Reality versus Illusion in Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Essay

Reality versus Illusion in Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In his play, The American Dream, Edward Albee unveils a tortured family that is symbolic of the reality beneath the illusion of the American dream. In Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Albee takes a to a greater extent traditional approach than the theater of the absurd, and his language is more natural, but he returns to this theme with a vengeance. For in all of drama there are few plays about domestic relationships that are as caustic, slam-bang and as poisoned with the milk of human bitterness, cynicism and pessimism as is Woolf. The story regards George and Martha, a married couple (he a history professor and she the University Presidents daughter). Verbally and emotionally George and Martha are as skilled at cutting each other without going for the final kill as much as a professional torturer trained to exsert his victims agony. Into this volley of abuse set Nick and Honey, a young couple who also share a vision of th e American dream, but Albee portrays Nick as the victor in his battles with George because George is of the old school and Nick has already been indoctrinated into the new American culture of capitalism for its own sake. The theme of the play, other than touching on the disillusionment of the American dream for the younger generation, and a robotic-like acceptance of the evolved capitalized version by the older generation, is that each of the characters in the play, like each of us in real life, are destined to struggle through our own personal hell, a struggle that we face alone It becomes clear that each character is assiduous in an isolated struggle through a personal hell (Murphy 1113). The plot centers around George and Marthas p... ...e his themes in the play. Truth versus illusion, reality versus perception, and union versus inability to come together are the main themes the author chooses to highlight throughout the work. In the end, once all illusions have been stripped or peeled away, Martha and George have a chance to come together in an effort to save their marriage. As Martha says to end the play in response to Georges singing Whos afraid of Virginia Woolf I...am...George...I...am... (Albee 242). Only from this flow of truth can George and Martha hope to save their troubled marriage. WORKS CITED Albee, E. Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. New York Signet, 1962. Carter, S. Albees Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The Explicator. Vol. 56. June 22, 1998, 215-218. Murphy, B, ed. Benets Readers Encyclopedia. New York HarperCollins Publishers, 1996.