This play is really a piece of veiled social criticism, its theme on the failure of the American dream"
"This play is really a piece of veiled social criticism, its theme on the failure of the American dream"
In the American dream, America is portrayed as the land of opportunity; the perfect place for everyone to live, all the stereotypical Americans are big, comfortable, rich, and altogether happy. They portray the image that through hard work, honesty and merit, they too can reach the top, have a large house, lots of money and the perfect 'all American' family, a loving happy wife and two clever children. The play, however, could be Albee's attempt to show that in many cases this American dream is unachievable and, what could appear at first to be the perfect family could, on closer examination, turn out to be something not confirming to the American dream whatsoever. This could also be Albee showing that the American dream is a perfect image, and just an image.
At first sight, Martha and George appear to be as far away from the American dream and it's ideals as is possible. They are constantly scrapping with each other and bickering and seem not to have a nice word to say to the other. At one point Martha quotes "You see, George didn't have much...push...he wasn't particularly aggressive. In fact, he was a sort of a...a FLOP! A great...big...fat...flop!" Martha is portraying her husband in no uncertain terms to his colleagues. This encourages us think that no couple from the American dream scenario would do something like this. She is blatantly betraying her husband, and more importantly, destroying the 'happy family' element of the American dream. As the play draws on, however, we find more and more evidence of a joyous marriage, hidden behind a thickened exterior from years of "exercising their wits". We can find several examples of their love; the first being in the lounge shortly after the gun incident when Martha asks George to kiss her to demonstrate his affection. The second slightly more complicated issue, when she leaves with Nick and, despite no obvious signs of objection George really wishes she would reconsider the idea.
At the beginning, Nick and Honey seem like the perfect all-American couple- young, attractive, on their way to success. Nick's attractiveness is portrayed in the opening dialogue between George and Martha, as she describes Nick and George remembers him as 'the good looking one'. As the play progresses, a different couple emerges. Nick reveals himself to be cold-hearted and a bit ruthless; ready to do whatever it takes to get to the top. Honey seems silly and hopelessly inane until she reveals herself to be deeply frightened of reality, an eternal child who refuses to grow up to the responsibilities of life (as represented by childbirth). Nick comprehends George and Martha's secret, but whether he is changed by it is a question the play doesn't answer. As Martha is describing her son, Honey cries out that she wants a child, but Honey's future is ambiguous, too. Whether she will feel the same way after she has sobered up is never clarified.
Nick appears to be the perfect candidate for the American dream. He is good looking, successful in his job, has the perfect 'all American' wife, and a good outlook on life. As the plot progresses we start to see a wider perspective on Nick's life. He is not honest and we can see this in the middle scene when he is willing to further his career by sleeping with the principal's daughter. This act is not worthy of any merit and he appears to not regret doing it either, definitely not a quality of the American dream hero. His wife also doesn't appear very committed to his job as she greatly begrudged having to make friends and acquaintances at Nick's previous post. She even went as far as to moan about this to her husband's colleagues, despite the fact that these were good and honest, merit-worthy ways to aid her husband in reaching the top.
Martha is a large busy-bodying woman who is extremely insecure. She shows a need for love, which can easily lead to her getting hurt. In the very beginning she asks George for a kiss. When he refuses she appears to not mind but we can feel huge waves of upset coming from beneath the surface. We believe that she feels her marriage is insecure and that because she can't love herself she can't understand why George can love her. We see her, as loud boisterous and bossy but is she really? Her thick outer shell could simply be ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
Martha is a large busy-bodying woman who is extremely insecure. She shows a need for love, which can easily lead to her getting hurt. In the very beginning she asks George for a kiss. When he refuses she appears to not mind but we can feel huge waves of upset coming from beneath the surface. We believe that she feels her marriage is insecure and that because she can't love herself she can't understand why George can love her. We see her, as loud boisterous and bossy but is she really? Her thick outer shell could simply be her way of preventing herself getting hurt, or it could be more simply, that she uses the attention she gets from the joking as a substitute for the love that she never got as a child. Her control over George is seen right from the beginning, she is extremely over possessive of their marriage and yet at times she appears as if she couldn't care less. Whereas all the other characters have a definite personality, which becomes more defined throughout the play, Martha's personality changes by the minute. At first she enjoys poking fun at everyone, then she doesn't and then she just collapses. We perceive this as either Albee constantly adapting her character to the changing events in the play or his way of making this character really come alive in a place true to our hearts; where we can all identify with her.
George is the typical middle age college professor, married, stereotypical, but not the American dream man. He is lousy in his career and his wife is quick to point this out. He has not conformed to Martha's plans for him to become a high standing man in the university, taking over the department and eventually the college. Despite his apparent failure in his work he is a man who has certain principles and sticks with them. He doesn't however object to Martha's adultery, he hopes that even down to the very last minute, she will change her mind and not simply continue pushing to see how far she can go before George will object. We can all see however, that George is very sad when Martha has pushed beyond the point of no return and will not change her mind; he really loves her. At the end of the play he also turns out to push things too far, but this does not make a difference to our thoughts that he is more fulfilling of the American dream than Martha, Honey or Nick.
Honey is a very fickle character; she simply does what suits herself best. In the first chapter of the play she admits to George that she doesn't really want children and, without telling her husband is having secret abortions. This is cruel and mean. It could bring their marriage crashing to the ground, and could also greatly upset Nick when he finds out. She is aware of this but goes ahead with the abortions anyway. Does this, the audience ask, make her an uncaring character? The answer is no, she is aware of the fact that Nick married her for her money and not love so she therefore is not 100% careful of her marriage. She drinks herself silly at the end of the first scene and then proceeds to continue drinking. An American dream character would have stopped before now, unless she is drinking to hide her sorrows or fears.
In the play, the audience is aware that both Martha and Honey have social problems. Honey drinks a lot to cover, and hide from her problems and Martha puts on an outer appearance of being loud and boisterous, despite the fact she isn't. Albee has given both of these characters domineering fathers who do not conform to the American dream. Both men spent their years getting rich, not by hard work, but by stealing from the places they worked for, as we can see in these two extracts, the first from George on Martha's father; " Martha has money too. I mean, her father's been robbing this place blind for years," and the second from Nick, "He spent God's money...and he saved his own," Neither of the fathers spent much time at home either, and neglected their daughters, using their stolen money as a substitute for love and affection. This deficiency in their childhood leads us, the audience to wonder if maybe these earlier problems are some cause for the troubles they both succumb to in their own marriages.
All the men in Albee's play seem to have failed the American dream in terms of job ideals. None of them have a job where they have succeeded through honesty and loyalty. George is the only one who has been loyal, honest and hardworking, and he is still stuck in the mud at the bottom, in Martha's words, "a flop". We do not find out how Martha's father got to the top; whether honest or not. We do hear, however that he takes money from the university and has failed Martha as a father, leaving us in no doubt as to what sort of person he is. Nick has failed at a previous job and has come to a new university hoping to turn over a new leaf, this might well be believed if he didn't go and sleep with the principal's daughter shortly after arriving. He also explains, before sleeping with her to George that she is the most important woman in the university, "the biggest goose in the gaggle," leading us to believe that maybe he's sleeping with her just for the power. Honey's father is implicated by his son-in-law to burn down churches to get money; not the sort of behaviour for a man of the American dream.
Gamesmanship is one of the play's major themes and is expressed in the title of the first act, "Fun and Games." Albee is emphasising the games everyone plays in life, particularly those that are harmful to us and to others. George and Martha's games have moved beyond the needs of a normal couple to chide each other for their faults. They now are capable of wounding each other deeply, as these games have become a substitute for real communication between them. In the play, their need to lash out extends to include Nick and Honey; and the party games, including "Humiliate the Host," "Get the Guests," "Bringing Up Baby," etc, provide the framework for their marital battles. George's decision to "kill" his and Martha's son provides the climactic game that may change their lives forever.
Honey and Nick have no children, despite appearing, at first, to want a child. As we 'get inside' this couple we discover that Nick is a biologist and would like children, whereas Honey is deeply afraid of having children. Honey's fear of childbirth goes as far as for her to have secret abortions without telling Nick. She confides this in George and he realises just how close to breaking point this marriage. No American dream marriage should ever be close to breaking point. Honey's 'secret' appears only to make her marriage to Nick even more unstable, so we wonder why she doesn't tell him. As the play progresses, we can see George gently encouraging Honey to have her children instead of killing them until finally Honey announces suddenly and tearfully "I want a child". This should be quite surprising to Nick, as he has assumed that she obviously wants a child, but it isn't so we think that maybe he has discovered her abortions and simply kept quiet.
The imaginary child is important to the play for several reasons. On one level, it gives the play suspense, as the audience wonders why George is so insistent that the subject of the child not be mentioned. On a symbolic level, the child represents George and Martha's need to share something private amid the wreck of their marriage, even an illusion, since the thought of facing the reality of their lives is too painful. George doesn't want Martha to tell the guests about their child as we can see in some of the opening dialogue
George: Just don't start in on the bit about the kid, that's all.
Martha: What do you take me for?
George: Much too much.
Martha: Yeah? Well I'll start in on the kid if I want to.
Martha: Just leave the kid out of this.
George: I'd advise against it, Martha.
This starts us wondering about their child, who he is, where he is etc. Another possibility is that the child represents the sterility of American lives, in which the dream of the perfect child is merely an illusion, impossible to achieve in a world of adultery, alcoholism, lying, and evasion. Finally, the child acts as the catalyst in George's last gesture against Martha, a gesture both sadistic and healing. His decision to "kill" the child results in Martha's realisation that reality must be faced, whatever the consequences. And the consequences for both George and Martha are, at best, uncertain.
George claimed that his mother was killed accidentally, with a shotgun. We consider why he claims this to be accidental. He had the shotgun and it went off. His carrying of the shotgun was no accident. It firing may have been, but why did he have a loaded shotgun pointed at his mother? He then goes on to claim that he was driving, his learners license in his pocket when he swerved and killed his father too. These are both cases of violence in what is definitely not a perfect American dream, despite appearing to be. Honey is a fragile, gentle lady who suddenly starts shouting "violence violence" when provoked. Martha and George are constantly having battles of a verbal nature and goes as far as to declare "all out war" of verbal violence, destined to end unhappily for everyone. A true American dream sociology would contain no violence so why is it such a prominent feature in the play?
Both Nick and Honey seem to want totally different things from their marriage. Nick wants children, Honey doesn't. Honey wants love, Nick doesn't give any. It is a long way from the perfect American marriage. Nicks has married for money only and he only thinks he loves Honey, as she has found out as the recipient. During George and Nick's discussions, Nick tells George about how he married Honey, he explains that he thought Honey was pregnant and he therefore married her. After the marriage however, she turned out not to be pregnant. This leads us to wonder if she really was pregnant and then had an abortion or a miscarriage or whether she was just lying to Nick; we are not told the outcome of this. Later however, when George plays 'Get the Guests' it emerges what Nick told George and Honey is extremely is upset, reprimanding Nick, who claims he didn't mean to. This makes us contemplate; can a marriage where one half constantly does meaningless actions that upset the other seriously work?
Martha's and Honey's need for love is a large element in the play. If they had been shown more love as children, maybe they wouldn't need it so much now. Martha's need from love is shown from the very beginning when they arrive and Martha asks for a kiss from George and when he refuses she asks repeatedley, then questions why he won't, fearing that their latest 'exercising of wits' has annoyed him. As the play draws on, Martha sleeps with Nick, believing she will get love from it, when she doesn't, she is very upset. It is not difficult for us to empathise with Martha, slightly harder for us to empathise with Honey. Honey was never loved as a child and is not really loved by Nick either; this contributes to her frailness. We are led to believe that both married so they could get love, unsure of what it was and therefore unable to give it. Martha cannot understand how George could love her and believes their marriage is failing, despite the fact it isn't.
When George tells Nick that "the way to a mans heart is through his wife's belly" Nick thinks George is joking. They talk for a bit calling the women a 'gaggle of geese' and comparing them to 'The Puntas' George continues to explain that sleeping around is the faculty sport and that everyone does. Surely not a good idea for a happy marriage on the American dream terms? As their conversation progresses, George encourages Nick to "mount her like a goddamn dog", which Nick proceeds to do as the play unravels. When George realises that Nick is utterly serious about sleeping with his wife, he tries to give Nick some advice. Nick refuses to listen and simply mocks George who gives up after trying once more. George has been at the university a long time so when he fails to be listened to he is very upset, which could be why he later encourages Nick to sleep with Martha, in total seriousness.
Because of the differences in their ages, George and Nick represent two different generations. George is generally passive, weakened by his lack of success and by Martha's constant humiliation of him. Nick is young, ambitious, and amoral; eager to get ahead by whatever means it takes. Their professions also contrast the two. A historian, George is also representative of a humanist, one who is interested in human values- in his case, with a particular interest in the past. A biologist, Nick represents both the future and the clinical, cold-hearted approach to life that threatens to rob mankind of its individuality. Albee ironically turns the tables on the characters when George is shown to be the one in control and the only one who has ever satisfied Martha. Nick, "the stud," is impotent in his sexual encounter with Martha and becomes the "houseboy," the subservient one.
'Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf' is truly a portrait of humiliation and broken dreams. It is a piece of social criticism on the failure of the American dream. Albee has stated that "the role of the writer is to be, axiomatically, against any society he happens to be living in," and we can certainly find evidence to prove this statement as we look at and study this play. The American dream is a state of perfection that can never be achieved. Martha and George who are happy but do not conform to the ideals and Nick and Honey who appear perfect, but under the surface are very strained. Martha is loud and boisterous but deeply unhappy, George is unsuccessful but loved and admired, Honey is unloved but delicate and beautiful, Nick is successful but not liked. All the men in the play appear unsuccessful when compared to the American dream. The games they play are not happy, or fun, but an excuse for verbal abuse. The characters are part of a society where they hold all night orgies, use violence and drink to extremes. The play is a piece of social criticism on the failure of the American dream.
Elizabeth Surrey 10S
