INTRODUCTION

The 20th century was dominated by a chain of events that brought about significant changes in American
and world history. Moving out of the days of the Wild West, the 20th century in United States history
moved to becoming an industrialized nation and onwards to a world superpower. The nation was filled
with a new generation of pioneers who sought to industrialize and civilize the nation and the beginning of
the century has been called Progressive Era due to rising optimism and belief in better future. The
transition from century to century is never strict and definite, so trends that started in the 19 th century
America continued to last in the years to come. The Civil War ended, slavery was officially abolished,
civil rights became important and new inventions significantly improved people’s lives. Faith and
religion were still an essential part of everyday life and :

…”they were confident that the future was bright and that they lived in a nation uniquely blessed by the
Creator.” (1)

Industrial Revolution brought innovations and modernization, railroads opened national market and
brought up mass production, corporations were created instead of individually-run companies for the
purpose of greater profit, European immigration increased the population numbers, especially in cities
and the country was becoming the greatest world power. This all reinforced stronger national pride and
nationalism.

However, for all of the optimism, in reality there was not much to celebrate. Despite a general rise in the
standard of living for all Americans at the time, the disparity of wealth between rich and poor was
enormous, and the gap was increasing. Between 10 and 20 million Americans were living in poverty.
Even though people strongly believed in social mobility and the American dream, the fact was that only
upper-middle class was becoming rich while the poor remained poor. The life of a typical industrial
worker was harsh and often brutal, and the salaries were miserable, not to mention the number of children
who worked all day in the worst conditions. Traditional individualism and the gospel of success
undoubtedly prevented many workers from joining unions; prosperity was linked in the popular mind
with personal qualities rather than collective actions. Workers also feared retaliation by their employers,
who had used dismissals, lockouts, injunctions, and armed violence to break strikes.

The large cities of America, and a great many of the smaller ones, were crowded, chaotic, noisy, filthy,
ugly, and corrupt. The result was the tenement, into which landlords crammed as many rent payers as
possible. The tiny tenement rooms were poorly lighted and ventilated, and had either indoor plumbing or
running water. Foul odors filled the air. Juvenile delinquency and crime were rampant. Disease and death
were constant companions.

African Americans were also rigorously segregated, even though the Thirteenth Amandment abolished
slavery in 1865.. The “Jim Crow” laws that had appeared in the North before the Civil War had spread
and intensified throughout the South by 1900, segregating such things as railway waiting rooms,
streetcars, elevators, toilets, drinking fountains, parks, doorways, and, in New Orleans, houses of
prostitution.

By 1900 Native Americans were a defeated, impoverished, and largely dependent people. The ever-
increasing expansion of white settlers and railroads into Indian territory, and the slaughter of the Great
Plains buffalo, nearly complete by 1870, had gravely weakened their traditional culture. “Every buffalo
dead is an Indian gone.”) At Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in one of the great tragedies of the Gilded
Age, United States Army troops massacred two hundred Dakota men, women, and children.

Nevertheless, despite harsh social conditions, as the country was heading towards being the greatest world
power, “Progress” was becoming a popular word, and progressivism was beginning to capture the
nation’s imagination. The period of Progressive Era lasted until 1916 and the American involvement in te
First World War.

There are some crucial events that marked the 20th century in America and influenced all aspect of
people’s lives:

 WW1, League of Nations, Eighteenth Amendment and Prohibition, Nineteenth Amendment and
women’s right to vote, Great Depression, New Deal Project,

In terms of social changes, some of the most important ones are:

the disappearance of the American frontier in the wake of a pathology of uncontrolled expansion; the rise
of the New South; secularized religion; an increasingly mechanized daily life; the advent of the "New
Woman"; countless labor unions; movies, and radio; and the standardization of American culture by a
culture industry assisted by technologies of mass communication

AMERICAN DRAMA OF THE TIME

By the second decade of the twentieth century, the United States had become the most powerful
industrialized nation in the world. By 1920, the majority of Americans lived in towns and cities, and all
Americans had new forms of mobility and access to the national culture opened up to them by the spread
of car ownership and mass communication. Two major developments in the theatre were extremely
important for the creation of American drama during the period between 1915 and 1945: the emergence
of Broadway as the center for creative activity in the mainstream commercial theatre and the growth of an
alternative theatre movement in opposition to the mainstream.

Dram, as we know it today, is one of the oldest literary forms but has been long considered as one of the
last genres to develop in the United States.

Reasons why drama was introduced so late:

- Religion

- Oliver Cromwell – closed all theatres, theatre is a devil work

- Puritan believe: Theatre = Entertainment = sinful,

- Economy- There was just no financial infrastructure. Poetry could be written but the play
demands actors and the audience. Theatre is really expensive (director, place to play, actors)

- Logistics
 o There was no highways etc.; no travel routes in the colonies

o People just didn’t have the community centres to come up with the idea of theatre

- Copyright Laws

o In late 18th century, every American read and played English novels and play (because
there were no copyright laws). Shakespeare’s plays were performed and it was cheaper
than to pay for developing American plays.

In the 1600s few plays were staged and many years afterwards they were imported from Europe.

On the other hand, scholars nowadays admit more and more that drama was actually introduced by Native
Americans and their cultures of storytelling and performances, which would than discard the claim that
drama was the latest developed genre, but on the contrary, the first one.

American drama imitated English and European theater until well into the 20th century. Often, plays from
England or translated from European languages dominated theater seasons. During the 19th century,
melodramas with exemplary democratic figures and clear contrasts between good and evil had been
popular. Plays about social problems such as slavery also drew large audiences; sometimes these plays
were adaptations of novels like Uncle Tom's Cabin . Not until the 20th century would serious plays
attempt aesthetic innovation. Popular culture showed vital developments, however, especially in
vaudeville (popular variety theater involving skits, clowning, music, and the like). Minstrel shows, based
on African-American music and folkways -- performed by white characters using "blackface" makeup --
also developed original forms and expressions.

Although Modernism was a predominantly European movement that developed as a self-conscious break
from traditional Victorian art forms, it came also to American drama in 20th century, but a little bit later.
Though the American social and political landscape was transformed by the same cultural forces as
Europe, the American drama of the first 15 years of the twentieth century only a few works were
produced .

Expressionism was one of the first styles performed in theatres of the 20th century with Eugene O’Neil
and his plays, like Emperor Jones. At the same time, various political changes reinforced the rise of
Political Theatre in order to perform political ideologies of the time. One version of the political plays
was the Epic Theatre, having Thornton Wilder as the most significant representative.

“At the heart of the modernist aesthetic lay the conviction that the previously sustaining structures of
human life, whether social, political religious or artistic, had been either destroyed or shown up as
falsehoods or fantasies”.

This definition was especially reinforced after the WWI which completely striped the country and the
nation of all past ideals and called for realistic expressions in literature.
THORNTON WILDER – OUR TOWN (1938)

Background:

- Great Depression
(stock market crash, unemployment, corruption)
- Labour unrest and strikes
- The coming of the WWII

Influences:

- Cubism and Gertrude Stein

 EPIC THEATER
- Also political, non Aristotelian (action in the story doesn’t necessarily lead to the next,
characters and their actions are determined by economic and social factors, breaking up a
play’s events allowed the audience to keep an intellectual distance from the story, thereby
freeing them to analyze actions, themes, and underlying politics)
- Theater is there to educate people
- From Germany
- Away from illusionism
- Audience not to be emotionally engaged/ only rationality
- Social injustices
- ALIENATION EFFECTS (it does have a narrator) – exception from the general rule
*actors playing multiple characters
*lighting
*involvement of the audience
*narrative elements
*montage techniques
*simple, non-realistic stage design

Characters
Stage Manager
Professor Willard
People asking questions
Dr. Gibbs
Mrs. Gibbs
George Gibbs, their son, 16
Rebecca Gibbs, his sister, 11
Mr. Webb, newspaper editor
Mrs. Webb
Emily Webb, their daughter,16
Wally Webb, her brother, 11
Joe Crowell, newspaper boy
Si Crowell, his brother
Howie Newsome, milkman
Constable Warren
Simon Stimson, choirmaster
Mrs. Soames
Sam Craig
Joe Stoddard
Baseball players
Setting: Grover's Corners, New Hampshire
Time: 1901 to 1913

Even when it premiered in 1938, Our Town took a retrospective view, looking at turn-of-the-century life
in a small New England town before World War I, before the Roaring Twenties, before the Great
Depression, before the rise of Hitler—the "before" moment of the play's composition. Thornton Wilder
opens with new life and closes with new death, both in childbirth. Yin and yang, life and death, male and
female, love and loss—the play pares its action to the essentials. Wilder examines what ties bind us one to
another as individuals, families, and communities and then takes that extra step to look at life from
beyond it, to see it whole and from a distance.
In 1938 Wilder's play was widely considered an innovative, even revolutionary, piece of modern
American drama, one with no set and only a few non-realistic but imaginatively used stage props and
simple costumes. Later it was criticized for being insensitive of the real problems happening at the time.

Structure and Technique

• 3 acts, which the play calls:
1. Daily Life (1901)
2. Love and Marriage (1903)
3. [After Life] (never named; 1913)
If we pay close attention, however, we realize all three acts involve birth, growing up, love and marriage,
and death—the life cycle is ubiquitous and ongoing here as it is outside the theatre.

Because the Stage Manager controls the presentation—stopping and starting action, advancing
or reversing time, providing additional information—we get bits of action instead of large theatrical
scenes.

“No curtain.

No scenery.

The audience, arriving, sees an empty stage in half-tight. Presently the STAGE MANAGER, hat on and
pipe in mouth enters and begins placing a table and three chairs downstage lefty and a table and three
chairs downstage right. He also places a lofw bench at the corner of what will be

the Webb house, left. "Left" and "right" are from the point of view of the actor facing the audience. "Up"
is toward the back wall. As the house lights go down he has finished setting the
stage and leaning against the right prosceniwn pillar 'watches the late arrivals in the audience. When the
auditorium is in complete darkness he speaks:“

THE STAGE MANAGER

- OMNISCIENT NARRATOR
- Skips back and forth between time zones
- Direct audience addresses
- Serves an actor, director and commentator
- Heterodiegetic interaction
- “That's the end of the First Act, friends. You can go and smoke now, those that smoke”

In the interest of universalizing the action, Wilder insisted on a minimalist approach to scenery and
introduced the metatheatrical device of the "Stage Manager," a narrator who constantly calls the
audience's attention to the fact that it is witnessing a play, and who takes several of the parts in various
scenes. In the first scene, the Stage Manager introduces characters who address the audience directly
about the specific characteristics of the town, a strategy that suggests the typicality of the town at the
same time that it particularizes it.

PLOT:
- Focuses on one community but relates to the whole humankind
- Telescope technique: Grover’s Corners as microcosm
- Following the lives of Emily Webb and George Gibbs
- Small town as a role model
- Memento mori kind of play
- Average town but representative of other similar towns
Emily asks the rhetorical question, ‘‘Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it – every,
every minute?’’ Given the arduous decade of the 1930s, Our Town balances faith with existential
alienation, and enjoins us to remain alive in the moment and to practice mindfulness of others.

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS – A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1947)

- Columbus, Mississippi
- His theater: psychological realism
- Focus on individual Americans and their psychological development
- New level of sexual openness
- People lie to themselves in order to survive
- Battle between repression and release
- Characters constructing delusions
-
 PLASTIC THEATER – his own term
- A conception of a new, plastic theatre which must take the place of the exhausted theatre of
realistic convention
- Symbolic use of props or staging to convey abstract ideas
- Psychological realism – gestures, lighting, music, language, action, scenery, costume, sound

In the oppressive New Orleans, Blanche DuBois tries to escape from reality and find comfort in her
sister’s home. Stanley Kowalski, her sister’s husband confronts her fragile world and leads her to
madness. He is determined to demonstrate the power of working class over the lost wealth and secure life
that the DuBois family once had.
Tennessee Williams was born in Columbus but moved to New Orleans after college, astonished by the
city and keeping it as his inspiration.
The play was written in 1947. At this time realism has already been the dominant style of performance in
the American Theatre. A Streetcar Named Desire is the story of an emotionally-charged confrontation
between characters embodying the traditional values of the American South and the aggressive, rapidly-
changing world of modern America.
It especially criticizes the post-war American society that put a huge amount of restrictions on women’s
lives. The analysis of gender stereotyping expands on the characters of the play A Streetcar Named Desire
– Blanche DuBois, Stanley Kowalski, and Stella Kowalski. Each character is described through a set of
stereotypes that define and shape their lives.
A Streetcar Named Desire opens with the arrival of Blanche DuBois, a Southern belle who has lost her
inheritance, at the New Orleans home of her sister Stella and Stella's husband Stanley. A conflict arises
between Stanley and Blanche, and after several secrets about her past have been revealed, Stanley rapes
Blanche while his wife is in the hospital giving birth. Stella, refusing to believe Blanche's accusations,
gives consent for the increasingly hysterical Blanche to be placed in a mental hospital.
The most striking feature of Streetcar's dramatic structure is its division into scenes rather than acts. Each
of the eleven scenes that make up the play ends in a dramatic climax, and the tension of each individual
scene builds up to the tension of the final climax. This structure allows the audience to focus on the
emotions and actions of Blanche—the only character to appear in every scene.

As the title of the play suggests, the motif of the streetcar is a crucial one, pointing to the growth of the
suburbs and the urbanization of the play as well as the unrelenting and unforgiving continuation of life
itself. To arrive at Stella's apartment in New Orleans, Blanche must transfer from a streetcar called Desire
to one called Cemeteries in order to get to the slum known as Elysian Fields. These were actual New
Orleans names but their careful combination introduces the themes of death and desire that resonate
through the play.

Music plays a similarly important part in the stage craft of the play. Two kinds of music dominate: the
first type is what Williams called "blue piano"—the blues music first associated with Southern Blacks.
Later to develop into the music of New Orleans' bars and night clubs, it suggests unrestrained physical
pleasure, animal strength and vitality and appears at significant emotional moments in the play. In
contrast to the recurring blue piano, which highlights the animal emotions of some characters, the polka
known as the Varsouviana, heard only by Blanche, signals crucial moments in the development of the
plot. Once the audience discovers that this music reminds Blanche of the scene on the ballroom floor
when she renounced her husband, one anticipates imminent disaster whenever the music appears and
reappears—particularly in the last scene of the play. It also accompanies moments of cruelty, like
Stanley's gift to Blanche of a bus-ticket back home.

Napoleonic Code
When Stanley feels he is being swindled by Blanche's loss of Belle Reve, he appeals to the Napoleonic
Code, a set of laws devised by the French and implemented when they ruled the region known now as
Louisiana. The state of Louisiana continued to operate under some of the precepts of the Napoleonic
Code, such as the Code's emphasis on inheritance law: any property belonging to a spouse prior to
marriage becomes the property of both spouses once they are married. Stanley, therefore, is legally
correct to claim that, by depriving Stella of her share of the family inheritance, Blanche has also deprived
him.
The South
On a more general level, the play represents the decline of the aristocratic families traditionally associated
with the South. These once-influential families had lost their historical importance when the South's
agricultural base was unable to compete with the new industrialization. The region's agrarian economy,
which had been in decline since the Confederate defeat in the Civil War, suffered further setbacks after
the First World War. A labor shortage hindered Southern agriculture when large numbers of male laborers
were absorbed by the military or defense-based industries. Many landowners, faced with large areas of
land and no one to work on it, moved to urban areas. With the increasing industrialization that followed
during the 1920s through the 1940s, the structure of the work force evolved more radically yet,
incorporating large numbers of women, immigrants, and blacks. Women gained the right to vote in 1920
and the old Southern tradition of an agrarian family aristocracy ruled by men started to come to an end.

Women's Roles
Some of Blanche's difficulties can be traced to the narrow roles open to females during this period.
Although she is an educated woman who has worked as a teacher, Blanche is nonetheless constrained by
the expectations of Southern society. She knows that she needs men to lean on and to protect her. She has
clearly known sexual freedom in the past, but understands that sexual freedom does not fit the pattern of
chaste behavior to which a Southern woman would be expected to conform. Her fear of rejection is
realized when Mitch learns of her love affairs back home. By rejecting Blanche and claiming that she is
not the ideal woman he naively thought she was, Mitch draws attention to the discrepancy between how
women really behaved and what type of behavior was publicly expected of them by society at large.

CHARACTERS: 12 of them/ either first names or their function

- Blanche Dubois
- Stella Kowalski
- Stanley Kowalski
- Mitch
STRUCTURE:
- 11 SCENES – full length play – linear action

SYMBOLISM: Blanche – white, always washed, tries to wash her past

Music
Title (desires ride her to the fall)
CONFLICTS:
- Blanche vs. Stella and Stanley
- Old South vs. New South
- Agrarian vs. Urban
- Illusion vs. Realism

ANALYSIS OF THE CHARACTERS:

BLANCHE

- Schoolteacher
- Strong in her desires but weak in character
 - Neurotic, psychologically deluded about her beauty
- Sexual identity
- Hysteria
- Lacks self-awareness but self-centered
- Evokes pity

STANLEY:

- Animalistic features
- Reliant of his basic instincts
- Attractive but disgusting
- Macho man, enjoys power and dominance
- Lower social class, second generation of immigrants
- National pride
- Not concerned with the old traditions
- Wants to establish himself in America

STELLA:

- Sensitive and loving

- Practical
- Subordinate and self-delusional
- Chooses oppressive husband over her sister

QUOTES:

I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action. (p. 60) – REALITY
VS ILLUSION

I'm not in anything I want to get out of. (p. 74) – STELLA’S CHOICE

But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark - that sort of make everything
else seem - unimportant. (p. 81)

They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and transfer to one called Cemeteries, and ride six blocks
and get off at—Elysian Fields!

There are thousands of papers, stretching back over hundreds of years, affecting Belle Reve as, piece by
piece, our improvident grandfathers and father and uncles and brothers exchanged the land for their epic
fornications—to put it plainly! . . . The four-letter word deprived us of our plantation, till finally all
that was left—and Stella can verify that!—was the house itself and about twenty acres of ground,
including a graveyard, to which now all but Stella and I have retreated.

I am not a Polack. People from Poland are Poles, not Polacks. But what I am is a one hundred percent
American, born and raised in the greatest country on earth and proud as hell of it, so don’t ever call me
a Polack.
ARTHUR MILLER – THE DEATH OF A SALESMAN (1949)

-Along with Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill, Miller was one of the best-known American
playwrights after the Second World War. Among his works, Death of a Salesman made a sensation since
it was performed in 1949, which secured his reputation as one of the nation’s foremost playwrights. This
play describes the tragedy of Willy Loman, an average traveling salesman, in his sixties, could never
familiarize himself with “American Dream”, nor could he realize the brutal commercial world, always
dreaming of the impractical future for his two children. His love for his two sons with incorrect
approaches ruined their life.

PERSONAL TRAGEDY:
As a common people, Willy Loman longed for gaining others’ respect, including his family, his neighbors
and his brother. Dishonesty was the flaw of his personality. He told lies about how popular and respected
he was in the town, and how important he was to New England, wanting to be adored and admired by his
sons. In fact he was not that popular. Willy was too self-centered and easily to lose temper, not allowing
others to change his mind. Willy did not respect Linda and Biff at all. He wanted Biff to become a
successful salesman, which Biff actually did not long for. As a salesman, Willy Loman focused on
personal details over actual measures of success, believing that it is personality and not high returns that
gain success in the business world.

FAMILY TRAGEDY:
Conflicts between Willy and His Two Sons. Biff and Happy were Willy’s beloved two sons. However,
the main father-son conflict was between Willy and Biff. There were many reasons that triggered
conflicts.
Conflicts between Willy and Linda.

SOCIAL TRAGEDY:
Willy was influenced by the concept of Darwin “The origin of species”, the survival of the fittest.
However, the real society was not that fair to everyone, especially to those from middle-low class.

He had his own theory of tragedy (Tragedy and the Common Man)
-Thinks that today few tragedies are written and they don’t have to be about noblemen; we just have to
adopt them to a common man

The entire action on the play Death of a Salesman takes place in one day and that is the last day of the
protagonist, Willy Loman’s, life, who is an American lower middle class man. But large portion of his
life is projected. This type of the play critics calls as “action in retrospect.” But Miller describe this
technique as “the form of a confession ….now speaking of what happened yesterday, then suddenly
following some connection to a time twenty years ago.”2 Miller uses confession technique to unravel the
inner reality of Willy Loman right from the begging to end.

- A play about capitalism (critique of capitalism)

- Pessimism towards the American dream (it becomes a pressure that overshadows the original
idea) – he sees it as impossible
 - Psychological realism

CHARACTERS:
- Willy Loman and Linda Loman (symbolic of surnames – low man)
- Biff and Happy Loman
- Willy’s brother Ben
- Charley, Bernard
- Howard Wagner

CONFLICTS:
- Willy vs. capitalism
- Family life vs. economic success
- Reality vs. public appearance
- Willy vs. Biff, Willy vs. Charley, Biff vs. Bernard

STRUCTURE – not formally a tragedy

- 2 acts (again representing dualism or duality)

SETTING
- Split stage (past / present) – flow into each other
- Willy Loman’s last two days
- Brooklyn

- Similar but different brothers

- Biff blames his father and vice versa
- They have expectations from each other

- IRONY – You can have all the money but still have nothing
- “We are free” – American dream – illusion – what’s the point in being free when he is dead

TITLE – gives you the end of the play right from the beginning - “a Salesman” – generic reference –
happens all the time to many people like Willy
Tragedy – in a real tragedy, hero is not responsible for his downfall / here Willy has the insight into his
decisions
QUOTES:
- I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and the time to sit and
smoke. And I looked at the pen and I thought, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I
trying to become what I don’t want to be . . . when all I want is out there, waiting for me the
minute I say I know who I am.
- He's liked, but not well-liked.
- The man knew what he wanted and went out and got it! Walked into a jungle and comes out,
the age of twenty-one, and he's rich!

Willy Loman was not the first person who had the typical American dream- the ultimate aim is to
gain financial success and being successful is not the pursuit of happiness and freedom, but earning
money and the image of being “well-liked” (Miller 19) . His dream is not just to be successful, but to be
more successful and respected than the others in his environment. In all of Willy’s conversations with his
family members, he only expresses the dream of being rich:

WILLY. […] Someday I’ll have my own business, and I’ll never have to leave home any more.
BIFF. Like Uncle Charley, heh?
WILLY. Bigger than Uncle Charley! Because Charley is not liked. He’s liked, but he’s not
well-liked. (19)

What turns his dream into a nightmare is the adoption of superficial values that do not fit with Willy’s
“true […] personality” (Shockley 52). Steven Centola blames the “capitalistic society that is responsible
for dehumanising the individual and transforming the once promising agrarian American dream into an
urban nightmare” (Centola 55) that is based on becoming rich overnight. Willy’s brother Ben is the
embodiment of such premises:

BEN. Why, boys, when I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I
walked out. (He laughs.) And by God I was rich.
WILLY. (To the boys) You see what I been talking about? The greatest things can happen! (33)

Willy, thus represents all those who adopted this universal dream as their own and consider it a “natural
way of seeing the world” (Tyson 58). He shows “the power of this dream, but also the dangers, the cost
and the emptiness of it” (Shockley 52).
Wanting too much, Willy Loman achieved nothing in the end, but lost everything, including his
own life. At the funeral, Biff asserted that their father “had the wrong dreams” because of “never
kn[owing] who he was” (Miller 103). He blindly followed “the defence of competition [and] capitalist
exploitation” (Shockley 52) as the road towards achieving his dream. Charley added at the funeral that
“nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream,” (Miller 104) because it is the only thing left
for a man from the middle class in America. Maybe the dream of being successful was not wrong. Maybe
the definition of success in his head was wrong – instead of understanding success as having a family,
spending time together and being pleased and happy with them, he occupied his mind with material
possessions and “dreamed himself to death” (Centola 56).

EUGENE O’NEIL – LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (1956)

His plays have a unique style. In drama creation, Eugene O Neill tends to perfectly combine realism and
modern expression techniques, which make his drama productions having richer characteristics. At the
same time, Eugene O Neill's play creation comes from daily life of ordinary citizens, and shows the
general public perception and attitude of life. He describes the characteristics and the process of split
personality of the people living in the bottom of the society, often with strong tragic color. Since the
creation of Eugene O Neill is close to ordinary people's life, it is simple, which has become the symbol of
American culture. Eugene O Neill has a pivotal position in the history of American literature.

Long Day's Journey into Night is a drama play in four acts written by American playwright Eugene
O'Neill in 1941–42, first published in 1956. The play is widely considered to be his magnum opus and
one of the finest American plays of the 20th century. O'Neill posthumously received the 1957 Pulitzer
Prize for Drama for Long Day's Journey into Night. The work concerns the Tyrone family, consisting of
parents James and Mary and their sons Edmund and Jamie. Mary is addicted to morphine and Edmund is
ill with tuberculosis. The "Long Day" refers to the setting of the play, which takes place during one day.
The play is semi-autobiographical.

The play takes place on a single day in August 1912, from around 8:30 a.m. to midnight. The setting is
the seaside Connecticut home of the Tyrones' Monte Cristo Cottage. The four main characters are the
semi-autobiographical representations of O'Neill himself, his older brother, and their parents.
This play portrays a family in a ferociously negative light as the parents and two sons express accusations,
blame, and resentments—qualities that are often paired with pathetic and self-defeating attempts at
affection, encouragement, tenderness, and yearnings for things to be otherwise. The pain of this family is
made worse by their depth of self-understanding and self-analysis, combined with a brutal honesty, as
they see it, and an ability to boldly express themselves. The story deals with the mother's addiction to
morphine, the family's addiction to whiskey, the father's miserliness, the older brother's licentiousness,
and younger brother's illness.

Long Day's Journey depicts a very long, painful, heavy and endless day in the New London summer
home of the Tyrone family in the year 1912. The year 1912 was the most crucial year in O'Neill's life. In
that year, he attempts suicide in Jimmy-the-Priest's saloon in New York City, met his first wife, lived
during the summer with his dope-filled mother and stingy father in New London, learned that he had
tuberculosis, and entered a sanatorium on Christmas Eve of that year. He left it six months later with the
belief that he must be an artist or nothing.

The play was first performed in 1956, three years after O'Neill's death. It won a Pulitzer Prize and has
often been hailed as O'Neill's greatest play. Certainly, the play is invaluable for scholars seeking to
understand O'Neill's work; Long Day's Journey Into Night reveals the most formative forces of O'Neill's
life, as well as the values and virtues he valued most. The play also represents an established artist making
peace with his troubled past, forgiving and understanding his family and himself.

He needed only his actors for this play, along with a few chairs, a table, whiskey, and glasses. By
simplifying the structure of the play, one scene from morning to night, he reserved a unity that allowed
more room for the ramifications of his characters' lives. He is at his most Aristotelian, confining himself
to a twenty-four-hour period the Greek philosopher mandated for tragedy in his Poetics.

Edmund is suffering from consumption, or, as it is called today, tuberculosis. Mary insists here and
throughout that it is just a cold, and until the third act it is only the tone of voice in the male characters
that tells the audience this is not so. The same is true of Mary's illness, which plays out slowly throughout
the play as she unravels. Mary is constantly fretting with her hands, which become the outward sign of
trouble, and touches her white hair.

Harker and Shaughnessy (neighbors) are the two sides of Tyrone, rich like Harker but behaving as if he
were poor like Shaughnessy. And Edmund, Mary, and Jamie are the pigs caught breaking free and
catching their death for it.

Eugene O'Neill may not have intended his play, Long day's Journey into Night, to be a psychoanalytic
work; however, examples of Freudian theory seem to be on every page. The reason for the numerous
examples of Freudian concepts derives from the fact that both the play and psychoanalysis are about
family, or more precisely "familial relationships". O'Neill did not accept the illusions and the ideals that
were created by "The American Dream". He has criticized the social values. His attitude toward
American family and its values is critical and in Long Day's Journey into Night, he has focused on the
failure and the collapse of both American family and American society.

It is not a drama of action and violence; although the emotions involved find violence
expression in words. Long Day's Journey into Night describes the world of middle-class family life, and
its greatness lies in its simple domestication both of tragic emotion and of human insight.

There are a father, a mother, and two sons in the play. The father, as an actor is drunk and miser. The
mother is a sweet dope fiend. The elder brother is a cynical sot and the younger son is a sick and troubled
boy. One by one, the four people in this family try to explain how and why they become the
way they are. Mary says: "The things life had done to us we cannot excuse or explain. The past
is the present. It is the future, too" (P.33). Long Day's Journey into Night that gives title and direction to
the play is a different journey through which the characters reveal their own psychological needs.

Long Day's Journey into Night focuses on a dysfunctional family trying to cope with the serious
problems, including drug addiction, moral degradation, fear, guilt, and having dream of the past and a
happy life. The Tyrone family is fragmented and each of its members to some degree is alienated from the
past.

America's identity is based on the notion of "The American Dream", which is a dream of self
improvement mainly through economic means or repressing self-gratification in a quest for something
larger. Therefore, it is logical to extend the Tyrone family's problems to America in general. Just as
society damaged Tyrone psychologically through the myth of "The American Dream", he in turn
damaged his family by extending and even magnifying those same values.
I've never felt it was my home. It was wrong from the start. Everything was done in the
cheapest way. Your father would never spend the money to make it right. It's just as well
as haven't any friends here. I'd be ashamed to have them step in the door. But he's never
wanted family friends. He hates calling on people, or receiving them. All he likes is to
hobnob with men at the club or in a barroom. Jamie and you are the same way, but you're
not to blame. You've never had a chance to meet decent people here (P.16) -MARY
All of the Tyrones first put on mask to hide the truth but later on their masks are dropped and the reality
of them is revealed. They are looking for happiness that never comes. Only Edmund can save himself
from the misery and he makes a triumphant over the failure and suffering, and just he comes to the truth
about the family's dreams and accepts the reality about himself, he say: "Mom! It isn't a summer cold! I've
got consumption!" (P. 73).
O'Neill in Long Day's Journey copes with an American way of life that has been shaped based on "The
American Dream". It is similar to Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949), Williams' A Street Car
Named Desire (1947), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) in that they portray the materialistic society
where characters experiencing financial and emotional crisis.
Tyrone is the result of capitalism. He wants to save both his family and his money, but he is unable to
manage both of them. In the capitalist society, everything must be scarified for money. Tyrone's soul is
destroyed by possessiveness and greed. He creates a dream of success for himself but at the end, he and
his family go disappointed they find their dream false and inaccessible in the unequal capitalist society.
They come to the point that they have been betrayed by what "The American Dream" has created for
them.
The play is all the more tragic because it leaves little hope for the future; indeed, the future for the
Tyrones can only be seen as one long cycle of a repeated past bound in by alcohol and morphine.

LORRAINE HANSBERRY – A RAISIN IN THE SUN (1959)

A Raisin in the Sun is a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. The title comes
from the poem "Harlem" (also known as "A Dream Deferred") by Langston Hughes. The story tells of a
black family's experiences in south Chicago, as they attempt to improve their financial circumstances with
an insurance payout following the death of the father. The New York Drama Critics' Circle named it the
best play of 1959.
America has always been a land of racial diversity, and the role of black men and women in shaping and
being shaped by the American experience has long been reflected in American literature. Yet in the 1960s
and 1970s, the Civil Right Movement inspired a reexamination of the white, male historical perspective,
and both literary and historical scholars initiated a search for documents that reflected the American
experience in the words of black men and women.
In a crammed apartment on the south side of Chicago, the Younger family waits for a $10,000 life
insurance check after the death of Mr Younger As they wait, differences arise as the members of the
family try to decide how they should spend the money Each adult family member has something for
which they would like to use the money, whether it is education, a business investment, or a house to call
their own Dreams compete as each character pursues his or her vision of what life could be.
Throughout the play, a number of important events occur: First, Lena decides to use a large portion of the
money to buy a house in Clybourne Park, an all-white neighborhood in Chicago Lena then gives the rest
of the money from the insurance check to Walter Lee, and advises him to save a large portion of it to pay
for Beneatha’s education However, instead of saving the money, Walter uses his share of the insurance
check to try to open a liquor store with Bobo and Willy Harris Only later does Walter Lee realize that he
has been scammed, and that he has lost all of the money from the check that he invested in the store.
The family struggles to remain optimistic, especially when Karl Lindner, a spokesperson from the
Clybourne Park community, comes to make a deal with the Youngers In an attempt to keep the family
from moving to Clybourne Park, he offers to buy them out of their new house This offer sends each
member of the family into a whirlpool of mixed emotions and reactions Walter Lee figures that giving in
to “The Man” is the only way to get some money for his family In the play’s climactic moment, Walter
must choose between standing up for his family’s rights and standing up for his ego and role as the
breadwinner Ultimately, Walter Lee courageously stands up for civil rights and refuses Karl’s offer The
family will move into their new home.
Lorraine Hansberry was the first African American woman to write a play performed on Broadway. This
play undeniably influenced the American theatre and its relationship to the Civil Rights Movement. The
Civil Rights Movement began to take hold during the 1950s African Americans were no longer willing to
be second-class citizens as they had made enduring contributions and sacrifices to the war effort
1955 The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil-rights protest during which African Americans refused to
ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama to protest segregated seating The boycott took place from
December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale U S demonstration
against segregation Four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was
arrested and fined for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white man.

The Great Migration, or the relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from the rural South
to the cities of the North, Midwest, and West from 1916 to 1970, had a huge impact on urban life in the
United States Driven from their homes by unsatisfactory economic opportunities and harsh segregationist
laws, many blacks headed north, where they took advantage of the need for industrial workers that first
arose during the First World War As Chicago, New York, and other cities saw their black populations
expand exponentially, migrants were forced to deal with poor working conditions and competition for
living space, as well as widespread racism and prejudice During the Great Migration, African Americans
began to build a new place for themselves in public life, actively confronting economic, political, and
social challenges and creating a new black urban culture that would exert enormous influence in the
decades to come.
As a result of housing tensions, many blacks ended up creating their own cities within big cities, fostering
the growth of a new urban African American culture The most prominent example was Harlem in New
York City,a formerly all-white neighborhood that by the 1920s housed some 200,000 African Americans
The black experience during the Great Migration became an important theme in the artistic movement
known first as the New Negro Movement and later as the Harlem Renaissance, which would have an
enormous impact on the culture of the era. Langston Hughes was one of the most important writers and
thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance.
DREAMS
The American Dream began with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, which allowed a common man
to dream about a better life for himself and his family A Raisin in the Sun is about such dreams, as the
main characters struggle to rise in status and improve their quality of life in pre-Civil Rights America
Hansberry gave the play its title in reference to a poem written by Langston Hughes in which he
infamously wrote about dreams that were forgotten or put off Hughes (and then Hansberry) wonder
whether forgotten dreams shrivel up “like a raisin in the sun ” Every member of the Younger family has
an individual dream For example, Beneatha dreams of becoming a doctor, and Walter Lee dreams of
providing a better life for his family Unfortunately, the Youngers are decades ahead of their dreams
becoming a reality, for segregated America is not yet ready for the American Dream to be a dream for all.

Their dreams become dried up like a raisin in the sun. Not just dreams are dried up though; Walter Lee
and Ruth’s marriage became dried up also. Their marriage was no longer of much importance, like a
dream it was postponed and it became dry. Their struggle for happiness dried up because they had to
concentrate all of their energies on surviving. Hansberry offers an optimistic end in which Younger family
united their individual dreams into a more universal one: keeping the family together and proudly fighting
against all threatening forces standing in their way towards the fulfillment of such dreams.

“I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy ”

—Walter

“I got me a dream His woman say: Eat your eggs Man say: I got to take hold of this here world, baby!
And a woman will say: Eat your eggs and go to work Man say: I got to change my life, I’m choking to
death, baby! And his woman say, your eggs is getting cold!”
—Walter

“I’m going to be a doctor, and George, for one, still thinks that’s pretty funny I couldn’t be bothered with
that I am going to be a doctor and everybody around here better understand that!”
—Beneatha

“God didn’t see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams—but He did give up children to make them
dreams seem worthwhile ”
—Mama

THE IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY

Many external powers in A Raisin in the Sun conspire to destroy the dreams of the Younger family What
ultimately keeps their eye on the future and their hearts full of hope is the commitment that they have to
thewell-being and support of one another Family love is sometimes harsh, confrontational, direct, and
demanding However, what comes from the love and support of one another creates the backbone and
strongest message of the play: stay true to who you are and those you love-
“There is always something left to love And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing Have you
cried for that boy today? I don’t mean for yourself and for the family cause we lost the money I mean for
him: what he been through and what it done to him Child, when do you think is the time to love
somebody the most? When they done good and make things easy for everybody?”
—Mama

“Your wife say she going to destroy your child And I’m waiting for you to talk like him, and say we a
people who give children life, not who destroys them I’m waiting to see you stand up and look like your
daddy and say we done give up one baby to poverty and that we ain’t gonna give up nary another one ”
—Mama

DIGNITY
The prejudice and discrimination the Younger family faces is a microcosm of how African Americans
were treated post-Civil War and pre-Civil Rights In the face of such turmoil, it is important that a family
stands proudly together in defiance of any opposition The Youngers stand up to their opposition by
calling upon inner strength and dignity as they refuse to be bought off Social change is a slow process,
and it is difficult to confront discrimination head-on However, Mama insists that the family stand as one,
knowing their value and worth even when they face prejudice

“We have decided to move into our house because my father—my father—he earned it for us brick by
brick We don’t want to make no trouble for nobody or fight no causes, and we will try to be good
neighbors And that’s all we got to say about that We don’t want your money ”
—Walter

“Son—I come from five generations of people who was slaves and share croppers—but ain’t nobody in
my family
never let nobody pay em’ no money that was a way of telling us we wasn’t fit to walk the earth We ain’t
never been that poor We ain’t never been that—dead inside ”
—Mama

RACISM AND SEGREGATION

Just as the Younger family represents one side of the fight for civil rights, the character of Mr Lindner
represents the racist views of white America When Lena puts a down payment on a house in a primarily
white part of town, the area’s neighborhood association tries to buy the house back to keep the Youngers
out Karl Lindner visits the Youngers on behalf of the Cybourne Park Improvement Association
pretending to seek a compromise between the Youngers and the Association However, he has no
understanding of the fight against racial injustice the Youngers constantly endure Mr Lindner confronts
the Youngers headon with a demonstration of racial discrimination in asking the Youngers to not move
into their new home Ultimately, the Youngers stand up to this discrimination with strength and dignity as
they refuse to compromise with Mr Lindner and the Clybourne Park Improvement Association
“Well—it’s what you might call a sort of welcoming committee, I guess I mean they, we—I’m the
chairman of the committee—go around and see the new people who move into the neighborhood and sort
of give them the lowdown on the way we do things out in Clybourne Park […] I want you to believe me
when I tell you that race prejudice simply doesn’t enter into it It is a matter of the people of Clybourne
Park believing, rightly or wrongly, as I say, that for the happiness of all concerned that our Negro families
are happier when they live in their own communities ”
—Karl Lindner

The setting of A Raisin in the Sun is a ghetto of Chicago, where most blacks lived. These districts
consisted of overpriced, overcrowded, and poorly-maintained apartments and homes. In the ghettos, crime
rates were high and public services were limited. Most blacks living in the ghetto had hopes of leaving to
better suburban neighborhoods, but segregated housing kept them stuck in the ghetto.
Mama’s Plant- Mama’s deep nurture toward the plant despite its lack of sunlight and energy on its
appearance, symbolizes her care towards her family despite the poor condition they are living in. The way
she treats the plant is like the way she nurtures her family in their fragile and rough living condition they
are surviving in. Mama knows that just as how she takes great care of the plant and make it survive, she
can do the same with her family too. In the end when all of her family are leaving for the new house, she
took the plant instead of leaving it behind because she knows that with a better living condition the plant
will thrive and blossom more just as how her family will too in the new house.
Beneatha’s Hair- After the visit with Asagai, Beneatha thinks about her hair and decides to cut it off. Her
hair symbolizes how she refused to conform to what society think is beautiful of the seemingly Caucasian
hair. It represents her heritage which George cannot appreciate when he sees it for the first time. She says
natural is beautiful and wants to be recognized for her identity and not for her assimilation. She wants to
refer back to her true identity and cultural ties in Africa.
Ruth- Ruth Younger symbolizes the biblical Ruth that is discussed in the bible. Just as Ruth has a close
relationship with her mother in law which is Mama, the biblical Ruth is also similar in that she also has a
close relationship with her mother in law, Naomi, and is willing to travel with her wherever she goes.
Goodbye Prometheus- George says goodnight Prometheus to Walter because Walter resembles
Prometheus. Prometheus is a mythological figure who is punished for bringing fire to the mortals because
of that he is chained to a mountain where he must suffer the pain of his liver being torn out every day
from an eagle, but his liver re-grows every night. In the end, Prometheus is freed when the eagles are
killed. Walter is Prometheus in the fact that the check represents his liver and the eagles represent his
family memories. The family members continuously shoot down his dreams (taking out his liver) by
telling him to not use the check for the liquor store, but he still believes that his dream can be successful.
Genre · Realist drama
Setting (Time) · Between 1945 and 1959
Setting (Place) · The South Side of Chicago
Form: 3 acts, conventional realism
AMIRI BARAKA – DUTCHMAN (1964)
Dutchman was the last play produced by Baraka under his birth name, LeRoi Jones in 1964. At the time,
he was in the process of divorcing his Jewish wife, Hettie Jones, and embracing Black
Nationalism. Dutchman may be described as a political allegory depicting black and white relations
during the time Baraka wrote it.

- Very short play

- New York subway symbolic – underground – a network of people that helped former slaves
escape to Canada
- Theme – seduction / oppression
- Between two people but stands for a larger scale
- Everybody helped her after the murder
- Open ending
- Where was the conductor previously
- The history will repeat again
- Allegory – they represent black and white America
 - Dutch trading ships – included in slave trade
- People died on them
- They were the first who brought slaves
- Adam and Eve – assimilation and resistance / seduction

Baraka started his career as a poet in the Beat tradition but became soon disenchanted with its certain
tendencies and moved to Greenwhich Village where he founded the Black Arts Repertory that
featured plays written by the newly emerging African-American playwrights.
Baraka’s celebrated play Dutchman (1964) that won him an Obie award explores that part of the Afro-
American psyche that finally emerges from the horrors of the infamous Middle Passage and has drunk in
full the anger resulting from the unjust treatment of the minority blacks at the hands of the whites. The
play is interesting not only because it portrays the then racial conflict between the blacks and whites
in the sixties but because characters contradict traditional gender roles that they are otherwise meant to
play in a particular situation that defines what is traditionally considered “masculine” and what is thought
to constitute “femininity.”
Baraka demonstrates a link between the injustices committed against Blacks of his generation and the
continuing struggle to erase racism in the United States today. As a political activist, poet, essayist,
novelist, and playwright since the late 1950s, Baraka fought for justice and used his writing as a tactic to
gain power for black Americans and the working-class.
On 28 August 1963 King delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech during the March on Washington for
Jobs and Freedom, and cried out for a time when black and white Americans could live together in peace
and equality.
The Middle Passage was the crossing from Africa to the Americas, which the ships made carrying their
'cargo' of slaves. Ships departed Europe for African markets with manufactured goods, which were traded
for purchased or kidnapped Africans, who were transported across the Atlantic as slaves; the slaves were
then sold or traded for raw materials
On the night of Saturday, July 19, 1964, violence erupted in Harlem in reaction to the shooting of 15-
year-old black teenager James Powell by a white, off-duty New York City police officer. What began as a
peaceful protest of the incident rapidly escalated into large-scale civil unrest.
SYMBOLISM:
In Dutchman, the apples, the subway car and the knife are symbolically manipulated to reinforce the
racial motifs, which the dramatist seeks to emphasize. In the beginning of the play, Lula offers Clay the
first apple claiming that "eating apples together is always the first step"(11). The apples, as traditional
symbol of temptation, represent the false promises of equality and integration whites offer to blacks in
order to keep them submissive.
Moreover, the subway motif is symbolically connected with the white/black conflict. In the subway car,
Lula and Clay, white and black, are rushing headlong throughout darkness, literally and symbolically
seeing nothing on the way to vague destination. This symbol obviously underlines the danger of
maintaining the conditions of racism in America.
The action of the play is supposed to take place in a New York subway car in summertime. In the
beginning of the play, Lula, a seductive white woman enters the train, then she smiles to Clay, a black
young man who is sitting there, in an attempt to establish a dialogue with him. Her first statement,
however, is rather shocking: "I'd turned around and saw you staring through that window down the
vicinity of my ass and legs" (1). Clay replies: "I admit I was looking in your direction. But the rest of that
weight is yours"(7). Lula is trying to impose her perverted white-puritan ethic of sexuality
on Clay in order to make him feel guilty because he is looking at her. The racial theme is obviously
established on the sexual paradigm from the very beginning.
- Clay's weakness is due to his deliberate attempt to seek integration with white America's
mainstream
culture which is a cardinal sin in Jones' doctrine because such an attempt is destructive to black
humanity as it leads to acts of self-hate on the part of black people.
- The notion of "drinking lukewarm sugarless tea" is an external symbol which reveals Clay as an
imitator of whites.
- Lula, like white America, does not know the Negro except as a type. In Dutchman, she said to
Clay: "I told you I didn't know anything about you ... you're a well-known type"(12).

- Furthermore, Clay's aspirations to be assimilated by white society are frustrated by

Lula's mocking reminder of his past as a slave. Lula is fully aware that Clay, as middle class
Negro is hiding himself under a facade of imitation whiteness.

- There is no surprise then that Dutchman emphasizes the necessity of black separatism as a way of
maintaining the authentic black culture because integration with the hostile white culture -though
impossible- will lead to the death of black history and values. Finally, Lula utters one of the most
important
statements in the entire play: "You're a murder, Clay, and you know it". This statement implies
that Clay, through consciously assimilating himself into white culture has murdered his true black
self which makes it easy for Lula to kill him at the end of the play.

EDWARD ALBEE - WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF (1966)

Albee, Edward (1928- ) - American playwright whose experimental plays made him the leading
American exponent of the theatre of the absurd. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) - Albee’s most
successful play is about the verbally violent relationship between a history professor, George, and his
wife Martha, the college president’s daughter. A visiting couple, Nick and Honey, get caught in George
and Martha’s crossfire.

In the earlyto-mid 1960s, theatre audiences and readers (and, importantly too, audiences of cinematic
adaptations of plays) had spent the previous decade watching and reading the “Great” plays of the
1950s by the dons of American theatre’s Golden Age, if you will: Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, and
Tennessee Williams. Used to these classic 1950s American living room dramas, theatre audiences and
readers in the 1960s faced a shock which was largely due to how Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was
seen as a vile display of everything that is dark and abhorrent about humans.
Theatre of the Absurd, dramatic works of certain European and American dramatists of the 1950s and
early ’60s who agreed with the Existentialist philosopher Albert Camus’s assessment, in his essay “The
Myth of Sisyphus” (1942), that the human situation is essentially absurd, devoid of purpose. The ideas
that inform the plays also dictate their structure. Absurdist playwrights, therefore, did away with most of
the logical structures of traditional theatre. There is little dramatic action as conventionally understood;
however frantically the characters perform, their busyness serves to underscore the fact that nothing
happens to change their existence. Language in an Absurdist play is often dislocated, full of cliches, puns,
repetitions, and non sequiturs.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
In 1962 the United States was enjoying what many now consider a period of innocence. Relative
peace reigned in most of the world, and in the United States traditional values appeared
unshakable. Yet, if the surface was tranquil in 1962, there was nonetheless considerable
agitation underneath. American relations with the Soviet Union were often extremely tense in the
early 1960s, resulting in confrontations over Berlin and Cuba. In the United States, attempts by
blacks to end racial discrimination not infrequently were countered by violence by whites. And a
number of influential writers were questioning the American values that seemed so secure. That
play, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, critically analyzed institutions and
values that Americans held dear family, marriage, and success, for instance- and suggested they
might have been created in part to escape from reality. With exaggeration and bitter parody,
Albee reveals “the American Dream”- the seemingly perfect nuclear family whose polished
exterior conceals cruelty, dishonesty, and hatred.

PLOT:
Late one Saturday night, a husband and wife return to their home in a New England college
town. George, 46, is an associate professor of history; Martha, 52, is the daughter of the college
president. They have been drinking heavily at a faculty party given by Martha’s father, and as the
two stumble around the living room and bicker, they seem like many other such couples after a
long and alcoholic party. But this is a night in which tensions within their marriage will erupt
and the patterns of their lives may be altered forever. To George’s surprise, Martha announces
that she has invited another couple to join them for a drink- at 2 A.M.! Naturally combative,
George and Martha use the invitation as another excuse to battle.
The guests arrive- Nick, 30, a new faculty member in the biology department, and his wife,
Honey 26. He’s good-looking and athletic; she’s a sweet and seemingly superficial person. They
quickly find themselves to be the audience for George and Martha’s scalding war of words. As
the evening progresses and the liquor flows, tensions that have been partially hidden emerge in
the form of psychological games. Martha is disgusted with George’s lack of ambition and failure
to advance in the history department, particularly with his advantages as the son-in-law of the
university president. She treats George with open contempt, and George tries to strike back by
using his superior verbal skills. He has taken an immediate dislike to Nick, not only because
Martha is obviously physically attracted to the younger man, but also because Nick is a biologist.
As a historian, George sees biology as a science determined to eliminate man’s individuality.
Nick tries to stay detached from the turmoil between his hosts, but he soon gets caught up in it
and reveals himself as ambitious and shallow. Honey seems too drunk and too mindless to
comprehend much of what is going on. A turning point occurs when George discovers that
Martha has mentioned a forbidden topic to Honey while the two women were out of the room.
The taboo topic: George and Martha’s son. The bitterness between the couple accelerates,
and they persist in their battle of verbal abuse. As Act I ends, Martha has figuratively twisted a
knife in George’s back by harping on his supposed failure as a man and as a teacher. The fight
dissolves into a shouting match and Honey is made physically ill by a combination of the
quarreling and too much alcohol. As Act II of the play opens, George and Nick talk alone.
George tells the story of a young boy who killed his mother and caused his father to die, a story
that may or may not be autobiographical. Nick reveals that he married Honey when she thought
she was pregnant, but that the pregnancy turned out to be a false alarm. George’s attempts to
warn Nick about being “dragged down by the quicksand” of the college fall on deaf ears. Nick
has his eye set on the top, and one of his techniques for advancement will be to sleep with a few
important faculty wives.
Martha and Honey return, and the sexual attraction between Martha and Nick increases. They
dance erotically with each other as Martha goads her husband by telling their guests of George’s
attempts to write a novel, whose plot concerns a boy responsible for his parents’ deaths.
Infuriated, George physically attacks Martha, stopping only when Nick intervenes. George seeks
his revenge, not on Martha, but on the guests. He tells a “fable” that mirrors Nick and Honey’s
early lives and her hysterical pregnancy. Humiliated, Honey flees the room. Enraged and out for
blood, George and Martha declare “total war” on each other.
The first victory is Martha’s, as she openly makes sexual advances to Nick but fails to make
George lose his temper. Yet after she has led the younger man to the kitchen, where George can
hear the sounds of their carousing, George makes a decision that will be his final act of revenge,
one that will change his and Martha’s lives forever: he decides to tell her that their son is dead.
Act III finds Martha alone. Nick has proven himself impotent in their sexual encounter, and
when he arrives again on the scene, she expresses contempt for him. She also reveals to him that
George is the only man who has ever satisfied her.
George appears at the front door, bearing flowers and announcing that there is one more game to
play- “Bringing Up Baby.” First, he induces Martha to talk about their son in the most loving and
idealized terms; then, he announces the death of their son.
Martha’s furious reaction that George “cannot decide these things” leads Nick to understand at
last George and Martha’s secret. Their son is a creation of their imagination, a fantasy child that
they have carefully harbored as a means of helping them survive the pain of their failed lives.
Nick and Honey leave, and George and Martha are alone, with just each other as shields against
the world. Only the future will tell whether they have been strengthened or made even more
vulnerable by the traumatic experiences of the evening.

SETTING:
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is set in the fictitious New England college
town of New Carthage. The name of the town suggests the ancient civilization of
Carthage, which for nearly 1,500 years (from the 8th century B.C. to the 7th century A.D.)
Albee’s decision to name the play’s college town after a vanished civilization (which was known
for its artistic achievement as well as its military power) clearly invites parallels to our own
contemporary civilization. America may not be destroyed by another country, as Carthage was
(although that possibility exists), but it may meet its downfall through internal corruption and
spiritual emptiness. That Carthage was made literally sterile by Roman salt also links that
ancient city symbolically with New Carthage, a city made figuratively sterile by shoddy morals
and hollow values. (New Carthage also is the home of George and Martha, sterile because they
can have no children.)

FORM:
The three-act structure of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is unusual in an era when most plays
are written in two acts. Whatever the reason, the three acts divide the play neatly into three
segments, each of which has its own climactic point. It is also uncommon for a playwright to
name his acts, but Albee’s choices provide important clues as to what goes on in each of them.
Notice that all the acts are named after rituals. Act I is called “Fun and Games,” a name that is an
ironic twist on a common phrase for party activity. Act II, “Walpurgisnacht,” is named after the
evening in German legend when witches gather to commune in wicked deeds and sexual orgies.
Act III is called “The Exorcism,” a title that evokes the ritual of ridding the body of an evil spirit.

CHARACTERS:
George:
 Professor of history
 Lack of ambition
 Ongoing battle with his wife
 Intelligent and witty
 Suffers from conflict with his parents
 Takes the control at the end
 George Washington
Martha:
 The daughter of the college president
 Intelligent, well-read and perceptive
 Tries to dominate her husband
 Seduces young men
 Martha Washington (“perfect American couple”
Nick:
 Young, attractive and physically fit
 Biology professor
 Turns out to be amoral, shallow and coldly ambitious
 Cynicism and lack of morals
 Contrast to George in terms of profession
 Old Nick (old term for devil) or Nikita Khrushchev (East vs West)
Honey:
 Sweet, gentle, eager to make good impressions
 Eternal child
 Easily offended
 Secretly uses birth control
 Fear of growing up
THEMES:

TRUTH AND ILLUSION:

 Marriage as an illusion
 The imaginary child
 Honey’s imaginary pregnancy
 The shotgun that is a toy
 Characters are not what they pretend to be
 This is the play’s most important theme: that people today have been forced to
create illusions for themselves because reality has become too difficult and too
painful to face.

THE INABILITY TO COMMUNICATE:

 The characters are constantly, but unsuccessfully, attempting to communicate
on a deeper level with each other.
 Emptiness of language
 Violence as a form of communication

SEX (STERILITY AND IMPOTENCE)

 Martha is a sexually aggressive “earth mother,”
 However, sex in the play represents barrenness and impotence.
 Sex is neither a comfort nor a source of growth.

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

 modern relationships based on deception and sterility
 George and Martha hide their need for each other with ferocious assaults on one another
 the shallowness marks the relationship between Nick and Honey

RELIGION:
 References to God and Jesus (often used as swear words) are frequent
 Martha declares herself an atheist
 The second act title “Walpurgisnacht,” refers to a pagan ritual
 The third act title, “The Exorcism,” is taken from the Catholic rite of driving out demons
 George recites the Dies Irae, the mass for the dead

HISTORY VS SCIENCE / PAST VS FUTURE

TOMSON HIGHWAY - THE REZ SISTERS (1986)

DAVID HENRY HWANG - M.BUTTERFLY (1988)