WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?

Albee has chosen to interpret the causes of disappointment, frustration and

emotional insecurity associated with the human life vis-à-vis the characters of the play.
The anxiety within the human consciousness assumes great significance as the patterns
of conflict in the inner recesses of mind are seen to emerge in the familial relationships.
In Albee’s own words: the play is about the ways people get through life (Stenz 39). He
makes a frontal attack on human beings for their love for illusions and their efforts to
use it as a defence mechanism against their own inadequacies; and also against the
external world which they fear and reject. He penetrates behind the mask and exposes
the pain born out of sterility, unrealized dreams and unfulfilled ambitions. Anita Maria
Stenz opines that “play presents a successful commentary on the hypocrisy involved in
the human relationships” (25)
Albee's dissection of society is represented through three Acts: Fun and Games;
Walpurgisnacht; The Exorcism. At the centre stage are four characters: George, an
Associate Professor of history; Martha, his wife and also the daughter of College
President; Nick, a newly appointed teacher of Biology; Honey, his wife and daughter of
a Minister. Martha and George invent a fantasy son named Jim to fill the sterility in
their lives. They keep themselves busy by indulging in Fun and Games and making
series of verbal attacks on each other. They agree not to divulge the secret of their son
being a mythical one to anybody. However, Martha breaks the agreement by talking
about the child to Nick and Honey. This breach becomes the cause of death of the
fantasy son. There is over all change in the mindset of characters. George helps Martha
to return to reality by initiating different moves. It is not only the reality of unproductive
marriage but at a higher level it also depicts the conflict and understanding of self in
relation to each other.
In Act One we get the necessary information about the characters- Martha’s
unhappy married life, George’s failure to rise up to the expectations of his wife and
father-in-law, their love-hate relationship and withdrawal behind the illusion of a

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fantasy son. In Act Two we get to see the violence born out of hatred, frustration and
anger which compels them to humiliate each other with verbal stings and sexual
perversities. In Act Three the fantasy son is done to death by George and in their
confrontation with the reality of their being a childless couple re-union takes place. The
war of words ends and silence prevails all around. In the first two acts Martha’s
aggressiveness and hatred and in the third act George’s savagery and revenge reflect
through the dialogues.

“The dramatic tension of the work is generated by interaction between the

visible sterile external action and the hidden and invisible area of fantasy deeply
cherished by the couple. This story of private life represents that of a thousand
houses and transcends the personal and private and embraces an important
aspect of the technological ethos: the need of human warmth. Martha’s
aggressiveness, her biting criticism of George, her careless sexual abandon and
the creation of the fictitious son - all denote-the deep and unfulfilled craving for
human relationship”. (Choudhuri 141-142).

The action of the play starts in the living room of George and Martha’s house on their
reaching home at 2 a.m. after attending a party hosted by her father in honour of new
faculty members. They are heavily drunk and continue drinking till the end of the play.
Liquor plays a vital role in Martha and George’s retreat from reality. They are joined by
Nick and Honey whom Martha has invited for a night. They engage themselves in
destructive verbal duel which gradually draws in their guest. Martha is shown to be a
compulsive talker who wants to engage George in conversation at any cost to fill the
emotional void in her life and also to counter her fear of rejection. George always seems
annoyed with Martha on her persistent questioning and Martha hates George for her
intellectual airs. However, as the play proceeds it becomes clear that their marriage is
held by their inter-dependence and love hate-relationship between them.

“This combat gives dramatic tension to the play and the hatred which
underlies the conflict, can be attributed to the twenty years of sterile
marriage” (Mishra 64).

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There is a sense of great insecurity in Martha because of her unhappy childhood. She
lost her mother early in life and her father married again; in his new-found happiness
the daughter was forgotten. She idolizes her father and craves for his love Her father’s
refusal to acknowledge her identity has left great scars on her psyche; a sense of
rejection weighs heavy on her mind. The insignificance of her existence in her father’s
eyes has been a cause of immense pain. In order to escape the feeling of loneliness she
starts day-dreaming. She dreams of marrying a man who will take her father’s place in
the college; dreams of herself being considered as an important person by the society;
dreams of having a son called Jim; dreams of a happy and satisfied married life. But her
dreams fail to materialize and in order to hide the anguish and frustration, she starts
living an illusionary life. She marries George to realize her dreams as she visualizes that
one day he will help her prove her mettle in the eyes of her father by taking his place
but sadly, this does not happen. Because of her lack of self-esteem and personal goals
Martha is not interested in the man but the fact as to what she could be through the man.
Her major concern is an association with a husband who could make her appear
interesting and important in the eyes of her father. Seen in that perspective, her love for
her husband is a form of “narcissism” and her dream more real to her than George
himself : I cannot even see you...I haven’t been able to see you for years. (164)
Psychologically speaking, Martha's problem lies with her attitudinal traits. She
tends to see the man in terms of his social collective function as father and protector of
the family rather than an individual. Her being bossy, quarrelsome or possessive is the
result of such thinking. Her verbal duals with her husband are her way of venting the
repressed agony of unfulfilled dreams. She never treats him as an individual having his
own personality and continually hurts him with verbal stings. She had married George
is the hope that like her father George too will occupy the college president's chair but
George fails to even grab the post of Head of History Department. She sees her
husband’s success or failure in the light of success of his father. His not succeeding like
her father makes him a failure in her eyes: And I sat there at Daddy's party and I
watched you, and you weren't there! And it snapped! it finally snapped! (261) Martha is

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unable to comprehend the fact that George does not want to compromise his values to
achieve social success therefore, she considers him a flop. The failure of unrealized
dreams turns her into an aggressive, dominating and loud-mouthed woman who excels
in war of words. Like Jerry in The Zoo Story Martha suffers from emotional emptiness.
The violent outbursts are manifestations of her inner frustration owing to sterility,
unfulfilled ambitions and lack of self-esteem.
She attacks George to ignore her shortcomings and also to avenge the unfulfilled
romantic hopes which she desired from George in married life. She accepted George as
her life partner in the hope that he would enrich her life: And along came George…
Who was young… intelligent and sort of cute. And you know what I did? I fell for him
(208). She grieves because George as a romantic husband and as a scholar has not been
able to meet her aspirations. She viciously calls him a flop: A Flop! A great... big... fat.
FLOP (210). In order to relieve herself of the pain she takes to heavy drinking and
exhausts her energies through noisy unrestrained behaviour. She does nothing
constructive to help herself or make life bearable for George and herself. With nothing
to do, she wallows in self pity. Her anguish makes her ruthlessly egoistical. The
suppressed rage is let out through verbal abuse. Her energy is spent not in creative but
destructive actions. In the course of play, she herself admits her dissatisfaction with life:
… I disgust me. I pass my life in crummy, totally pointless infidelities (276). She
comes across as a person aware of her predicament yet doing little to mitigate the pain
and sort out the mess. While analyzing her character Stenz opines:

Without any sense of how she (Martha) can contribute to improve the
quality of her life, expecting all things great and beautiful to come from
outside herself, she wallows in disillusionment. With nothing to do that
interests her and nothing to live for, she spends her nights leaving a trail
of half filled glasses of gin around the house and her days sleeping off
her drunkenness. (43)

She shows her dissatisfaction of George by not catering to his personal needs or
appreciating his work. She denigrates his work whenever she can: You talk like you

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were writing one of your stupid papers. (259) Albee describes George “as a promising
young man who fell in love with college president’s daughter in his clumsy old
fashioned way”(Stenz 42) but remained his own man till the end. He never changed
either to satisfy Martha or his father-in-law. He bears the brunt of his wife’s personal
attacks but makes no effort to change himself. Like his earlier plays, this “play
castigates society obsessed with the mystic of success for the appearance of it.” (Stenz
44) A person like George who believes in his own definition of success that is not to be
measured by pay packets or social status ,bear the brunt of societal and domestic wrath.
While Martha strongly disregards individuality George considers it of
paramount importance. In spite of social pressures to conform he has retained his
identity. “George goes his on way, he seeks individual relationships, his own inner
treasures... and he does not concern himself very much with authority or permanence”
(Whiteman). He wants to unravel the truth behind the mask and that is what he
ultimately does in the end by tearing the veil of fantasy covering Martha's psyche. He is
in the habit of seeing the truth and so, is aware, that instead of pursuing scholarly
interest teachers remain busy in compromising it to gain favours and promotions. They
happily comply with the policies issued in the name of institutional authority. George
himself admits: Martha's father expects his... staff ... to cling to the walls of this place
like the ivy... to come here and grow old... to fall in line of service. (180)
George too seems to have complexity of character. Although he possess
intellectual sharpness yet is not willing to go up the ladder by compromising with his
honesty and integrity. Martha too vouches for his brilliance when she says “George is
the one who keeps learning the games we play as quickly as I can change the rules” and
in the same vein adds that he is the one “who tolerates, which is intolerable; who is
kind, which is cruel; who understands which is beyond comprehension…” (277)
George's resistance to be apart of such system becomes the bone of contention
between husband and wife. His inability invites the wrath of his wife who is unable to
comprehend that why George could not fall in line even for such small event like a
boxing match where her father wanted every one's participation but he didn't want to do
so. George is aware that career advancement can be easily achieved by accepting

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college or university's policies but he refuses to comply and as a result, he is unable to
fulfill Martha's dream of his following in her father's footsteps and be a president one
day. These traits of love for change and growth and dislike for conformity are inherent
in him and are revealed in the course of the play during his discussion with Nick about
the fall outs of scientific research: we will have a race of men test tube bred... incubator
born... superb and sublime. (198) George does not want to see look-a-like and
genetically controlled race of men as he considers it to be a shame rather than an
achievement.
George never shares such views with his wife because of her insensitivity to
such arguments. It may be considered as one of the reasons responsible for the conflict.
Being a historian George strongly believes that if human beings are engineered to be
uniform, the world will be deprived of literary and artistic feats: I suspect the will not
have much music, much painting (198). He lambastes that if scientists get successful in
their designs then the culture and races will actually vanish and “the ants will take over
the world.” (199). Ants here symbolize lack of diversity of achievement, action and
purpose. Consequently, there will be uniformity in every-day chores and events. George
rightly points out: … the surprise, the multiplicity, the sea-changing rhythm of ...
history, will be eliminated. There will be order and constancy ... and I am unalterably
opposed to it... (199). In spite of his ability to learn the rules fast he remains
unsuccessful because he is not consistent professionally. His verbal brilliance lacks
focus or intensity. In between, there are long time spans when he withdraws into
himself and this withdrawal seriously affects his marriage. Martha had expected her to
shine in his field, to be somebody, but he has not lived up to her expectations. For her,
he is a “somebody without thoughts to make anybody proud of him…” She calls him
“PHRASE MAKER” (162) for the intellectual screens he erects around himself in order
to avoid physical intimacy with his wife:

Martha : You’re gonna do what?

George (Quietly, distinctly) : I am going to read a book. Read. Read.
Read? You’ve heard of it? (Picks up a
book) (268).

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Later Martha turns to Nick and states: he’s going to read a book… The son of a bitch is
going to read a book! (269). Actually George’s calculated strategy of withdrawal is a
means to avoid honest engagement with his wife. He admits candidly: I’ m numbed
enough and I don’t mean by liquor…. to be able to take you when we are alone. (259)
Through the First Two Acts we find that George and Martha are equally responsible for
their present condition.
Martha’s inability to produce a child and get recognition as a mother lowers her
self-esteem in her own eyes. In marriage, child serves as an emotional link between the
husband and wife and its absence becomes the source of isolation and alienation. To fill
the void, Martha invents a fantasy child which serves as a link of communication
between the two and keeps the marriage going. “Against the background of their life of
emptiness and fertility, the mutually agreed imaginary child becomes more real and
beautiful. In their moments of loss and disappointments, the image of the child, their
own creation, perhaps sustains them. The child is a creation of frustration and
simultaneously an expression of their deepest urge for happiness and normal life”
(Choudhury 134). This fantasy son also pushes them towards illusionary living. It is
only at the end when this fantasy is done to death that the couple re-unites.
Martha has often been labelled an Amazon type of woman dominating and
authoritative as opposed to George who is contemplative, scholarly and a good listener.
He loves to perceive rather than act and so, is considered to be wise. The conflict
between husband and wife is the outcome of their different personality traits, attitudes
and orientation. Martha’s dominating nature finds an outlet at her father's parties where
she acts as hostess. She loves and enjoys the immense attention she gets there. But after
becoming George's wife partying becomes a thing of past as George never makes an
attempt to come closer to his father-in-law. Martha's inability to regulate her husband's
life becomes the cause of her loneliness and she starts finding peace in hiding behind
illusions. Throughout the play she is shown hurling abuses and treating him sadistically.
She attributes all those traits to Jim (the imaginary son) which she would have seen in
her real son. She tells George about this fantasy son. George is reluctant to be a party to

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such fantasy but on her persuasion he extracts a promise from Martha that she will
never talk about this son before any stranger. Martha’s inability to keep this promise
forces George to break her illusions in the end. Bereft of a non-existent son Martha is
apprehensive about facing the future. Analyzing such characters Eric Fromm states:

“There are (people) who say things which antagonize those whom they
love or on whom they are dependent although actually they feel friendly
towards them and did not intend to say these things”. (125)

One such example is her playing ‘Humiliate the Host’ in which she draws immense
pleasure by embarrassing George by revealing some incidents of his life which he
preferred to bury. During the course of play Martha deliberately flirts with Nick to hurt
and provoke George. George sees through her antics and responds to her provocation
with contempt:

Martha : Never mind that I said I was necking with one of the
guests.
George : Good ... good. (270)

George’s coolness irritates her. However, when Nick tries to pass a remark that George
has no self respect she instantly counters him by saying: you don’t hunh? You don’t’
think so…( 272) Nick’s assertion that he is better than most of them does not stop
Martha from stating that he is like anybody else and there is nothing special about him.
Anybody who fails to come up to her standard is a flop – whether George or Nick or
anybody else: ... and you are all flops (276). George is a flop for her because he lacks
the tenacity to act on his convictions. Although he is inclined toward innovation but he
lacks the strength and courage to pursue the novel ideas. He has in fact sacrificed his
creative urge by not publishing a novel he had written by bowing to the wishes of
Martha’s dad. Had he stood his ground perhaps things would have been different for
both of them.

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 His not pursuing the race for Head of History Department or president of the
college can be considered partly a failure and partly a choice. Unlike Nick, he has too
much self respect to become an out and out conformist but he has not been brave
enough to opt out altogether. His mental make-up makes it difficult for him to be a part
of Martha’s fantasy world and he warns her : you have moved bag and baggage into
your fantasy world now, and you've started playing variations on your own distortions...
(259).However, He has avoided dissuading Martha from indulging in such an illusion.
Martha has been taunting him constantly and he has been listening patiently; he is
prompted to act only when his wife reveals the secret. His action shatters the illusion
which had kept Martha going – having a son named Jim. The transformation from a
contemplative brooding scholar into a fighter to save his married life is the high point of
the play. He successfully steers Martha towards reality by breaking her illusionary
world inhabited by a mythical son. Anne Paolucci aptly comments:

Nothing happens in the play, but reality is changed completely in the

gradual discovery and recognition of what is inside us all. (46)

Marriage considered to be a binding bond between two individuals has lost its relevance
in the modern set-up. In case of Nick and Honey, Nick asserts that he married Honey
because she was pregnant when actually, he was after her money. When George
inquires about this pregnancy Nick lamely replies: She wasn’t... really. It was a
hysterical pregnancy. She blew up, and then she went down. (216) Their relationship
lacks the feeling of love and concern for each other. We find him flirting with Martha
when Honey lies sick on the bathroom floor. Honey too married Nick because he had
promised to keep away from making physical contact with her. For George and Martha
too it is a marriage of convenience. Albee’s characters reflect the mood of the
contemporary American society where institution of marriage has been commercialized
and as a result, the emotional bonding between the partners is no where to be seen. The
play highlights the sterility linked with the existence of both the couples and their
withdrawal behind illusions of an imaginary son and an aborted child. Each of them

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tries to hide the reality from the other and their talk centers around marriage, university
and several other mundane topics but not the kids. It is only towards the end that reality
is uncovered by breaking illusions.
On the surface reading, the play appears to be centered on the child but it is
wrong to assume that the play is only about the child. In fact, Albee is more concerned
with the lives of people who have to rely on the imaginary son. In Alan Schneider’s
words: Albee’s play is not about the child just as Godot is not about Godot but about
the people -who have had to create him. (20) The reference here is to Samuel Beckett’s
play Waiting for Godot where he highlights the aimlessness, the vacuity, the void, the
sterility which Vladimir and Estragon find in their lives. In other words, play is not
about Godot but Vladimir and Estragon who find their existence meaningless and are
left waiting for Godot. It can also be compared with J.D. Salinger’s novel Uncle Wiggly
in Connecticut where a small girl alienated from her mother invents a playmate. When
the mother discloses the fact to a friend, the girl kills him in a car accident and again
invents a new one. The only difference between Albee’s play and Salinger’s story is
that in Albee’s play George and Martha’s son dies in the end with no one to replace him
while in Salinger’s story we have a replacement. George seems to have found a certain
confidence in the fact that truth is better than illusion as a means of coping with life’s
problems. Like the gorgeous young man in The American Dream, the image of the
imaginary son is hollow; his killing symbolizes return to reality.
Martha, as a counterpart to George, has been portrayed realistically. Under the
loud exterior she hides the pain, anguish and frustration of alienated self and futile
relationship. George has verbal brilliance which is directionless and lacks focus or
intensity. The guests Nick and Honey serve as a contrasting couple to George and
Martha. Nick is young, ambitious and runs after success. He is a scientist who knows
what he is going to do with genes. He has set goals and self-interest and is ready to pay
any price for success like acting as a house boy when ordered by Martha. Honey comes
across as a defenseless female, the weaker partner, given to hysterical pregnancies.
Although Martha seems to be intelligent yet she is unable to create either as a
woman or a wife. She lacks confidence and courage to do something constructive. Her

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frustration gives rise to hostility and anxiety. She epitomizes the condition of women in
the competitive American society. Her helplessness and fear of unrealized dreams is in
fact, the reflection of the failure of the American society. Martha’s problems arise from
the fact that she has developed an idealized self-image of “Earth Mother” and a man in
the house: I am loud and vulgar, and I wear the pants in this house because somebody’s
got to …. (260). Self-idealization alienates her from her husband. Albee feels strongly
about the individual in the midst of group-oriented society that keeps man away from
reality. The emotional instability and the aggressive attitude of Martha are reflections of
personal emptiness of her life “…continued frustration in private and public life has
been leading her to take refuge in emotional outburst.”(Choudhuri 136) It has made her
egoistical selfish and cruel towards her husband. By the middle of the Act Two,
overcome with fury and a sense of loss, she turns on George: I sat there at Daddy’s
Party, and I watched .… and you were not there ! And it snapped! It finally snapped!
And I’m going to howl it out and I’m not going to give a damn what I do, and I’m going
to make the damned biggest explosion you ever heard. (261). Analyzing the reasons
behind Martha’s anguish and aggressive behaviour Anita Maria Stenz states:

As a young woman living at home and daydreaming about her future

instead of creating it herself, Martha could not have anticipated that the
man she would fall in love with would have his own ideas about how he
was going to fulfill himself or that they would be unable to have a child
together. She is desperately struggling to hold onto her illusions in the
frightening face of the realization that she is growing old and that none
of her dreams have come true. In a house that is a dump to her with a
husband who is a bog to her, in a life without any tangible extension of
herself, Martha is in the stranglehold of nothingness. (41)

Martha talks in great detail about the boxing match which took place between George
and her and asserts: I think it’s coloured our whole life…. I do. (40) Martha realizes that
their relationship is just like a boxing match where they survive by fighting. They use
such words like “Be careful Martha I’ll rip you to pieces” and Martha retaliating with

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“you aren’t man enough … you have not got the guts.” (261). Such verbal exchanges
reveal the frustration of a life gone waste. The action of the whole play revolves around
such mock battles which are to be seen as desperate attempts at communication. All the
characters are frustrated, each for their own reasons, and in their war of words language
becomes the first causality. There is an excessive and open use of obscene words such
as “screw”, “monkey-nipples”, “right-ball” etc. which represent the unsatisfied sexual
urge. Such obscene words have great shock value and great emotional power and are
used here to hurt each other. This type of language provides an outlet for the intense
anger and insecurity in their married lives. These sparring highlight the eccentricities of
the characters. Martha’s use of indecent invectives is in fact, her way of taking revenge
on George for he has dared to make the “hideous hurting and insulting mistake” (277)
of loving her and it is her way of punishing him for it. George blurts out the truth when
he describes these battles as “walking what’s left of our-wit” -which is a sad comment
on the state of personal relationship between the married partners.
Their indulgence in games exposes their love for illusions and fear of reality.
Imagination and fantasy which devise these games carry the seeds of destruction as
these games spring out of hypocrisy. The names given to these games: Humiliate the
Host; Get the Guests; Hump the hostess; Bringing up Baby; suggest moral laxity and
decline of values in American society and perversity of human mind. As these games
are played the audience starts identifying with characters on stage as they seem to
represent their own emotional and mental agony. The story thus stops to be personal
and private and becomes universal in appeal as it portrays man’s strong urge and search
for a happy and meaningful relationship based on reality. The games also serve to
generate dramatic tension by “…the interaction between the visible sterile external
action and the hidden and invisible area of fantasy deeply cherished by the couple.”
(Mann 40). Games serve as a tool for Albee to satirize conventional attitudes of
American society: that a man must achieve success in his profession, that marriage
happens to be a romantic adventure and adultery is just fun and games.
If we compare the attitude of Arthur Miller with that of Edward Albee towards
success myth, we find that Miller addresses himself to the problems in clear terms in his

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plays. However, as the period of so called change in America set in, the women’s
liberation movement and the approaching sexual revolution forced a re-examination of
the institution of marriage and of man-woman relationship. For man, this change led to
uncertainties, nonsensical illusions and illogical explanation. He found himself face to
face with the world that was both frightening and irrational and known as absurd. Like
all absurdist, Albee has tried to dramatize the reality of man’s life in this world.
However, he differs in his technique by not only depicting the condition but providing
the solution also.
The long conversation between George and Nick which centers round the
concept of genetic revolution is a study in contrast and brings out man’s fear of the
changing world scenario. George, a historian, represents older generation and humane
face of the society while Nick, being a scientist, represents gen-X. He is confident that
this revolution will help produce a race of men corrected of all imbalances. George
challenges him for this experimentation as he is apprehensive that the test tube babies
will produce a breed of soulless and mechanized individuals having no independent
identity.

George : I read somewhere that science fiction is not fiction at all

… that you people are rearranging my genes, so that
everyone will be like everyone else … It would be a
shame. (178)

George here serves as a mouthpiece of Albee. He fears that children created out of wed-
lock will be a straight attack on the sacrosanct, social institution called marriage. When
Nick tells him that it is an attempt to produce a race of men corrected of all imbalances
George retaliates with the following words: …All imbalances will be corrected,
sifted out… Propensity for various diseases will be gone, longevity assured. We will
have a race of men…test-tube bred ...incubator born... superb and sublime … (198)
But Everyone will tend to be rather the same... Alike. Everyone… and I are sure I’m
not wrong here…will tend to look like this young man here. (198)

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 In Nick he sees the reflection of the mechanized man who, like him, will have a
handsome exterior but will be willful, petty, callous, practical and ambitious. He will
get what he wants but his inability to adjust to failures will leave him devastated. In this
George differs from Nick as he is less practical but has learnt to adjust to failures. To
George, history represents an escape route as books talk of men of different races and
nations having different personal traits. In the progress of science he sees an attempt to
falsify the concept of every individual being different. George and Nick represent
different forms of escapism and George himself admits this fact when he says: When
people can’t abide things as they are when they can’t abide by the present they do one
of the two things-either they turn to contemplation of the past as I have done or they set
about to alter their future. (257)
Nick’s relationship with his wife is a reflection of his relationship with the
outside world. He is not emotionally but financially attached to her. He projects the face
of future generation for whom realization of ambition will become the chief aim and
emotions will take a back seat. “Albee shows us the negative aspects of a mechanized
science- ridden world-loss of individuality as a result of uniformity and emotional
sterility as a result of conformity”. (Mishra 15). The superficiality of Nick and Honey’s
married-life is exposed in Act Two when during conversation Nick tells George there is
no emotional bond between the two and he married her for money and false pregnancy.
George understands that Nick is an ambitious, hollow person with no morals. Honey a
petite blond girl, seems to possess no substance and blushes when sex is mentioned. She
is averse to having sexual intimacy and does not want to conceive. She pretends of
being sick when ever sex is mentioned: Leave me alone … I am, going … to … be …
sick (254) Nick and Honey form a well meaning couple whose perceptions are very
limited. There is no real communication between the two so their marriage can be called
a non-marriage. When Martha shows her motherly concern about the imaginary son “…
and he loved the sun! he was tan before and after every one … and in the sun his hair …
became … fleece … Beautiful, beautiful boy” (297), George Chips in “There is real
mother talking” (298). This talk arouses the suppressed motherly feelings in Honey and

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she suddenly exclaims: I want a child. I want a baby. (298). Honey’s outburst about
child bearing is a first step towards facing reality. It also compels Nick to re-think about
the nature of their marriage. The tone and the manner of speech indicate that something
important is going to happen.
In Act Two readers learn of George’s “Bergin” story, a tale where a high school
acquaintance destroyed a car while learning to drive. The accident killed the boy’s
father. The boy was hospitalized. When he got back his consciousness and came to
know of his father’s death he began to laugh uncontrollably. When he recovered from
his injuries he was put in an asylum. That was thirty years ago. When Nick enquires “Is
he … still there?” George replies in affirmative: Oh, Yes, And I am told that for these
thirty year he has … not … uttered … one … sound . (218).
The mystery deepens when Martha speaks of George’s past which parallels the
Bergin story. She reveals that George made an effort to write a novel about a boy who
murders his mother and kills his father and pretends it is an accident. When Martha’s
father came to know of such a novel he forbade him to get it published: … publishing a
book like that? If you respect you position here, Youngman … You will just withdraw
this manuscript …. (245) George tried to convince his father-in-law that the novel was
based on true story: No, Sir, this isn’t a novel at all … this is the truth…this really
happened … To Me! (246). The boy in Bergin story, if Martha is to be believed is a
persona for George. Both of them have got themselves immersed into their illusionary
world. Albee’s technique of inter-connecting the story with the realistic events of the
play draws appreciative comments from Anne Paolucci:

The action itself is beautifully consistent: it makes no excessive demands,

but moves along simply with utter realism to the edge of mystery. (46)

Martha’s revelation catalyses the action; there is lot of violence and verbal punch:

George (on her) : I’ll kill you (Grabs her by the throat)
Nick : Hey (Comes between them)

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 Honey (Wildly) : Violence: Violence (246)

George’s wrath is indicative of his vulnerability. He feels humiliated and cries:

George : You can sit there in the chair of yours… with the gin
running out of your mouth, and you can humiliate me you
can tear me apart… All NIGHT … and that’s perfect
alright….
George : Martha: You can stand it.
George : I cannot stand it.
Martha : You can stand it! You married me for it (Silence)
George (Quickly): That is desperately sick lie.
Martha : Don’t you know it even yet?
George (shaking his head) : Oh… Martha (257-258).

However, despite it George cares for Martha and wants to bring her out of her
illusionary world: …I don’t mind your dirty under things in public…well I do mind, but
I have reconciled myself to that…but you’ve moved bag and baggage in to your own
fantasy world now, and you’ve started playing variations on your own distortions,…
(259). George grieves for Martha for whom the belief in mythical son is turning out to
be ‘‘sustaining force’’ in her life. When Martha breaks the rules of the games by letting
out the secret of their fantasy son, George grieves and plans a strategy to kill the
mythical son. In fact, the power of the play lies in the shocking reality of an illusionary
child and the exorcism of illusion. Moments before Nick and Honey join them George
warns Martha not to talk about their son. Martha ignores George’s advice and tells the
guests about her fantasy son:

Honey to George (Brightly) : I didn’t know until just a minute ago that
you had a son.
George : (Wheeling, as if struck from behind):
What? (182)

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At this juncture George decides that the illusionary child that has crippled them
emotionally will have to die. George realizes that Martha’s psychological state has
deteriorated so much that son has come to assume a real position within her
consciousness. He decides on exorcism – a psychological, humanistic exorcism
whereby he will peel the layers of illusions from his wife’s mind. George declares
assertively that all present will participate in exorcism. Martha does not want to play the
game by George’s rules but his aggressiveness forces her to do so. She had started
believing in the realness of her illusion and that bothers George who like a surgeon tries
to purge her of her fantasy and make the reality of non-being of their son sink deeply
into Martha’s psyche. The exorcism starts when he discusses the need to peel emotional
label with Honey:

George : We all peel labels, sweetie, and when you get through the
spin, all three layers, through, the muscle, slosh aside
the organs… and get down to bone… you know what
you do then?
Honey : No!
George : When you get down to bone, you haven’t got all the way,
yet. There is something inside the bone…the
marrow…and that’s what you gotto get at. (291-292).

George like a surgeon performs “metaphysical” operation on Martha’s psyche and

destroys the son-myth. After the operation Martha feels intense pain; she then weeps
and wails but sadly accepts the fact that she has been cured. Albee presents here a
symbolic progression: as George acts like surgeon to reach the marrow similarly,
human beings should experience different levels of consciousness from surface to deep
under. George punishes his wife by killing the child on the day he is to assume
manhood. The death of this illusion relieves them of inauthentic living:

George : Now listen, Martha; listen carefully. We got a telegram;

there was a car accident, and he’s dead. POUF! Just like
that! … Now, pull your self together. Our son is DEAD!
Can you get that into you head? (305)

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The bitterness and hostility, the fear and ferocity, the hatred and pain, the anguish and
the love for illusions all are conveyed powerfully through vibrant dialogues. The rich
sprinkling of word images with symbolic meaning help to portray their inner conflict
very convincingly. The word “snap” used repetitively stands for destruction of
illusionary living and beginning of life based on truth. Martha snaps her fingers and
informs George: It’s snapped finally not me…it. The whole arrangement. (261) In the
last act George shouts: Snaps went the Dragons! (285) and then throws the snap-
dragons at Martha. The flowers announce the end of their old relationship based on lies.
Similarly, in the Second Act of the play George brings drinks and says: …ah! Here we
are…ice for the lamps of China (266). “The lamps of China” are actually the illusion
lamps which are run with ice and ice here denotes unfulfilled dreams because in
Martha’s words this ice is made from their tears which have been frozen. These words
not only highlight Martha’s own emotional predicament but also expose man’s strong
desire to veil reality and live inauthentically. He prefers to suffer alone, in silence,
rather than face societal ridicule; and this suffering pushes him towards self-isolation
and self-alienation.
Martha and George, married to each other for twenty years, remain isolated from
each other until George sounds the death bell of their illusionary child which they had
invented to overcome the pangs of sterility in their life. The imaginary son does not
prove to be a permanent bond between them and in the end, the game of pretence of
parenthood stands exposed. ‘‘Martha and Honey are sterile. George is intellectually
sterile, Nick is emotionally sterile. Two imaginary areas of fertility are quickly killed by
the two leading characters: Martha destroys George’s novel by ridicule; and George
kills the fantasy child” (Choudhuri 146). Unlike the girl in J.D. Salinger’s story who
invents another child, George and Martha come to realize that it is no solution to their
emotional insecurity. Both of them become aware that truth is better than illusion to
cope with life’s problems. Choudhuri aptly remarks:
The rejection of reality, which forms an important ingredient in the
actions and images of the play, acquires a poignant sense when the
unborn child plays its part in the game. The couple comes near each
other when they destroy the imaginary child. The act signifies their
awareness of the need to face reality (146).

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This awareness for authentic living first appears in George who himself sets out to find
out the difference between truth & illusion: Truth and illusion who knows the
difference, eh; toots ? Eh ? (284). By murdering their imaginary son he proves that he
knows the difference. However, to prove this difference, like Jerry in The Zoo Story he
adopts the technique of combination of cruelty and kindness. Throughout the play he
has successfully managed Martha’s cruel verbal attacks and paid her back in the same
manner. His last act of killing the child is the cruelest thing from Martha’s angle.
However, at the end of the play when Martha feels upset he is very kind to her:

George : Do you want anything Martha?

Martha : No… nothing.
George : All right. (Pause) Time for bed (309)
Martha. “Did you…did you…have to?
George (Pause): Yes
Martha : I don’t know
George : It was … time
Martha : Was it?
George : Yes (310)

George re-assures her that what he has done needed to be done. It was the right time.
“Just us” says Martha again and George replies “Yes”. The new found companionship
is worth much more than a fantasy son. Purged off their fantasies, they find solace in
each other’s company talking softly. They don’t need a new façade of violent speech to
hide their emotional void. Albee preaches that man must learn to exist with his strengths
and weaknesses so that real and meaningful contacts and relationships may be
established and emotional issues may be resolved without any heartburn.
Albee skillfully brings out the
“significance and impact of illusion in American culture, its soul
destroying materialistic values, its cult of efficiency and go ahead, its
need for human kindness, its craze for status and success, its vague
search of identification with fulfillment, its restless energy for creating
myths, and its illusory faith in optimism in the play” (Choudhuri, 32).

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Albee’s insistence on the fact that it is best for people to try to live with truth counters
O’ Neills contention that illusions provide an element of sanity to man’s existence. The
play ends with George putting his hands gently on Martha’s shoulders and singing to
her very softly ‘‘Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and Martha telling him – “I… am…
George…. I… am….” (311) For the first time, dialogues become simple as contact is
established at a meaningful level. “They seem to have found the answer to the riddle-
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in the destruction of Martha’s fantasy. She is stripped
off her role of Earth Mother, the fertile Goddess, powerful and attractive....”(Singh
242). The sought for communion that was earlier accessible through games is now
possible in the morning world of a mutual need.
A somewhat “chastened Martha” without her fantasies, prepares to live with the
man who has tried to make her happy. “There is only one man is my life who has ever-
made me happy,” she tells Nick in the play “George” (112). It is George who has
brought her peace, strength, companionship, love in place of anguish and pain. It is with
a new frame of mind that both enter the second stage of their life together. There is
emotional honesty, acceptance of each other’s identity with plus and minus points and a
determination to face life squarely at its face. The ending suggests Albee’s strong belief
in man’s ability to control the “chaos and disorder” created by him in his life and revel
in the beauty of life and what it has to offer. And in this lies the universality of its
appeal.

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 WORKS CITED

Choudhuri, A.D. The Face of Illusion in American Drama. Madras: Macmillan

Company Limited, 1979. 132. 134. 141. 142. 146.
Porter, E.T. Myth and Modern American Drama. Ludhiana: Kalyani Publishers, 1969.
241.
Hayman, Ronald Edward Albee. New York: Fredrick Ungar Publishing Co., 1969. 40.
Mann, Bruce J. Ed. Edward Albee: A Casebook Literary Criticism. New York:
Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2002. 40.
Mishra, Poonam. The Art of Edward Albee. Nagpur: Dattsons, 2004. 15. 64. 70. 71.
Paolucci, Anne. From Tension to Toxic: The Plays of Edward Albee. Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1972. 46.
Schnieder, Alan. “Why, so Afraid”? Tulane Drama Review. Vol. 7. No. 3. 20.
Singh, Avtar. Perspective on Western Drama. New Delhi: Harman Publishing House,
1991. 242.
Stenz, Anita M. Edward Albee: The Poet of Loss. New York: Mouton Publishers, 1978.
25. 39.41. 42. 43.
The Collected Plays of Edward Albee. Vol. 1. (1958-68). New York: Overlook
Duckworth, 2004. 164.

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