Edward Albee’s Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Abstract

In his play Edward Albee lays stress on the corruption in American society, American family in particular. Since World Wars I and II Americans have thought they are the winners of the wars; and so they are going to have such a comfortable and luxurious life in the future. However they have been influenced as deeply as ‘the other’ countries having lost the wars. The citizens of the loser sides have ended up in pathetic situations due to the massacres, genocides and forced emigration after the wars while the Americans have got damaged because of too much vanity and comfort making them ignorant. In addition, in his play Albee designates such kind of American family. There are couples George- Martha and Nick- Honey who have significant roles in the play. The former is an old couple having troubles in getting along with one another and treat behave in a corruptible manner whereas the latter is a younger couple seeming to love each other. Albee criticizes the corrupted American family institution by using irony and farcical dialogues. Each character stands for any American and they represent the degenerated relationships of them. Albee’s use of words, character types and their farcical speeches create humor full of irony and satire. Even though the play is an example of an absurdist drama it has meaning in its meaninglessness.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n8p768