Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf Analysis

There’s always something odd and intimidating about being a guest at someone’s dinner party. When you walk in, the interior looks clean enough to be sold the next day, and the hosts are cheerful to an alarming extent. In in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Edward Albee slowly chips away at this mask from all four characters until all that is finally left at the end of the final act is the revealing, truthful pulp of each person. This enormous culturally impactful play (and movie) could never be successfully adapted until an unlikely episode of a show called The Office would send similar shockwaves through pop culture in today’s context. This 21st Century take on the play aptly named Dinner Party would bear nods to the previous tension-filled
One truth is in who each character actually loves. In Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, through all of her despicable actions, even in cheating on her husband, she still notes how much she loves George. She tells Nick of “George who is good to me, and whom I revile; who understands me and whom I push off; who can make me laugh, and I choke it back in my throat” (191). George and Martha, although broken, still love each other deeply. This indicates a real future in their relationship. However, between Michael and Jan, this love only seems one-sided. Jan forces Michael to sleep on a tiny bed and takes up an unused office space as well as a room for her candles. As a whole, she never seems really find a connection with Michael. On the contrary, Michael tries to help find investors for her business and even gets three vasectomies because of her indecisiveness—”Snip snap! Snip Snap!” This one-sided love indicates a different future from Martha and George’s. In Woolf, as Martha and George play their final game “Bringing up baby” (214) they finally pull out their final, most sensitive illusion. George tells the story of their fake baby to Martha as she tries with all her strength to shut him up, constantly shouting “Liar!!” (226) or trying to end the story by saying “He is away at school” (224). Instead, George decides to kill the baby to her fierce anger, finally ridding their relationship of their most daunting illusion. Similarly, the dinner party ends with Jan and Michael purging every one of their resentments toward each other all at once, when Jan insults Michael’s biggest insecurity: His teeth “You know I have soft teeth. How can you say that?” This unravels as Michael pulls out the neon “ST PAULI GIRL” sign, Jan plays and sways to Hunter’s music, Michael expresses his disgust for her candles, and Jan finally throws Michaels