Edward Albee Themes

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Edward Albee 's controversial play begins with the entrance of Martha and George, her husband, into their New England home late in the night after a faculty party. The intoxicated couple stumbles and exchange quips about each other 's characteristics. Martha states that they will soon have guests ― a young new math professor at their college and his young wife. Martha and George welcome the young couple into their home but the tension between them is clear and both Nick and his wife Honey are sucked into the insults and humiliation the older couple engages between themselves. As the drinks flow freely, the after party gets more violent and the couples delve into uncharted territory by tearing apart the carefully crafted illusions that exist …show more content…
The lines between love and hate are blurred after many years of living with disappointments and letdowns and the passion between Martha and George is unfortunately channeled into vicious quips meant to tear one another down to express their discontent. After a long night of brutal arguing Martha reflects on the tattered state of her marriage and realizes that though their struggles have torn them apart it is still George who, "is good to [her], and who [she] reviles; who understands [her], and who [she] pushes off; who can make [her] laugh…who can hold [her] at night, so that its warm…" (201). It is in this particular scene that stands to show that marriage is something to last forever no matter how difficult the reality is. This makes the young couple 's marriage seem foreboding because whereas George and Martha 's relationship was built on a passionate love some twenty years ago, Nick admits there wasn 't any, "particular passion between [them], even at the beginning of [their] marriage," and this shows one of Nick 's weaknesses ― he and his wife lacked any passion that could lead to emotions such that of love (117). The only path they are likely to follow will then be reminiscent of the contemptuous relationship the older couple have begun to …show more content…
George is bitter about the university 's president --- his own father-in-law --- thinking he is not good enough to move up in position in the History Department claiming that, "Georgie boy didn 't have the stuff…he wasn 't particularly…aggressive," (92-93). When Martha brings this situation up in front of Nick and Honey, George reacts violently and is near tears to show the depth of effect his failures have on him. Martha also struggles with her relationship with her husband, relying on cruel insults and humiliation to express her dissatisfaction with the disconnection she experiences with the man she loves or at least used to. She clearly hates who she has become and her dissatisfaction with herself leads her to be puzzled by George, "who tolerates, which is intolerable; who is kind, which is cruel; who understands, which is beyond comprehension" (202). This feeling is offset by the weary realization that their love is really no longer there and their marriage in pieces. "It went snap tonight at Daddy 's party," she claims, "Twenty-tree years of you has been quite enough….There was a second back there, maybe, there was a second , just a second, when I could have gotten through to you, when maybe we could have cut through all this crap," (174). Martha senses the end to any control they have over their marriage and her

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