Assignment 2

Absurd drama in Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf By Edward Albee

Submitted to
Dr. Kaiser Haq Professor Course: Eng 312 (Modern American Drama)

Submitted by
Bushra Ahmed ID: 102013030 Department of English and Humanities

Date: January 03, 2012

The Absurd is the result of human desire for clarity and meaning in a world that offers none. The absurdist is chiefly concerned with expressing a sense of wonder, of incomprehension, and at times of despair, at the lack of cohesion that they find in the world. Works of the writers of the Theatre of the Absurd are characterized by lack of logic, unconventional dialogue, rejection of conventional characterization and plot. They all express the idea that human existence is essentially meaningless and that in this world true communication is impossible. This very idea surfaces in Edward Albees Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Albee did not write entirely absurdist plays. His plays are a combination of realism and the absurd. Albees works convey the sense of the absurdity of the human condition to the audience. However, some critics claim that Albees dramas are a critique of popular culture rather than human struggle to come to terms with the reality of a senseless world. Elements of the Absurd in this play are:

SETTING
It becomes clear that the play is not a conventional one at the very beginning since it is 2 a.m. and Martha and George are expecting guests whom they even do not know and know very little about. Some critics even claim that the play would function better if it were done on an abstract set, such as an all-white space. Such a set would heighten the sense that the play has the overtones of the Theatre of the Absurd.

CHARACTERS
Characters in the absurdist plays are hardly recognizable human beings and are not convincingly motivated. From the very beginning until the end of the play it is unclear why George and Martha have to be so cruel to each other and their guests. Their behavior is illogical and irrational. Both George and Martha are dissatisfied with their lives and they cannot find meaning in the real world around them, and that is why they create an imaginary child which keeps them together. It is the imaginary world that keeps them sane because there is no real order in the real world and they are not ready to face it.

In the absurdist plays audience expectations are often inverted. George and Martha have the names of the ideal couple Martha and George Washington, they live at a college, George is a professor, and they are exactly the opposite from what we expect them to be. George is a professor, but he is not the head of the History department, which makes him a failure. Martha is 6 years older than George and presents herself as the person who wears pants in the house, but is actually infantile and does everything to get approval from her father. She fails as a good daughter, a wife and a mother. Nick and Honey seem to be a young couple in love and they also seem to be the opposite of Martha and George, but we discover later that Nick has married Honey because she was pregnant and because of her money, and that Honey is preventing getting pregnant because she is afraid. Honey gets sick very often, which shows her inability to face reality. Nick seems to be the ideal man, but later it is revealed that he is amoral, shallow, and coldly ambitious. Also, Nick might be seen as a representative of the future generation which will overcome the older one (George). However, he fails to satisfy Martha, and she admits that George is the only one who has managed to satisfy her. In this we can see that he is impotent, that he is not the successful man he wants to be. The characters of George and Nick represent the opposition between history and science. Nicks humiliation and defeat shows that science which is supposed to find answers to questions is impotent, that there is no such thing as definite solutions, answers.

THEMES TRUTH AND ILLUSION

The idea of the Absurd implies that this world is meaningless and that human existence itself is essentially meaningless. The characters of this play are unable to find meaning in their lives, so they create illusions which keep them from falling apart. George and Martha create an imaginary child to deal with the problems in their marriage. Throughout the play characters use various means to keep them from facing reality they all drink, play games and verbally assault one another. Also, the characters turn out not to be what they seem to be, which was previously discussed.

THE INABILITY TO COMMUNICATE

Absurdist considers that language cannot express the human situation. They claim that language is empty and that communication is meaningless. That is why the dialogues in absurdist plays often seems to be meaningless babble. In Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? We also have this sense that characters are not capable of communicating. Martha and George use language as a means of hurting and humiliating both each other and their guests. The conversations bring no solution, language does not serve the purpose of conveying meaning, and it serves as a tool for their games and insults. Several times throughout the play characters just talk at the same time, not listening to each other: Both George and Nick are talking about themselves, not listening to each other. The failure of language can also be seen in the communication between George and Martha who love and need each other, but they are unable to express this, their communication just boils down to an exchange of insults: Throughout the play we are constantly reminded that what the characters are saying is not essentially important through cursing and the use of explicit language, but also through the fact that we are never sure whether the things Martha and George say are true or not. Characters fail to communicate with each other and they trade verbal cruelties until the last scene, when they finally achieve some sense of mutual understanding. Absurd psychological violence as a form of communication and disappointment in communication originates from disillusionment that the Second World War brought and can be seen in many other works.

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

All of the characters have unhealthy relationships, both in marriage and with their parents. They also have an unhealthy attitude toward having children. This is because family represents a form of order in society and human relations, and absurdist writers claim that this kind of order does not really exist.

INTERCOURSE

George and Marthas child is imaginary, Honeys pregnancy was false, and Nick cannot satisfy Martha. Sex in this play clearly represents impotence, which is another way of indicating how human beings are powerless. In an absurdist play the audience is not supposed to go home satisfied that they knew the solution to the problem posed in the play.[8] At the end of Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Both George and Martha have managed to face their illusions, but it is still unclear whether they will be able to function better as a couple without their imaginary son. Still, we should not get the impression that the message of the absurdist plays is to make us give up on life. Its aim is to make us think. It [the Theatre of the Absurd] aims to shock its audience out of complacency, to bring it face to face with the harsh facts of the human situation as these writers see it. But the challenge behind this message is anything but one of despair. It is a challenge to accept the human condition as it is, in all its mystery and absurdity, and to bear it with dignity, nobly, responsibly; precisely because there are no easy solutions to the mysteries of existence, because ultimately man is alone in a meaningless world. The shedding of easy solutions, of comforting illusions, may be painful, but it leaves behind it a sense of freedom and relief. And that is why, in the last resort, the Theatre of the Absurd does not provoke tears of despair but the laughter of liberation.