The Nightmare in Edward Albee's "who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?"

Topic: Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee

Task: Discuss the nightmare in this play!

What is a nightmare? Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary tells us the following:

"nightmare":

1.) an evil spirit formerly thought to oppress people during sleep

2.) a frightening dream accompanied by a sense of oppression or suffocation that usually awakens the sleeper

3.) an experience, situation, or object having the monstrous character of a nightmare or producing a feeling of anxiety or terror.

In order to understand the nightmare in Edward Albee's play "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" we need to have a look at the characters and their situations. Then we will be able to understand their actions as well.

First we have the 52 years old Martha, wife of George, 46 years old and an acknowledged failure. Martha defines herself through her "Daddy," the president of the college. She chose George, believing he had potential to become the head of the history department and eventually to replace her father as president of the university. George's failure to rise to this position is her biggest disappointment. Ironically, George's temporary success in his temporary position as head of the history department during the war comes only as a result of his perceived weakness. Only because he had not the requisite strength to prove his manhood in war did he have a chance to achieve the position he otherwise could not have achieved through direct action. Martha seems to be more concerned with that issue than George himself. Women had careers much less frequently in that time than they do today, so Martha might have felt limited. Now Martha is a braying, heavy-drinking embarrassment, who seduces the new faculty member Nick just to anger George and has no qualms about airing her dirty laundry in front of guests. Always in the shadow of his father-in-law, whom he calls a great white mouse with red eyes, George plays along with Martha's games. Being a history professor our old, tired and ineffectual George exemplifies the subject he teaches. He is already a relic of the past. Nick, in contrast, embodies the future in his youth and his position in the biology department. As a representative of science he is in the words of George the "wave of the future." George's lack of success in the History Department and inability to rise to power as successor to the president of the college contrasts with Nick's plans and seeming ability to move ahead first taking over the Biology Department, then the college.

Albee brings up the idea of private and public images in marriage. Both of the couples in this play make up fantasies about their lives together in order to ease the pains that they have to face. Over the course of the play masks are torn off, exposing Martha, George, Nick, and Honey to themselves and to each other. Perhaps this exposure frees them as well.

Throughout the play, illusion seems indistinguishable from reality. It is difficult to tell which of George and Martha's stories about their son, about George's past are true or fictional.

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George and Martha's entire existence is based on illusion. Martha married George not because of who he was but because of who she imagined he and by extension, she could become. She married the illusion of George-who-would-be-university-president. George too bought into that illusion, and the realisation that it is untrue, that George is in fact a flop, has brought significant damage on their lives. Similarly, Nick and Honey's lives are based on illusion as well. Nick married for money, not love. Though he looks strong and forceful, he is impotent and his wife Honey has been deceiving him by preventing pregnancy.

Straight from the beginning on Martha and George argue about almost everything. But these are only meaningless topics and repetitions which imitate the sound of a real conversation. In addition, this repetition emphazises the circularity of George and Martha's plight. Despite the amount of arguing and repeating they do, George and Martha rarely if ever seem to reach an understanding. That is because they talk for the sake of talking for they are afraid of the silence which would occur otherwise. What would they do if not talk? Thus they talk or rather insult each other. But years of marriage have turned insults into routine. Another of their problems is the lack of communication. Everything remains open and extremely hollow. Nick and Honey do not communicate, too. Part of the ideal of family success is having children. Neither couple in this play has a child. For Martha and George this is another failure. For Honey and Nick, it is another issue upon which they do not communicate.

Some of George and Martha's arguments are for show, others are for the challenge of arguing, while still others are indeed meant to hurt each other.

However, Martha's declaration that George is really the only one who can satisfy her suggests that there are or have been positive aspects to their marriage. Clearly, as much as they fight, they also need each other,