Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf Essay
Edward Albee trifles with an angst ridden United States during the 1950s and mimics the anguish and dismay afflicting the general American public with the foul and malevolent couple George and Martha in his play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The strife between George and Martha in terms of the power struggle they face and the difficulties they have placating truth and illusion is reflected within the play’s major themes of sexual, physical, and mental control. The dissatisfaction of George and Martha’s marriage is mirrored within the plays setting, and affects the interaction and dialogue between the play’s two sets of couples, George and Martha, and Nick and Honey. By employing the use of contrast and comparison, Albee disrupts the portrait
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The roles of men and women in the 1950s thrusted George and Martha into positions of stoic provider and passive caretaker, respectively. However, an inability to fulfill said roles caused George and Martha an immense fear of imperfection. Martha, unable to have children, and George, unable to provide for Martha a lifestyle more suited to her ravenous tastes, recognized in themselves something lacking. Their fears translated to hatred and so began their battles for dominance in order to declare small measures of superiority wherever they could get them. This pursuit for power caused Martha to carry out lecherous affairs, and George to cease all possible interest in his destructive wife. What is most powerfully stated in the play’s script is Martha’s very obvious self-loathing where is the example of her self-loathing?. Her deepest failure in life had nothing to do with what George did or who he was but with what Martha herself failed to provide for the people in her life. Martha’s utter adoration of her father is grotesquely apparent by her constant belittling and badgering of her husband. There is no context given about Martha’s childhood but it is safe to assume that she grew up with an eye for competition. Martha is all about control which makes sense due to her marriage to a man 6 years her junior, and rather rambunctious and
The roles of men and women in the 1950s thrusted George and Martha into positions of stoic provider and passive caretaker, respectively. However, an inability to fulfill said roles caused George and Martha an immense fear of imperfection. Martha, unable to have children, and George, unable to provide for Martha a lifestyle more suited to her ravenous tastes, recognized in themselves something lacking. Their fears translated to hatred and so began their battles for dominance in order to declare small measures of superiority wherever they could get them. This pursuit for power caused Martha to carry out lecherous affairs, and George to cease all possible interest in his destructive wife. What is most powerfully stated in the play’s script is Martha’s very obvious self-loathing where is the example of her self-loathing?. Her deepest failure in life had nothing to do with what George did or who he was but with what Martha herself failed to provide for the people in her life. Martha’s utter adoration of her father is grotesquely apparent by her constant belittling and badgering of her husband. There is no context given about Martha’s childhood but it is safe to assume that she grew up with an eye for competition. Martha is all about control which makes sense due to her marriage to a man 6 years her junior, and rather rambunctious and