Edward Albee’s play, Three Tall Women, was intended to be an objective piece that reflected a person in his life that he knew very well, his adoptive mother. Albee prided himself in knowing his mother well but he was never sure if she truly knew him. However, although he knew his mother he was by no means her biggest fan as he explains that he detested “her prejudices, loathings, and paranoias” (Albee). Now having his subject in mind, Albee sat down to write but found himself at a loss for a direction in which to take this play, however; he did know where he did not want to take it. Despite there differences, Albee had no ill-will towards his mother and thus refused to take his play down a road of spite and revenge. Instead he took all that
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However, her struggle in Act One to piece together memories of her life and her argumentative attitude only provides a surface view of A, or Albee’s mother. Her trying to recall her troubled memories in life which resulted in regret such as her husband’s afraid, his death, and the estrangement of her homosexual son set the stage for the audience to delve deeper into the mind of A, in hopes of figuring out why she acts in the manner she does. Albee uses Act Two to do just that, transforming B and C into A, or his mother’s younger self, to show that she, and the choices she made in life, is the inevitable result of B and C’s own life experiences. In Act Two A experiences a change in outlook on life, after experiencing a heart attack at the end of Act One. She is no longer miserable and struggling to come to terms with her past which previously caused her to deny the inevitability of dying. She now accepts the choices she made in life, resolving her inner conflicts allowing her to peacefully acknowledge the reality in which she is facing. This change of heart allows B to see herself in A and recognize that the stage she in life she is at right now “must be the happiest time: half of being adult done, the rest ahead of me. Old enough to be a little wise, past being really dumb” (Albee 108). However, the “really dumb” remark was aimed at C, who still struggles to see her inevitable fate and herself in A because of the naïve point she is still at in
However, her struggle in Act One to piece together memories of her life and her argumentative attitude only provides a surface view of A, or Albee’s mother. Her trying to recall her troubled memories in life which resulted in regret such as her husband’s afraid, his death, and the estrangement of her homosexual son set the stage for the audience to delve deeper into the mind of A, in hopes of figuring out why she acts in the manner she does. Albee uses Act Two to do just that, transforming B and C into A, or his mother’s younger self, to show that she, and the choices she made in life, is the inevitable result of B and C’s own life experiences. In Act Two A experiences a change in outlook on life, after experiencing a heart attack at the end of Act One. She is no longer miserable and struggling to come to terms with her past which previously caused her to deny the inevitability of dying. She now accepts the choices she made in life, resolving her inner conflicts allowing her to peacefully acknowledge the reality in which she is facing. This change of heart allows B to see herself in A and recognize that the stage she in life she is at right now “must be the happiest time: half of being adult done, the rest ahead of me. Old enough to be a little wise, past being really dumb” (Albee 108). However, the “really dumb” remark was aimed at C, who still struggles to see her inevitable fate and herself in A because of the naïve point she is still at in