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Illusion in Edward Albee Selected Play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”

Received: 4 June 2015     Accepted: 29 June 2015     Published: 18 July 2015
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Abstract

Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Exposes the plunge of moral values of the American family in the modern society in which materialism is Victorious. The play shows the deceptive appearances and moral disintegration of George and Martha. This paper attempts to outline the American dream and how the characters accept illusion as an escape from real life. The initial part provides us withsome information about the writer’s life and how he is influenced by the theater of the absurd, and the impact of the psychological approaches on Albee’s way of writing .The paper also proposes Albee as a modern playwright to recall and explain the community problems that help modern readers to understand his crises and his tragedy form. Superficially, the play seems to be about the illusion but in fact it examines and presents crises of the modern American values and their way of life. Thus, the play discloses the theme of illusion and social American crises through the bond of marriage of the two couples.

Published in International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 3, Issue 4)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijla.20150304.15
Page(s) 60-65
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2015. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Illusion, Social Crises, American Dream, Marriage, Psyche of Absurdity

References
[1] Allan, Lewis. 1964.The Fan and Games of Edward Albee, ETJ.
[2] Bigsby, C. W. E. 1975.Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, in Edward Albee: Modern Critical Views.
[3] Eby, Claire Virginia. 2007. Fun and game with George and Nick: Competitive masculinity in Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? Modern drama 50.4.601-619. Project Muse.Web. 30 May 2011.
[4] Edward, Albee.2005.Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?United Stat of America: The New York Times.
[5] Eliot, T.S 1923.”Ulysses, Order and Myth”.Selected Prose of T.S. Eliot. (Ed.)Frank Kermode .Esslin, Martin. 1961. The Theater of the Absurd. USA: Anchor Books. London: Faber and Faber
[6] Finkelstein, Bonnie Blumenthal .1995.Albee’s Martha: Someone’s daughter, Someone Wife, No One’s Mother. American Drama (5)
[7] Hameed, H, Ahmed. 2011. A critical Study of Eugene O’Neil’s Selected plays As Modern tragedy. PhD thesis
[8] Harries,Wendell.2011. Morality, Absurdity, and Albee.South Review 49 (1964):249-256.jstor.Web. 04 April 2011.
[9] Hudson,Christopher.1985. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?By Edward Albee. Longman York Press
[10] Jenkins, T, Ryan.2011.The Animal Within: Edward Albee Deconstruction of Human Privilege in who’s afraid of Virginia Wolf? A thesis to Graduate School Appalachian State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Art, Appalachian : university press9-Lazuli, Lapis.An International Literary Journal (LLILJ) 125.
[11] John Gassner. (June 29, 1963). Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Saturday review.
[12] Kucuk, Hale.2008. Edrwad Albee Under the Influence of Samuel Backett. M.A Thesis Submitted to the graduate School of Social Sciences of Middle East Technical University, middle: Technical University Press.
[13] Lzulli,Lapis.2013.Marriage :An Illusive Reaity in Albee’s "Whose afraid of Virgina Woolf?"An International Literary Journal (LLILJ).ISSN 2249-4529, Vol.3.2013.
[14] Machalicka, barbora. 2002. Thesis on Philosophical and psychological Aspect in Edward Albee’s Plays. University Pardubice Faculty Humanities Study, Department of English and American study.
[15] Rutenberg.Michael E. 1969. Edward Albee: Playwright in Protest, New York: OBS Publication Inc,
[16] Peter, S ,Raman, W. and Peter, B.2005.A reader's guide to contemporary literary theory. Fifth edition Britain: Pearson Education.
[17] S, Freud. 1984.”The Ego and the Id” ,in On Metapsychology,Penguin,p362
[18] Styan, J. L. 1968. The Dark Comedy: The Development of Modern Comic Tragedy.Cambridage University Press,
[19] Thomson, George.1967.The Fiction of E.M. Foster .Detroit: Wayne State UP.
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Susan Raheem Rahman Jaf, Zhang Zaihong. (2015). Illusion in Edward Albee Selected Play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 3(4), 60-65. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20150304.15

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    ACS Style

    Susan Raheem Rahman Jaf; Zhang Zaihong. Illusion in Edward Albee Selected Play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2015, 3(4), 60-65. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20150304.15

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    AMA Style

    Susan Raheem Rahman Jaf, Zhang Zaihong. Illusion in Edward Albee Selected Play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”. Int J Lit Arts. 2015;3(4):60-65. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20150304.15

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijla.20150304.15,
      author = {Susan Raheem Rahman Jaf and Zhang Zaihong},
      title = {Illusion in Edward Albee Selected Play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”},
      journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
      volume = {3},
      number = {4},
      pages = {60-65},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20150304.15},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20150304.15},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20150304.15},
      abstract = {Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Exposes the plunge of moral values of the American family in the modern society in which materialism is Victorious. The play shows the deceptive appearances and moral disintegration of George and Martha. This paper attempts to outline the American dream and how the characters accept illusion as an escape from real life. The initial part provides us withsome information about the writer’s life and how he is influenced by the theater of the absurd, and the impact of the psychological approaches on Albee’s way of writing .The paper also proposes Albee as a modern playwright to recall and explain the community problems that help modern readers to understand his crises and his tragedy form. Superficially, the play seems to be about the illusion but in fact it examines and presents crises of the modern American values and their way of life. Thus, the play discloses the theme of illusion and social American crises through the bond of marriage of the two couples.},
     year = {2015}
    }
    

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Author Information
  • School of Foreign Languages, English Dept, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Hubei Province, Wuhan City, China

  • School of Foreign Languages, English Dept, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Hubei Province, Wuhan City, China

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