Manhattan College

FEMINISM & FERTILITY: THE ERASURE OF POST-MENOPAUSAL WOMEN IN

ABSURDIST CLASSICS

Katie Doyle

Dr. Deirdre O’Leary

English 395

17 December 2020
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An Introduction to Absurdism and Feminist Theory

Martin Esslin once said that “The dignity of man lies in his ability to face reality in all its

meaninglessness” (Esslin 429). The theatre of the absurd is an incredibly difficult idea and genre

to define, as it can be identified by many different characteristics. It is an expression-based

movement that came after the second World War and contains both morbid works that push the

audience to question the meaning and necessity of life and funny farcical works meant to show

the severity and lighthearted nature of life at the same time. In his journal article ​The Theatre of

Edward Albee,​ Charles Thomas Samuels states that it “refers to drama whose basic orientation is

metaphysical; plays which are making large and rather bleak propositions about universal

reality” (Samuels 188). This analysis of absurdism, while a bit ambiguous, is very appropriate

and telling of the genre. Many absurdist works are sad and look at life in a morbid way, and say

that life will inevitably end, so there is no point. Other absurdists say that life itself is absurd in

its nature, and the most absurd thing you can put on a stage is life itself. Absurdism works to go

against the theatrical grain in an effort to redefine the audience’s experience in the theatre and to

push the audience to think in new ways not just about what is onstage, but about the viewers’

beliefs and lives. The one aspect that absurdism neglects to encourage thought about, though, is

the position of women in society. Feminism, on the other hand, though originally a political

movement fighting for the equality of women in all aspects of life, takes a very active role in

analyzing literature. Rooted in this political movement, feminist theory deems works of literature

either feminist or anti-feminist in order to “increase our understanding of women’s experience,

both in the past and present, and to promote our appreciation of women’s value in the world”

(Tyson 114). This process then requires a deep dive into the interactions between the characters,

the characters’ traits and descriptions, and their overall depiction. Many anti-feminist texts force
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their female characters to live within the limits of a “traditional” female role as a mother, wife, or

cousin, or limit them to the domestic sphere, and feature conversations and interactions with

women that treat them as objects and as lesser than men. Feminist texts, on the other hand, allow

female characters autonomy within their careers and relationships and encourage positive

discussion about women and their rights. Feminist texts make an active attempt to preach that

women are capable of anything they want to achieve, while anti-feminist texts do the opposite

and try to constrain women’s mobility. In absurdist theatre, the depictions of women can only be

deemed anti-feminist because of their placements, treatment, and their amount of freedom in

comparison to that of a man. Women are stuck in their prescribed roles, and even worse, are

stuck with some of the roles that no one would want to play-- never mind the gender of the role.

Many people know that absurdist works are anti-feminist, but not many pinpoint why.

Most of the women in the classic absurdist plays are stuck within their prescribed gender roles

and treated poorly by the men around them. Women are confined within their homes and treated

as caretakers. Simone de Beauvoir writes widely about this sexually motivated treatment of

women. De Beauvoir’s ​The Second Sex ​is widely regarded as a revolutionary feminist text, as it

encapsulates the female experience in relation to that of man. De Beauvoir says that “woman

appears to us as flesh… akin to nature,” while men do not have that bodily restriction (De

Beauvoir 397). Women are looked at for their bodies, and not seen for anything past that, while

men do not have this same experience. Women are seen as “child-woman,” meaning they are

seen most simply for their child bearing abilities and fertility. De Beauvoir identifies that women

are treated as the Other, and she uses Henri de Montherlant’s antifeminist ideologies to prove

this: “For Montherlant transcendence is a state: he is the transcendent, he soars in the sky of

heroes; the woman crouches on the ground, under his feet; he enjoys measuring the distance
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separating him from her” (de Beauvoir 397). This simply goes to show how men were thinking

of women at the beginning of the writing of feminist texts like de Beauvoir’s. Montherlant’s

ideology of looking down on the women grounded below man is demonstrated in Samuel

Beckett’s ​Happy Days​, within Winnie’s literal grounded position, which will be discussed later

on and used as evidence of Beckett’s anti-feminist tendencies.

The mission of this research and investigation is to pinpoint a reason that absurdism is so

widely known for its anti-feminist reputation by looking at the treatment of women in two classic

absurdist works, while also looking at the history of absurdism to identify its anti-feminist roots.

Not only are absurdist classics anti-feminist in the way they treat women, but in fact they

perpetuate ageist ideologies that women are even lesser than when they no longer are able to

reproduce and have children. Many female characters featured in these works are around the age

of menopause onset or have a history of pregnancy troubles, and these characters are treated

especially poorly. Winnie in ​Happy Days​ is buried up to her waist, stuck trying to be positive for

the outlook of her own life while pitying her husband Willie. Martha and Honey from ​Who’s

Afraid of Virginia Woolf?​ have also both struggled with getting pregnant, and they are set in the

background of Albee’s play.

When looking at a text in an effort to deem it either feminist or anti-feminist, we must

first understand some foundational principles of womanhood and femininity. For my research

specifically, we have to understand that of menopause and society’s ideologies regarding

pregnancy. For centuries women have been expected to provide children for their husbands,

whether this is something they want or not. Because of these expectations, many women find it

especially hard if getting pregnant becomes an issue. Not only does this start problems within the

house and their relationship, but it can also make a woman feel less womanly. Menopause can
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also cause similar feelings, as this also makes women eligible to have children. Whether women

are unable to have children when they are still at their sexual prime or because they are

menopausal, women are then seen as lesser than, or at least, lesser than when they were fertile.

Even further, women are almost disposed of when they start their menopausal ages. Stories of

older men leaving their faithful wives for a younger, prettier, more fertile woman are incredibly

popular within society, but the story mostly leaves out the woman left behind by the man’s

actions. When men reach a certain age, on the other hand, they can face erectile dysfunction. But

luckily for them, there is a solution to that problem: Viagra. Women, on the other hand, do not

have a solution to the symptoms of menopause that effect them sexually, such as low sex drive.

This difference in the treatment of the different sexes shows the societal ideologies value a high

male sex drive more than that of a woman. Society feels worse when a man can not get it up than

they do when a woman loses the ability that society has made them feel is their one and only

responsibility to their husband, which is having a child. This internalized misogyny and

ideological grooming leaves women feeling bad for their husband who is unable to perform,

while also leaving themselves feeling like they are no longer worthy in the eyes of society. While

absurdist classics do not specifically tell stories of husbands leaving their wives for a younger

girl, they instead show a poor treatment of infertile women, and make them out to be almost

worthless.

The History of Absurdism and its Favoring of Men

To understand the treatment of women in absurdist classics we must first understand the

treatment of women in the movement’s origins. Absurdist theatre has a tumultuous history; it is a

strange genre that not all audience members truly like or appreciate. In fact, one of the most
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remarkable stories of the absurdist tradition is that of ​Waiting for Godot.​ After its premiere in

theatres, ​Waiting for Godot ​was very critically received. It did not give the audience the

satisfaction of a neatly wrapped up plotline, nor did it make much sense to the average theater

goers at the time, which mostly happened to be highly educated upperclassmen.Audience

members thought the works of absurdism were foolish and nonsensical, therefore below their

status and a waste of time. Absurdist drama then brought a new crowd to fill the seats, and this

was proven when ​Waiting for Godot​ had their first satisfied audience when it was performed at

the San Quentin prison for the inmates. Not only were the inmates satisfied, but instead they

loved the show and gave it a standing ovation. By this theory, if even inmates were able to enjoy

absurdist theatre, maybe even women, another marginalized group, would be able to partake in it

too, correct? Prisoners liked this play because they know what it is like to wait for their release, a

day that may or may not come. Women share in this waiting, as they are waiting for a release

from their domestic sphere, societal pressures, and beauty standards. Women at this time were

still probed for their intelligence and thought of as lesser than men, and one would think that the

stereotype of foolishness that women and absurdist theatre shared would make for an easy

connection between the two, but this was not the case.

Absurdist theatre mainly rose in London and Paris, specifically at small, intimate theatres

like the Royal Court Theatre and Théâtre de Babylone. These theatres became home to

playwrights like Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco, among other absurdists. Interestingly

enough, though, the Royal Court Theatre did not premiere female work until Caryl Churchill’s

Owners​ in 1972, over ten years after the rise of absurdist theatre. After Churchill’s work took the

stage, there was a twenty year gap before the next female absurdist playwright was offered any

stage time. Sarah Kane’s ​4.48 Psychosis a​ nd ​Crave​ premiered at the Royal Court in 2000 and
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2001. Information about Théâtre de Babylone is much more difficult to find as most of their

history is kept in French, but it actually seems that all of the absurdist works that have been

produced there were written by men.

This male monopolization of the theatres then leads us to question whether women were

writing absurdist works in those first ten years? and they were being boxed out of it, or if women

were not actually writing at all. Admittedly, it is a mix of these two causes. To answer this

question we must analyze the roots of the absurdist movement and the main figures involved in

its creation, which brings us to George Devine. Devine was the founder of the Old Vic Theatre

School (now the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School), which was a postwar school meant to train the

actors who started their training before the war began (Wikipedia 2019). He also founded the

Young Vic Theatre Company, with a mission of bringing theatre to young people. Devine then

became involved with the Royal Court Theatre, which allowed many of his acting students a

direct passage to a professional stage. Through both of these outlets, Devine quickly became

close friends with other absurdist playwrights like Ionesco and Beckett. Devine’s altruistic

endeavours to make theatre more accessible did not really apply to women, though, as his theatre

school and friend group quickly became a boys’ club including some of the men he worked

closely with, whether they were playwrights, producers, or directors. Because of the nature of his

friend group and their status within the theatre and absurdist world, women did not really have

an accepting community to join when writing absurdist works.

The other reason behind a lack of female playwrights follows a fairly similar route. It is

no secret that women faced many obstacles forging a path into the world of authorship. Women

authors were highly criticized and made to seem like they were unintelligent, causing them to go

by male or gender neutral pen names in an effort to get their works published, and even further,
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on store shelves. These problems have certainly improved since the early 1800s (and even

earlier) when women were looking to get published, but women still face many similar problems

nowadays, such as being pitted against their male counterparts in competition and receiving a

lower compensation for their works. These similar problems were faced by absurdist

playwrights, because the nature of the absurdist tradition favored the many privileges man have

always had in the world of writing. They were able to write nonsensical, foolish plays without

receiving any judgement or being probed intellectually. Men had the privilege to create any

content they wanted to, and women did not have this same nicety.

Many good works by women have been disputed by men saying that women are not

smart enough to write, and female authors of less polished works have been criticized for their

unintelligence. Even Mary Shelley, renowned feminist author, is still questioned as having even

written ​Frankenstein​ because of claims from John Lauristen’s book ​The Man Who Wrote

Frankenstein,​ in which he theorizes that Mary Shelley’s husband Percy is the real author of the

book. This claim is false and baseless, as the original manuscript of ​Frankenstein​ is currently

held and often put on display at the J.P. Morgan Library in New York City, and it shows the

content of the book in Mary Shelley’s handwriting with marginal notes written in Percy’s. But

Lauritsen’s claims still have traction. People still buy his book to hear his claims and go to

conventions to hear him speak, thus giving him more money and attention: the two things

Lauritsen most wants from this transaction. While Mary Shelley is not an absurdist writer and

this example is not to make her out to be one, her experience is representative of what happens

when a woman writes a revolutionary work. Not only was Mary Shelley discredited to some

populations and believers by these claims, but Lauritsen also made money off of them. While

there were not many female absurdist playwrights, there certainly were still some. For example,
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Adrienne Kennedy was writing absurdist works throughout her career, which started in the

1960s. She is known for her anti-racist works that widely provoked thought from her audiences

and for her surrealist work, which could also be identified as absurdist. Her plays ​Funnyhouse of

a Negro ​and ​The Owl Answers ​take from the absurdist traditions, as they “are intensely

dreamlike and frequently nightmarish in presentation, and both abound with surrealistic

imagery” (Carroll 1). These plays were originally produced off broadway in 1964, but are not

widely regarded for their absurdist characteristics. This could be because they were not produced

at the Royal Court Theatre or Théâtre de Babylone, but it is most likely because the works were

not by one of the great men of absurdism. Even further, Michael Feigngold of ​The Village Voice,​

a New York newspaper, wrote that “with [Samuel] Beckett gone, Adrienne Kennedy is probably

the boldest artist now writing for the theater” (Feigngold 1995). The way this is stated makes it

seem like the theater world was, in part, waiting for Beckett to pass to give way to the next

revolutionary absurdist, as if he was consuming all of the spotlight. Whether Feigngold meant to

state this passing of the torch in this way or not, I think this is at least partially true. Beckett and

his friend group were nearly monopolizing the production of absurdist theater, and the only way

that any new artist could forge an absurdist path was to wait for the disbandment of this group.

Even after this group disbanded, though, the same issues were present for women in their efforts

of publishing works. Not only were women’s voices marginalized and overlooked during the

absurdist movement because of George Devine’s boys’ club, but also because of the societal

reaction set forth for female authors and playwrights. But just because a play is written by a

woman does not mean that it is inherently feminist, and vice versa in the case of male

playwrights. Samuel Beckett’s ​Happy Days ​and Edward Albee’s ​Who’s Afraid of Virginia

Woolf?,​ on the other hand, are perfect examples of why the “classics” of absurdist theatre not
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only represent an anti-feminist tradition behind the scenes, but also within the content of the

plays themselves.

Not so​ Happy Days

Samuel Beckett’s well known absurdist works come across as apolitical, but this is not

the case. Beckett witnessed the turmoil, destruction, rehabilitation, and rebuilding of different

European nations all throughout his lifetime, so to say he was not politically involved or

interested ignores the reality of his life. Beckett made many active efforts to advocate for various

human rights advocates and petitioners, but “his name remained largely unnoticed among more

obviously ‘political’ writers” (Morin 2017). Some say that actions speak louder than words, but,

in Beckett’s case, the opposite seems to be more true of his works. While he seems to stay

apolitical in his works, whether he meant to or not, Beckett’s works have strong political

leanings and implications, which provoke thought within his audiences. The gender politics of

his works, on the other hand, make little to no effort to stray from the status quo, and set up a

very misogynistic view of women. In fact, Beckett has received a lot of criticism for his ageist

representation of women by portraying them as useless when they become menopausal.

While this story seems to just be a strangely staged marriage story, Winnie’s character

traits and placement in the dirt is actually representative of her being stuck within the domestic

sphere, and also of her premature burial by society due being post-menopausal. Winnie’s

character is written in an anti-feminist tone which reduces her to her prescribed gender role.

Happy Days t​ akes place in the day of the life of Winnie and Willie, a married couple who find

themselves in peculiar vessels. Willie is staged within the shadows and seems to be a fairly sad

and immobile character, while Winnie is buried up to her waist when we meet her. The two go
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about their day as Winnie reminisces and finds joy in her daily tasks, while Willie seems to

struggle with everything he does. Willie is almost mute, as he only mutters a few one syllable

words throughout the first act, and Winnie does all of the talking. Winnie, despite her optimism

and positivity, worries about her future and her existence, and even probes Willie by asking

“Was I loveable once, Willie? Was I ever loveable?” (Beckett 31). Willie is ultimately

unresponsive throughout the show, only quoting some lines he reads from the newspaper and

giving long, stumbling responses every one in a while, until the very end when Winnie

encourages him to make it up the mound for a heartfelt, loving moment that reminds her of the

moment he proposed.

Winnie is not just placed in this mound of dirt, she is buried, and even moreso, she is

stuck. Winnie is being forced into this restrictive spot in which she is unable to move or practice

any kind of bodily autonomy, let alone in her career and her life. This restriction is telling of an

anti-feminist narrative. Since she is unable to leave her home to go to work or do any other

activities, she falls prey to the prescribed gender role that says women must tend to the home as

their primary job and concern, such as that of the standards of the domestic sphere. Because of

Willie’s pessimistic and negative attitude about life, it is also Winnie’s job to cheer him up and

try to make him look on the bright side, showing that tending to her home and husband are her

priorities, whether she decided that these are her priorities or not.

The audience is never told exactly why Winnie is buried in the dirt, but we do know that

she is buried up to her waist in the beginning of Act I, then is buried up to her neck at the

beginning of Act II. Winnie’s placement in the dirt is not just to show her limitation to her home

and the domestic sphere, but to also show that her prime sexual age is either over or soon to be

over. Since Winnie is about fifty years old, which means she is most likely near menopause, if
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she is not in that stage yet. Considering that she is past her child-bearing prime, it is not

surprising that she is half way in the ground, buried up past her genitalia, making her sexually

inaccessible, representing her fastly decreasing sex drive. Not to mention the fact that she is not

buried in a grassy hill, rather it is sad, might I even say barren (a word often used to describe an

infertile woman) mound of dirt. According to Simone de Beauvoir, “woman appears to us as

flesh,” as woman is often reduced to her child bearing abilities and her sexual prime (de

Beauvoir 397). Later on in the second act the audience sees Winnie buried up past her chest,

meaning that all of her sexual organs are now buried. Her sexual inaccessibility did not start

when her burial started though; rather her burial started when her body started aging past the

time of her sexual prime. Since she is no longer able to bear children and she is aging, she is no

longer sexually attractive to society, so her early burial is representative of her sexuality slowly

dying in the eyes of society. This is not just a brutal and cruel way of looking at the aging

woman, but it is also taking an anti-feminist approach to female sexuality. Since society is no

longer able to benefit from her sexual endeavours in the way of repopulation, she is no longer

seen as a sexual being, therefore, is no longer able to participate in sex for her own enjoyment.

Winnie’s hands and mouth are still accessible in the beginning, meaning she can still assist

Willie in his sexual needs, but her pleasure organs are entirely inaccessible. She then is left only

to her mouth, once again only allowing for Willie’s needs to be met, and leaving her with only

one option to help. She is left only to the devices that Willie, or men in general, can benefit from

without expectations of reciprocity.

Winnie’s possessions, even, are representative of her prescribed gender role. When taking

objects out of her bag, she pulls traditionally female items out, such as lipstick, a comb, and a

nail file. She pulls less gendered items out too, such as a toothbrush and toothpaste, a bottle of
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medicine, and even a gun. Whether gendered or not, five out of seven of these objects are

centered around physical appearance, and even more specifically, they are tools that can help the

user to appeal to conventional beauty standards. Women are often expected to have clear skin,

pearly white teeth, neat hair, and rosy red cheeks and lips, and these kinds of standards are

specifically perpetuated by men and the patriarchy. While Winnie is no longer sexually

accessible, she is still expected to look presentable to her husband and does so by using those

gendered tools, thus conforming to societal standards. The gun can also be seen as a piece of

phallic imagery, meaning she can still have her hands on a penis, most likely Willie’s, but her

own pleasure is out of the question.

Lastly, Winnie’s ever-present optimism and dialogue have high probabilities of coming

across as naivety or foolishness to the audience. At the very beginning of the play the audience is

introduced to Winnie as she sleeps, buried. Upon waking up, she says “another heavenly day,”

which strikes a strong dissonance between what the audience is seeing versus what Winnie is

saying (Beckett 8). Her optimism, though, really only extends to her specific situation, as she

repeats “poor Willie” throughout the first scene (Beckett 9). Willie’s situation certainly is not

optimal, as he is trying to bury himself in other ways, using his papers and reading materials, but

in comparison, Winnie’s situation is much worse. Willie is still able to move around, though his

mobility is limited, and he still has some sense of autonomy and ability to function

independently. Winnie is focused on him, and we can also see a perpetration of patriarchal ideals

within her repetition of “poor Willie.” The word “willie” is often used as a slang word for penis,

and Winnie’s pity and sadness that Willie can no longer get up speaks for itself. But this sadness

she feels for Willie’s potential metaphor for erectile dysfunction is not a sadness for herself,

instead it is an internalized misogyny like that described in the introduction. While Winnie’s
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sadness and pity most likely comes from the heart, some of it could be seen as naivety and

ideological conditioning because she disregards her situation to focus on him. They are both at

the stage of their lives in which they can no longer reproduce, but she specifically feels bad for

him, when he does not really seem to feel bad for her. She could also be seen as foolish because

of her constant dialogue. As mentioned before, Willie really only says a few monosyllabic words

throughout the first act and does not really participate in conversation with Winnie. So in a way,

Winnie is talking at Willie instead of speaking with him. The question is, though, is this naivety

gendered? Does the audience only see her as this because of her gender? I think yes. Both of

these potentially foolish characteristics come from tropes of women which say that they are often

ditsy and overly talkative.

The writing of Winnie’s character is deeply anti-feminist. From a misogynistic point of

view, she is a babbling, ditsy woman who is no longer sexually attractive, therefore society has

no use for her, so she should stay in her home and serve her husband. Her premature burial is

telling of a society that values fertility over anything.

Who’s Afraid of Feminism?

Edward Albee was well known as an American absurdist who pushed his audience

members to think about what his plays meant and what they were saying. There was a fairly

large critical audience of his works, who begged the question “what makes Albee run?”

(Schechner 7). Albee’s plays often push his viewers to question what life is really about, but he

once again fails to provoke any kind of thought about gender and the female placement in his

play ​Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?​ which is titled as a spoof on the nursery song “Who’s

Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.” This parody title is anti-feminist right off the bat on its own as it is
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equating Virginia Woolf, one of the most important 20th century modernist writers, to the big

​ he play tells the story

bad wolf presumably because she is a woman and because of her ideals.​ T

of two seemingly normal couples who meet at a function for the college that the two husbands

work at, then a strange, event-filled night ensues when the older couple, Martha and George,

invite the younger couple, Nick and Honey, over for a night cap. Martha and George play a

series of games on them, which Nick and Honey are not aware of. They know that they are being

tricked and played with, but they do not know the motives of these tricks. These games bring

them to a dancing club, bring up ambiguous murder confessions, and ultimately are a strange

way for colleagues to be bonding. Throughout their adventures of the night, though, George and

Nick seem to take the spotlight, and this staging runs parallel to de Beauvoir’s idea of the woman

being pitted as the “other.” The main plotline of the whole script is George and Nick’s

tumultuous relationship, and the women are placed in the background. Much like in ​Happy Days,​

the women of ​Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?​ are treated as lesser than due to their sexual

accessibility and eligibility.

Martha and George do not have a son, yet they play a game in which they act like they

do. Without telling too much about the game, Martha reveals this secret child to Honey while

drunk, but Honey is the first person they have ever told about this. Throughout the play the

audience questions whether or not the child is real or not, and then they ultimately conclude that

the son is just another game or fantasy to Martha and George, one that they seem to have taken

too far. Toward the end of the play, their game comes crashing down around them, as George

tells Martha their son was “killed late this afternoon,” and Martha responds “you can’t do that,”

proving that the son is just another game with a set of ever adapting rules (Albee 231). But why

did they play the game in the first place? We can find the answer within Martha’s response to her
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fake son’s death. Not only does she say that George can not do that, she also says he can not

make that decision “for [him]self” (Albee 232). Martha is devastated and heartbroken at the loss

of her fake son, and demonstrates a devastation that is deeper than just that of the end of her

game. Instead, she is reacting as if losing a real son. Considering how normalized it was for

every married couple to have at least one child at the time that ​Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

was written it is very likely that either Martha and George tried to have a child and were unable

to, or instead they decided not to and Martha was not happy with this decision. So, as a

consolation for either of these scenarios, Martha and George decided to pretend they have a son,

just while within the constructs of their home. Either way, the game was meant to help console

Martha’s feelings of inadequacy regarding her inability to give George a child.

Despite George knowing how devastating this experience was for Martha and how upset

about it she still is, George makes fun of Honey’s “hysterical pregnancy.” Hysterical pregnancy,

also called “phantom” or “false” pregnancy but clinically known as “pseudocyesis,” can happen

when the body and the mind work in conjunction to create symptoms of pregnancy, then

ultimately make the person believe that they are actually pregnant. There is another theory

regarding hysterical pregnancy, though, which involves wish fulfillment. “Pseudocyesis has a

psychological basis in which a woman's wish for pregnancy is essential to their identity and

self-esteem” (Upadhyay 1). This means that if a woman has been facing issues getting pregnant

but still wants to get pregnant, she will start to think she actually is pregnant. In Honey’s case,

George accuses her of faking a hysterical pregnancy as a way of tricking Nick into marrying her,

which may very well be true. In some scenes, Honey says “I want a child. I want a baby,” to

which Nick has no response (Albee 223).

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Now the fact that both of these women have faced pregnancy related issues is not

anti-feminist in itself, instead Albee’s treatment of these two women is. Firstly, Albee makes the

two women out to seem crazy. While Honey faces hysterical pregnancy, Martha faces hysterical

motherhood. Honey’s urgency and wishing to have a baby makes her weak to the audience, as

George makes her seem crazy and desperate for lying to Nick about being pregnant. In Martha’s

case, she seems crazy for making up the lie that she has a son. Interestingly enough, though, their

husbands were also involved in this situation, but they do not receive any judgment for their part

in it. The audience is not asking questions about what Nick did to check and see if Honey was

actually pregnant, nor are they asking what George did to console Martha other than just

allowing her to create this fake human being. Instead, the women are being blamed for their

strange situations, and while the women are unable to escape the lies that they are stuck in, the

men are able to enjoy their night together without having to worry about those situations being

brought up as charges against them. They were just as involved in the situation as the women

were, but they are clear of all fault.

Secondly, the women take the backseat for the whole film. While the story is about all

four of them and how they interact together, we learn much more about the men, and most of the

information we learn about the women is mediated by the men. Honey has to leave multiple

times to go throw up, and instead of Nick following her to help, Martha does. We could easily

blame this decision on the fact that they were at Martha and George’s house when Honey

originally feels sick, but actions like these simply can not be overlooked in a feminist sense.

Through a feminist lens, we not only see that Martha is taking on a motherly role toward Honey,

thus acting within the domestic sphere and prescribed female gender role, but we also see that

this substitution is giving the men more screen time than the women. When Honey and Nick first
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arrive at George and Martha’s house, Martha and Honey leave for an eight minute tour of the

house, in which time George and Nick discuss their career aspirations while working at the

college. While Honey is throwing up and Martha is tending to her in the film adaptation of the

script, Nick and George have a whole of twenty-one minutes of uninterrupted screen time just to

themselves. In this time, we learn more about Martha and George’s son, Nick and Honey’s

relationship, and we hear the story of George’s friend that killed his father. Between just these

two scenes, the women have twenty-nine minutes less of screen time than the men, which

actually takes up a quarter of the two hour long movie. The script does not show the audience

what the women discuss in the time they are alone together, despite the fact that the house tour is

when Martha tells Honey about her son, which is arguably one of the most important

introductions in the play. Instead, Albee focuses solely on the stories of the men, and the women

are seen and heard less than the men.

Albee’s conscious decision to pick out the wive’s weaknesses in fertility and to put them

in the background is not just anti-feminist, it is degrading. Albee’s representation of these

women reduces them to only their biological abilities and prescribed gender roles, making them

idle products of a patriarchal society.

Conclusion

It is hard to say whether or not the absurdist tradition would have developed differently if

there were more female playwrights involved in the origins of the movement, but at this point it

is easy to say that the absurdist tradition is built upon anti-feminist ideologies. From George

Devine’s monopolization of the absurdist stages to Beckett and Albee’s anti-feminist treatment

of women, the movement and its content are both sexist and ageist. The treatment of women in
 Doyle 19

and out of the scripts throughout this tradition is deplorable, and not just within the classics.

Sarah Kane’s ​Blasted s​ hows a woman being raped onstage, and many people who leave the

theatre after the show do not even cite that as the most disturbing part. This goes to show that

these anti-feminist and violent representations of women have not just become a normalized part

of theatre and the absurdist tradition, but they have become a normalized part of our daily lives.

Going back to the definition of absurdism stated in the introduction, some absurdist

playwrights believe that the most absurd thing you can put on stage is a sample of an everyday

interaction. The idea that absurdist works are reflective of our real lives, yet it is still

exceptionally disturbing, goes to show how normalized the mistreatment of women is. We allow

this treatment of women to happen both onstage and off, but why is this? Is the misogynistic

tradition too ingrained within us to crack? Has the common saying “life imitates art” gone too

far? In the inverse of this question, we can ask maybe if art has become too violent and

anti-feminist, and this is what we are modeling our behaviors after?

It is hard to tell the roots of our societal ideologies, and also hard to tell where the future

will take these societal ideas, but it is easier to make personal decisions in the way of what

creators and artists we will support. We as individuals can decide to stay away from creators who

perpetuate ideals that we do not agree with, and instead fund creators supporting the ideals that

we want to boost in our society. Culture and society are rapidly adapting nowadays, and we must

remember that every one of our actions and decisions directly feeds into who we will be

tomorrow, and even more what society will look like tomorrow. Everyone has a part in slowing

down and hopefully stopping the perpetuation of anti-feminist ideals, and that change can start

with just one ticket to a play.

 Doyle 20

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Esslin, Martin. ​The Theatre of the Absurd.​ Vintage Books, 2004.

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