Our founding fathers were committed to creating a perfect society, free from "the corruption and oppression of the West that they left behind” (Holtan). As America aged, this idea of ​​American perfection transformed into an image known today as the "American Dream." In the 1950s, the “perfect” American family needed a happy wife, a handsome man with a successful career, and, most importantly, 2.5 children. Most Americans felt pressured by the image of perfection portrayed in shows like "Leave it to Beaver" that they had to live up to. Phrases such as "keeping up with the Joneses" were used to describe Americans who purchased unnecessary material items such as luxury cars, homes, and clothing to appear wealthier and upper class than they actually were. In this trend, people were afraid of being below the status quo. In trying to live up to their neighbors, they often only brought more unhappiness rather than becoming content. Their lives seemed even more meaningless and hollow when shrouded in a thin veil of success. While the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" is usually used to describe consumerism, the same principle is demonstrated in Edward Albee's play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. In the play, George and Martha are an unhappy couple who have invited two supposedly happy newlyweds, Nick and Honey, over for drinks. Throughout the play, George and Martha ridicule themselves and their guests with elaborate games that force the characters to divulge the grotesque details of their supposedly perfect lives. Albee's characters reveal that in their attempts to resemble the perfect American family, they actually only breed more unhappiness and a greater sense of inferiority. Albee continues this idea in his play The Sandbox where the characters Mom and Dad ignore their dying grandmother until she dies. They then briefly pretend to mourn her because they want to appear normal. Throughout his work, Edward Albee's characters create illusions to mask their lives and thus maintain the status quo. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, George is "an old bog in the history department" (Albee 71). Throughout the play, George is made to feel inferior to Nick by his wife Martha who constantly ridicules him. While Nick is the young and ambitious new biology professor who is “handsome and well-built” (Albee 18), George is the jaded old history professor who is struggling to become head of the history department. Martha constantly denigrates George, emasculating him by calling him "Georgie boy" (Albee 70) and deliberately emphasizing to her guests that George does not "run the history department" (Albee 54). When George complains that it's not easy being married to the "college president's daughter" (Albee, 70), she ridicules him by saying that "for some men it would be their luck." life ". (Albee 51) Implying this comparison to men like Nick, George has inadequate drive and ambition. Martha criticizes George for his inadequacies, making him feel like a failure, when in fact he is just average. Instead of allowing him to be content with himself, he is led to dwell on his inferiority. Martha causes George to dwell on his inferiority because she is also trying to "keep up with the Joneses." She wants to be the wife of a man whosucceeded. At the time, women didn't really have careers, so the only way for her to be part of a successful, wealthy, high-class household was to marry a successful man. She blames George for not being that man and thus trapping her in her boring life. Although Martha blames George for depriving her of American family, she is also responsible. Marthe is unable to have children, which is particularly declining at a time when fertility was declining, an essential element of femininity. Thanks to Martha, the couple can never be the American family with 2.5 children. Just as George feels inadequate compared to Nick, Martha feels inferior to Honey, Nick's wife. While Martha cannot have children, Honey can. While Martha must endure the pain of having an inadequate husband, Honey benefits from a successful husband. As Honey becomes the pretty young housewife with “thin hips” (Albee 58), Martha grows older. If in patriarchal societies women are supposed to be a “mirror” (Hoorvash) of their husbands, then Martha was disappointed in her. gender role. In response to this unfortunate reality, Martha takes revenge by sleeping with other men. As soon as Nick and Honey arrive, Martha openly begins flirting with Nick. George, unhappy with his wife's behavior, reveals that "bed music is the faculty sport" (Albee 50). Martha compensates for her feelings of inferiority by seducing men and sleeping around. For her, this reassures her about her success as a woman; if she manages to seduce Nick, she is just as attractive as Honey. In an equally grotesque and desperate attempt to compete with the status quo, George and Martha create a fictional child who to them is very real. Their reasoning for creating the child is highlighted when George describes him as their "blond-eyed, blue-haired son". (Albee 229) Here, George implies that the boy should have blond hair and blue eyes, traits usually associated with being an all-American boy. By choosing to give their son "all-American" traits, we can see that the child exists so that the couple can achieve the perfect dream of being an American family. Unable to be the perfect American family in reality, the couple replaces it with an illusion. While most illusions aim to mislead others, George and Martha's son aims to deceive themselves. The extent to which George and Martha care for their imaginary son reveals how empty they feel without children and ultimately fail to live up to the American dream. This is highlighted by their grief at the end of the play. After enduring an entire night of brutal ridicule and disrespect from Martha, George decides he is done with the false image of their happy marriage. He adds to their son's story, telling Martha that late in the afternoon, "[their son] swerved...and headed straight for a...big tree." (Albee 245) and died. Mortified upon realizing that George killed their son, Martha becomes hysterical. As she comes to terms with the death of her fictional son, she becomes very quiet and speaks slowly. George says, “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf” (Albee 256) and she responds “I…. I’m George…. I…. I am…” (Albee 257) The death of their son was the only thing that humiliated Martha throughout the night. Supposedly fearless, Martha is afraid of Virginia Woolf, which means she is afraid to accept her reality. She falls silent when she realizes that her son's death has erased her marriage, revealing how sad and meaningless their lives are. Now that their fictional son is dead, the couple may finally give up any hopes of being like "The Joneses." By continuing theAmerican dream, George and Martha became incredibly unhappy, forced to dwell on their inferiorities. Hopefully they can now learn to accept themselves for who they really are. Ironically, while George and Martha are incredibly unhappy trying to measure up to Nick and Honey, in reality, "The Joneses" are just as flawed as they are. As George talks to Honey, he realizes that she secretly aborted his children. Honey confesses to Nick that “I don’t want kids” (Albee 162) and George asks “how do you do your little secret murders?” Pills? (Albée 163). Christianity, a key part of the image of the American dream, opposes abortion. When Honey reveals that she aborted her children, it completely shatters the image that Honey and Nick embody the American dream. It's ridiculous that George and Martha feel like failures compared to Nick and Honey, when underneath the surface they're actually very similar. It is absurd that Martha feels obliged to create a fictional child to fulfill the American family when Honey, who is supposed to embody the American family, aborts her children. By trying to compete with the American family, George and Martha end up destroying their marriage. Edward Albee uses Virginia Woolf to argue that, in practice, the American dream harms people and marriages by giving people a crushing sense of failure because they cannot live perfectly. George and Martha are unable to have a healthy marriage because they constantly compare themselves to the "Jones." Instead of being content with their realities and loving themselves for who they are, they focus on what they don't have, which always makes them unhappy. The marriage of George and Martha is intended to shed a revealing and harsh light on the American family today. George and Martha are named after George and Martha Washington, two all-American figures, implying that all American families have elements of George and Martha within them. Throughout his work, Albee continued this theme. He was particularly “concerned” (Kingsley) with the “disparity” between the “fantastic world and the world in which his characters must live” (Kingsley), notably in his plays “Tiny Alice”, “The American Dream”, and “The Sandbox” (Kingsley). This disparity between his characters' actual emotions and the emotions they present is echoed in Albee's play, The Sandbox. In the one-act play, the middle-aged couple named Mom and Dad resemble George and Martha who are supposed to represent the real American family. The play begins with the characters arriving at the beach, shortly after carrying Grandma by “her armpits” (Albee 1297) and then “more or less throwing her in” (Albee 1297). Throughout the play, the characters completely ignore Grandma, never speaking directly to her or interacting with her. Towards the end of the play, Grandma dies in the place where Mom and Dad threw her like trash. After completely ignoring Grandma, Mom and Dad become mockingly emotional for a split second: “Ohhhh…poor Grandma…poor Grandma” (Albee 1298). After this brief and insincere mourning, Mom said insincerely: "We must hold back our tears, remove our grief and face the future." » (Albée 1299). The hollow way in which the characters pretend to mourn Grandma's passing provides insight into the way Americans pretend to do what it takes to maintain the status quo. It would look horrible if the parents ignored their eldest at the end of her life and didn't care about her death. The play highlights the phony way Americans briefly pretend to mourn their elders simply because that's what's seen as the right moral thing to do. Attachment.