been an intellectual at a very early age.
Martha: “ Quite a boy, getting your master when you were what twelve”
George is able to unsteady Nick who suffering from the effects of alcohol and is not as quick as he might normally have been. George frequently starts one train of thought and then quite suddenly changes it in order to throw Nick of balance but at the same time learn useful information. One example of this is shown on page 18 when George begins to ask about Nick playing handball but then suddenly changes tack and asks Nick how old Honey is.
Illusions are the very core of this play in indeed American society today. George, Martha, Honey and Nick all suffer from varying illusions be they a child or those of reaching to peak of one’s professions by sleeping with the dean of a universities daughter. The question that must be addressed is that one must face these in order to progress in our lives. George and Martha’s marriage has reached as far as it can with in the restrictions of their marriage and they have grown so far apart as to have their illusions differ. They use the games to keep life in their marriage. But these can only work so much. A life without the child or illusions scares Martha and George because it means that they will have to live in a life with change.
