According to Aida Edemariam friends of Edward Albee recognised “the brilliant, snappish dialogue, the matching of insult and retort” of the drunken brawls between George and Martha were inspired by the “alcohol-fuelled relationship” between Albee and his then-partner William Flanagan (2004). Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is as well “a pre-eminent classic of maritial feud” (Schunck 195).
Among many other interesting interpretations the play centres around the absence of children in a marriage and the meaning of offspring for an ideal relationship. After leaving his home in 1949, Albee stayed only in contact with his maternal grandmother who frequently visited him and to whom he dedicated The Sandbox.Īlbee’s perhaps best known and most successful play is Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962). Observers repeatedly affirmed that Mommy and Daddy display Albee’s adoptive parents, especially Francis Albee who was as commanding and imposing as Mommy as well as “imperious, demanding, and unloving” (Braem 64 Edemariam 2). Originally Albee indented his one-act play The Sandbox as a prelude for his drama The American Dream (1959) which features identical characters (Braem 61). The Sandbox (1959) was chosen because Albee considers it his most perfect play (Flanagan 31). 2 The selection of the playsĮdward Albee wrote many plays dealing with dysfunctional families and a selection of two of his plays to consider in this paper had to be made. These three themes are meant to stand representatively for family structures that Albee considers in his plays. Following, the relationship of husband and wife in a marriage will be looked at. Afterwards the aspects of dealing with elderly people will be looked at, followed by the examination of the meaning of a child for a marriage. The purpose of this term paper is to analyse the picture of the white American family in Albee’s The Sandbox (1959) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962) in contrast to the prevailing ideal of the white nuclear family of the 1950s and 1960s and to ask to what extent his characters fulfil this ideal.Īt first, this prevailing ideal of family is described shortly. Albee seems to have observed especially families and the relationships between the members of families as well as the traditional but also slowly breaking image of husband and wife. He not only observed other people but also his experiences influenced his plays strongly.
Absorbing things, I suppose.” (Flanagan 8). In an interview about his plays and the assumed analogousness of his plays he said: “You must remember I’ve been watching and listening to a great number of people for a long time. His various occupations not only allowed him to write but through his jobs he was able to observe quite a number of different people and lifestyles. After some years at various prestigious boarding schools and colleges, Albee finally and abruptly left home and broke ties with his adoptive parents in 1949.Īlbee took employment as runner in an advertising agency, sales clerk in a music shop, bookseller-assistant, waiter in convenience restaurant and telegram deliverer for Western Union. He experienced several conflicts with his parents who disapproved of his lifestyle, interests, sexual orientation and acquaintances. Edward Albee sensed early that he was not the couple’s biological son. The family was part of the New York high society and tried to bring up their son to be a respectable constituent of this community.
THE SANDBOX BY EDWARD ALBEE SERIAL
Shortly afterwards his birth on MaAlbee was adopted by a wealthy couple, Reed Albee, a serial adulterer, and his third wife, Francis Albee, a former model. The figure of the child is often understood as “the alter ego” of Edward Albee (Cristian 6). His plays frequently contain “the figure of the child which ranges from that of the adopted infant, real or imagined baby, young man, dead child, imaginary person, to that of grown-up homosexual son” (Cristian 1).
In almost all of his plays Edward Albee looks at the American family and its various manifestations, criticises it, mocks it, and reveals its dishonesty. In his life he observed several decades of American society as well as changes in attitudes and values of the American population. The American dramatist Edward Albee is going to celebrate his 80th birthday these days. 3 The ideal of the white American nuclear family of the 1950’s and 1960’sĤ Aspects of family displayed in Edward Albee’s plays