(no subject)
blah blah blah... 10 page research paper... read it if you wanna know about edward albee lol.
times new roman size 12.
Jasmine Trosian
A.P. English/1
May 20, 2005
Edward Albee
Francis Albee, Edward Albee's mother is the single most significant factor in the way he portrays women in his plays, and how he views them in context to his own life. With the exception of elderly women, nearly all female characters in his plays are domineering, dissastified with life, mean, and manipulative. They portray sex in a very perverted light and push forth the idea of marriage and sex being nonexistent together."There is almost an Augustinian conviction in Albee's insistance on what sex in marriage is NOT" (Paolucci 47). The women control their husbands, and manipulate them into submission. These were all qualities of Francis Albee that Edward found most detestable( Gussow 16).
"On March 12, 1928, a woman names Louside Harvey gave birth to a son in Washington D.C." (Gussow 22). Given up for adoption by his biological mother two weeks after birth, he was soon adopted by Reed and Francis Albee, an old family of considerable wealth(Gussow 45). Once quoted as saying "'They bought me. They paid $133.30,'" (Gussow 22) Edward used this idea in a few of his plays as he got older, specifically The American Dream. By the age of six, Edward had realized he was adopted, and when told pretended not to care(Gussow 22). From about the age of ten, the reality of his being adopted truly hit home and began to affect his feelings and decisions about life. It truly became a unanswerable question about his history (Gussow 24). His identity within his biological family suffered from this lack of knowledge about his biological family. He felt removed and very isolated quite often. "From their son's point of view, the Albees were the oddest and most removed of couples." (Gussow 26). Francis is described as "imperious, demanding and unloving." and Reed is "uncommunicative and disengaged" (Gussow 26). Though Francis took a large role is Edward's life, it wasn't necessarily a good one, controlling and pushing him into things he didn't want to do, and as she was only around him when she felt the whim, he felt little attachment for her. He felt even less for his father who was almost non-existant in Edward's life (Gussow 30). His governess, Mrs. Church, was however a constant companion and playmate. "One of Albee's recurrent fantasies, developed when he was quite young, was that, in the tradition of Victorian novels, Nanny Church was his real mother and had been hired to take care of him." (Gussow 35) However, this was not so, and the only mother Albee knew was Francis, who in June of 1940 wrote out his application to Lawrenceville.(Gussow47)His reason for leaving Rye County Day School? Francis replied with "Want boy in boarding school."(Gussow 47) So, off to boarding school went Edward. At lawrenceville, Edward was lonely and virtually friendless with the terrible habit of only going to classes that interested him. (Gussow49) Needless to say, he failed his first year. With military school already a threat hanging over his head, Edward wrote a letter of apology to the headmaster and promised to straighten up. (Gussow 49) However, when the next school year rolled, around, he didn't. "'Ed's four failures in five subjects was entirely uncessesary.' " (Gussow 49). So with two long years at Lawrenceville behind him, Albee was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy.(Gussow 50) Preceeded by J.D. Salinger by 7 years, Albee once said "I did not write The Catcher in the Rye... I lived it..' " (Gussow 50) Albee did not graduate from Valley Forge, but soon moved on to Choate. It was in this new school that he really fell in love with learning and found his niche. He began attending all classes and truly began to write. Greatly encouraged by his prefessors and the other students around him, he made many new friends and was truly happy at a school for the first time in his young life. ( Gussow 56)
Though born just months before the great crash that kicked off the Great Depression, Albee never felt any real sort of need.(Art Rep.) As Reed watched Albee grow up, he bought him anything his son desired, though he was incapable of really showing love to his son. (Art. Rep.) When Albee started at Valley Forge Military Academy, it was 1940 and America was going to war. (Gussow 52) However, this wasn't much more of a reality for Albee than the Depression would have been, had Albee been old enough. The only way the family was affected was by the war was when it was difficult to find oil for heating their large country home. At this time, they moved into their apartment on Park Avenue in New York City.( Art. Rep.) It was the baby boom of the 1950's and 1960's after the war that was the real inspiration for most of Albee's plays.(Paolucci 68) In the 1950's a new wave was hitting America in a big way. Suburbs were popping up everywhere, and there was an idea of American Normality that truly inspired Albee to write. (Circle Theatre.) "The American Dream is a picture of our time-as I see it, of course." (Hayman31) The Zoo Story, the first play written by Albee to be published, was staged in Germany in 1960. It painted a picture of American Normality, along with showing a little of his own ideas about society. The main characters, Peter and Jerry come from totally different backgrounds and opposite sides of the track. Peter makes about $100,000 a year and has a wife, two kids, 2 cats, and two parakeets. One for each of his little girls. Secretly wishing for a dog or a son, he is pushed down by his wife, and finds refuge on a park bench. Jerry, the antagonist of the story, portrays the lower class, speaking of his neighbors and liquored up landlady's antics, including a black drag queen, a lady who cries all the time and a dog who bites ankles. (Paolucci 23) Though The Zoo Story is the only one to really portray the obvious differences between the classes, The American Dream and The Sandbox are set in the same suburban time of the late 50's and 60's.(Circle Theatre)With the Cold War looming over America, many of Albee's plays have quite an existential outlook. (Albee 7) The majority of Albess's are based on this image of an "American Dream." (Circle theatre) However Albee is known as the father of the American Absurdist movement. (Art. Rep.) After the publication of Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? he was praised as the greatest playwright since Tennesse Williams, Arthur Miller, and Eugene O'Neille.(Paolucci 17) He lived and worked in the Modernist Era, though he isn't said to be strictly modernist, he is in a sub-category of his own. (Paolucci 17) He is still living and writing today, and as he and the world get older, and history changes, Albee still writes in that "American Dream/Suburbia" scene. (Circle Theatre)
Within these suburban works however, there is a large degree of satirical comedy, and outrageous scenarios. (Paolucci 35) "humor, in Albee, becomes a trap; to laugh at any of these things is to laugh at our own expense." (Paolucci 35)The Zoo Story (1960) was the first play published, and contained many of the motifs and themes that distinguish Albee from others like him. More than once called "a master of dialouge" and said to have "revolutionized the language of the American stage!"(Paolucci 15) Albee used language and diction to his advantage to incorporate larger ideas into simple dialogues, or even monologues. In The Zoo Story Peter doesn't openly say that his wife prevents him from having a son, but the larger idea of the woman dominating the man ( a very recurrent theme in all of Albee's plays) shines through these simple comments about dogs vs cats and a son vs a daughter. The Zoo Story truly brings to light the motif of a submissive man and his dominant wife, the human condition overall, and death and how it is approached. (Paolucci) Beginning the play by setting up these characters for a showdown, (eventually over the bench, which represents Peter's freedom in his life.) Albee creates a situation in which the characters are forced to confront each other. Jerry verbally attacks and patronizes the flustered Peter, insulting his masculinity and pride. After flustering Peter and calming him, Jerry begins to push Peter off his bench. The bench stands for the last little bit of free will that Peter has left inside him, and refuses to give the bench up, instead opting to fight for it. Jerry realizes this and tossing a knife to Peter manipulates it.(Albee, Zoo 39)"You fight, you miserable bastard; fight for that bench; fight for your manhood, you pathetic little vegetable." (Albee, Zoo 38) Well, when Peter holds the knife out and Jerry impales himself on it, Peter feels that he has no other choice but to flee. He leaves Jerry dying, alone. A recurrent theme itself in Albee's plays. In fact, Albee uses this theme in both The Sandbox, and The American Dream. The Sandbox is almost an exerpt from The American Dream, It uses the same characters, same family, same family dynamic, and many similar motifs from both The American Dream and The Zoo Story. The Sandbox has Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, The Musician and The Young Man. Grandma is put in a Sandbox to "play" however before the nights end, she will be dead, and everyone knows this, even Grandma. In fact, she is given the job of burying herself. Inside the Sandbox, she begins by speaking in gibberish, a tactic Albee uses to make her seem more helpless and old, while Mommy and Daddy sit on a bench nearby to "wait." (Sandbox 10) Mommy repeatedly tells Daddy what to do and where to put Grandma and many other things. She also commands the attention of the musician and commands him to play. Grandma on the other hand asks him to start or stop when she feels like it. She reminds "God" that it should be getting Dark, the signal of her upcoming death. (Sandbox 14) As she shovels sand over herself in the sandbox, she tells the audience and Mommy and Daddy that she is moving as fast as she can to fully cover herself, which is the way she will be portrayed as dead. When the lights come up, Mommy tells Daddy to stop mourning, and she leads him offstage. The Young Man who has been hanging around the area comes to Grandma and tells her that he is the Angel of Death, and he has come to take her away.( Albee, Sandbox) Though Grandma doesn't literally die in front of the audience, she does die, and she does it alone. Not the Angel, or Mommy or Daddy have much to do with her dying. She controls every part of it, from the lights going dim, to the sand covering her body.(Albee, Sandbox) In The American Dream, it isn't Grandma who dies, but a child. Ironically as Albee once felt he himself had been bought, in The American Dream the adopted son is bought, and when deemed unworthy, is sent back to where he was bought from. A figurative death.( Albee Dream) The Character of Mommy in American Dream is different than that of Mommy in the Sandbox, though not tragically different. Mommy in Dream is much more like Francis Albee than Mommy in Sandbox is.(Paolucci 45)Mommy in Dream begins the story by pushing Daddy down, and then when the bell rings, she manipulativley boosts his self esteem to help her. She holds against him the fact that she had sex with him, and creates a very negative image about sex. "Bumping uglies" (Albee, Dream 45) Mommy exists to exert her will on others."(Paolucci 28) This is the essence of Mommy's character. Ironically, while creating a situation devoid of any physical contact between her and Daddy, Mommy is introduced to the Young Man, the foil character for the adopted son. When introduced to him, she slides up to him, and begins to flirt with him quite sexually. Francis Albee is the model for Mommy. While Albee's own grandmother is the model for the loving caring grandmother. Albee knew from an early age that his parents cheated on each other all the time, and felt it neccisary to project this quality onto a lot of his characters. (Gussow 56) For example, in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The main characters George and Martha invite a younger couple up, just to hang out, however, people begin to flirt, and within the flirting is the recurrent theme of women overpowering the men and dominating them It was said of the play to be full of "destructive, sado-masochistic battles into one couple's hysterical love-hate rapport during a late night to dawn brawling encounter.".(Albee, Virgina Woolf) In all four plays The Zoo Story, The American Dream, The Sandbox, and Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf ?, The most obvious recurring theme is the idea of men being dominated by women, a trait he saw quite often as a child, watching his mother and father interact.(Gussow 66)
Regardless of whether one loves or hates Albee's plays, there is a specific quality to them that encourages critics to write about him and his work. Already known as the Father of the American Absurd Theater movement, it's unlikely that his work will go unnoticed by at least someone. A prime example of this Absurd Theater is the play The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? This is a play Albee wrote, that is about a man falling in love and having sex with this goat Sylvia, and his telling his family. However one of the very oddest things about Albee himself, is his decision and ability to judge and critique his own work.( Hayman 31) When speaking about The American Dream and The Sandbox, Albee wrote it was an " examination of the American scene, and attack on, the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacent, a emasculation and vacuity; it is a stand up piece against fiction, that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy keen." (Paolicci25) Edward Albee has been said "to be the voice of a new age" (Paolucci 67) and said to be an existential playwright who wishes to push his opinions on the public. (Hayman 89) "The links between Albee's work and his childhood are indisputable. Everything is there. His mother, his father, his childhood friends. Even his earliest homosexual urges come out in his plays." (Gussow 106) Within each of Albee's plays there is a character that is his mother, A Delicate Balance was written about her, and many of his female "Mommy's" are based on the tall horsewoman, and the way she treated Edward and his father.(Paolucci 56) Her child that she "bought" wasn't exactly what she expected, though she loved him the best she knew how, ironically, Edward Albee used children as a very blatant symbol of sex, and the loss of sex in a marriage. "In the attention and care the child requires, the selfish and very human demands of the parents are turned into selfless giving"(Paolucci 47).
Francis Albee is Edward Albee's adopted mother. She, through actions towards her son and husband, she played a significant role in the development of her son's aversion towards women. In his plays they are copy cats of his mother, and though he loves here and always did, he will not apologize for writing her the way he does. "Mommy exists to exert her will on others." (Paolucci 28)
Works Cited
Albee, Edward. The American Dream. New York: York Playhouse. 1961
Albee, Edward. The Sandbox. New York. Lion Associates. 1960.
Albee, Edward. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? New York. A.B.W. Productions. 1963
Albee, Edward. The Zoo Story. New York. Princeton Playhouse. 1960.
Circle Theatre. Circle Theatre of Miami. 05-07-05.
"Edward Albee." Artist's Repertory Theatre. Artist's Reperatory Theatre. 05-07-05.
Gussow, Mel. A Singular Journey: A biography. New York. Simon and Schuster Rockefeller Center. 1999.
Hayman, Ronald. World Dramatists: Edward Albee. New York. Frederick Ungar Publishing. 1973.
Moonstruck Drama Bookstore. Moonstruck drama company. 05-07-05.
Paolucci, Anne. From Tension to Tonic: The Plays of Edward Albee. Southern Illinois University Press.1972.
times new roman size 12.
Jasmine Trosian
A.P. English/1
May 20, 2005
Edward Albee
Francis Albee, Edward Albee's mother is the single most significant factor in the way he portrays women in his plays, and how he views them in context to his own life. With the exception of elderly women, nearly all female characters in his plays are domineering, dissastified with life, mean, and manipulative. They portray sex in a very perverted light and push forth the idea of marriage and sex being nonexistent together."There is almost an Augustinian conviction in Albee's insistance on what sex in marriage is NOT" (Paolucci 47). The women control their husbands, and manipulate them into submission. These were all qualities of Francis Albee that Edward found most detestable( Gussow 16).
"On March 12, 1928, a woman names Louside Harvey gave birth to a son in Washington D.C." (Gussow 22). Given up for adoption by his biological mother two weeks after birth, he was soon adopted by Reed and Francis Albee, an old family of considerable wealth(Gussow 45). Once quoted as saying "'They bought me. They paid $133.30,'" (Gussow 22) Edward used this idea in a few of his plays as he got older, specifically The American Dream. By the age of six, Edward had realized he was adopted, and when told pretended not to care(Gussow 22). From about the age of ten, the reality of his being adopted truly hit home and began to affect his feelings and decisions about life. It truly became a unanswerable question about his history (Gussow 24). His identity within his biological family suffered from this lack of knowledge about his biological family. He felt removed and very isolated quite often. "From their son's point of view, the Albees were the oddest and most removed of couples." (Gussow 26). Francis is described as "imperious, demanding and unloving." and Reed is "uncommunicative and disengaged" (Gussow 26). Though Francis took a large role is Edward's life, it wasn't necessarily a good one, controlling and pushing him into things he didn't want to do, and as she was only around him when she felt the whim, he felt little attachment for her. He felt even less for his father who was almost non-existant in Edward's life (Gussow 30). His governess, Mrs. Church, was however a constant companion and playmate. "One of Albee's recurrent fantasies, developed when he was quite young, was that, in the tradition of Victorian novels, Nanny Church was his real mother and had been hired to take care of him." (Gussow 35) However, this was not so, and the only mother Albee knew was Francis, who in June of 1940 wrote out his application to Lawrenceville.(Gussow47)His reason for leaving Rye County Day School? Francis replied with "Want boy in boarding school."(Gussow 47) So, off to boarding school went Edward. At lawrenceville, Edward was lonely and virtually friendless with the terrible habit of only going to classes that interested him. (Gussow49) Needless to say, he failed his first year. With military school already a threat hanging over his head, Edward wrote a letter of apology to the headmaster and promised to straighten up. (Gussow 49) However, when the next school year rolled, around, he didn't. "'Ed's four failures in five subjects was entirely uncessesary.' " (Gussow 49). So with two long years at Lawrenceville behind him, Albee was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy.(Gussow 50) Preceeded by J.D. Salinger by 7 years, Albee once said "I did not write The Catcher in the Rye... I lived it..' " (Gussow 50) Albee did not graduate from Valley Forge, but soon moved on to Choate. It was in this new school that he really fell in love with learning and found his niche. He began attending all classes and truly began to write. Greatly encouraged by his prefessors and the other students around him, he made many new friends and was truly happy at a school for the first time in his young life. ( Gussow 56)
Though born just months before the great crash that kicked off the Great Depression, Albee never felt any real sort of need.(Art Rep.) As Reed watched Albee grow up, he bought him anything his son desired, though he was incapable of really showing love to his son. (Art. Rep.) When Albee started at Valley Forge Military Academy, it was 1940 and America was going to war. (Gussow 52) However, this wasn't much more of a reality for Albee than the Depression would have been, had Albee been old enough. The only way the family was affected was by the war was when it was difficult to find oil for heating their large country home. At this time, they moved into their apartment on Park Avenue in New York City.( Art. Rep.) It was the baby boom of the 1950's and 1960's after the war that was the real inspiration for most of Albee's plays.(Paolucci 68) In the 1950's a new wave was hitting America in a big way. Suburbs were popping up everywhere, and there was an idea of American Normality that truly inspired Albee to write. (Circle Theatre.) "The American Dream is a picture of our time-as I see it, of course." (Hayman31) The Zoo Story, the first play written by Albee to be published, was staged in Germany in 1960. It painted a picture of American Normality, along with showing a little of his own ideas about society. The main characters, Peter and Jerry come from totally different backgrounds and opposite sides of the track. Peter makes about $100,000 a year and has a wife, two kids, 2 cats, and two parakeets. One for each of his little girls. Secretly wishing for a dog or a son, he is pushed down by his wife, and finds refuge on a park bench. Jerry, the antagonist of the story, portrays the lower class, speaking of his neighbors and liquored up landlady's antics, including a black drag queen, a lady who cries all the time and a dog who bites ankles. (Paolucci 23) Though The Zoo Story is the only one to really portray the obvious differences between the classes, The American Dream and The Sandbox are set in the same suburban time of the late 50's and 60's.(Circle Theatre)With the Cold War looming over America, many of Albee's plays have quite an existential outlook. (Albee 7) The majority of Albess's are based on this image of an "American Dream." (Circle theatre) However Albee is known as the father of the American Absurdist movement. (Art. Rep.) After the publication of Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? he was praised as the greatest playwright since Tennesse Williams, Arthur Miller, and Eugene O'Neille.(Paolucci 17) He lived and worked in the Modernist Era, though he isn't said to be strictly modernist, he is in a sub-category of his own. (Paolucci 17) He is still living and writing today, and as he and the world get older, and history changes, Albee still writes in that "American Dream/Suburbia" scene. (Circle Theatre)
Within these suburban works however, there is a large degree of satirical comedy, and outrageous scenarios. (Paolucci 35) "humor, in Albee, becomes a trap; to laugh at any of these things is to laugh at our own expense." (Paolucci 35)The Zoo Story (1960) was the first play published, and contained many of the motifs and themes that distinguish Albee from others like him. More than once called "a master of dialouge" and said to have "revolutionized the language of the American stage!"(Paolucci 15) Albee used language and diction to his advantage to incorporate larger ideas into simple dialogues, or even monologues. In The Zoo Story Peter doesn't openly say that his wife prevents him from having a son, but the larger idea of the woman dominating the man ( a very recurrent theme in all of Albee's plays) shines through these simple comments about dogs vs cats and a son vs a daughter. The Zoo Story truly brings to light the motif of a submissive man and his dominant wife, the human condition overall, and death and how it is approached. (Paolucci) Beginning the play by setting up these characters for a showdown, (eventually over the bench, which represents Peter's freedom in his life.) Albee creates a situation in which the characters are forced to confront each other. Jerry verbally attacks and patronizes the flustered Peter, insulting his masculinity and pride. After flustering Peter and calming him, Jerry begins to push Peter off his bench. The bench stands for the last little bit of free will that Peter has left inside him, and refuses to give the bench up, instead opting to fight for it. Jerry realizes this and tossing a knife to Peter manipulates it.(Albee, Zoo 39)"You fight, you miserable bastard; fight for that bench; fight for your manhood, you pathetic little vegetable." (Albee, Zoo 38) Well, when Peter holds the knife out and Jerry impales himself on it, Peter feels that he has no other choice but to flee. He leaves Jerry dying, alone. A recurrent theme itself in Albee's plays. In fact, Albee uses this theme in both The Sandbox, and The American Dream. The Sandbox is almost an exerpt from The American Dream, It uses the same characters, same family, same family dynamic, and many similar motifs from both The American Dream and The Zoo Story. The Sandbox has Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, The Musician and The Young Man. Grandma is put in a Sandbox to "play" however before the nights end, she will be dead, and everyone knows this, even Grandma. In fact, she is given the job of burying herself. Inside the Sandbox, she begins by speaking in gibberish, a tactic Albee uses to make her seem more helpless and old, while Mommy and Daddy sit on a bench nearby to "wait." (Sandbox 10) Mommy repeatedly tells Daddy what to do and where to put Grandma and many other things. She also commands the attention of the musician and commands him to play. Grandma on the other hand asks him to start or stop when she feels like it. She reminds "God" that it should be getting Dark, the signal of her upcoming death. (Sandbox 14) As she shovels sand over herself in the sandbox, she tells the audience and Mommy and Daddy that she is moving as fast as she can to fully cover herself, which is the way she will be portrayed as dead. When the lights come up, Mommy tells Daddy to stop mourning, and she leads him offstage. The Young Man who has been hanging around the area comes to Grandma and tells her that he is the Angel of Death, and he has come to take her away.( Albee, Sandbox) Though Grandma doesn't literally die in front of the audience, she does die, and she does it alone. Not the Angel, or Mommy or Daddy have much to do with her dying. She controls every part of it, from the lights going dim, to the sand covering her body.(Albee, Sandbox) In The American Dream, it isn't Grandma who dies, but a child. Ironically as Albee once felt he himself had been bought, in The American Dream the adopted son is bought, and when deemed unworthy, is sent back to where he was bought from. A figurative death.( Albee Dream) The Character of Mommy in American Dream is different than that of Mommy in the Sandbox, though not tragically different. Mommy in Dream is much more like Francis Albee than Mommy in Sandbox is.(Paolucci 45)Mommy in Dream begins the story by pushing Daddy down, and then when the bell rings, she manipulativley boosts his self esteem to help her. She holds against him the fact that she had sex with him, and creates a very negative image about sex. "Bumping uglies" (Albee, Dream 45) Mommy exists to exert her will on others."(Paolucci 28) This is the essence of Mommy's character. Ironically, while creating a situation devoid of any physical contact between her and Daddy, Mommy is introduced to the Young Man, the foil character for the adopted son. When introduced to him, she slides up to him, and begins to flirt with him quite sexually. Francis Albee is the model for Mommy. While Albee's own grandmother is the model for the loving caring grandmother. Albee knew from an early age that his parents cheated on each other all the time, and felt it neccisary to project this quality onto a lot of his characters. (Gussow 56) For example, in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The main characters George and Martha invite a younger couple up, just to hang out, however, people begin to flirt, and within the flirting is the recurrent theme of women overpowering the men and dominating them It was said of the play to be full of "destructive, sado-masochistic battles into one couple's hysterical love-hate rapport during a late night to dawn brawling encounter.".(Albee, Virgina Woolf) In all four plays The Zoo Story, The American Dream, The Sandbox, and Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf ?, The most obvious recurring theme is the idea of men being dominated by women, a trait he saw quite often as a child, watching his mother and father interact.(Gussow 66)
Regardless of whether one loves or hates Albee's plays, there is a specific quality to them that encourages critics to write about him and his work. Already known as the Father of the American Absurd Theater movement, it's unlikely that his work will go unnoticed by at least someone. A prime example of this Absurd Theater is the play The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? This is a play Albee wrote, that is about a man falling in love and having sex with this goat Sylvia, and his telling his family. However one of the very oddest things about Albee himself, is his decision and ability to judge and critique his own work.( Hayman 31) When speaking about The American Dream and The Sandbox, Albee wrote it was an " examination of the American scene, and attack on, the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacent, a emasculation and vacuity; it is a stand up piece against fiction, that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy keen." (Paolicci25) Edward Albee has been said "to be the voice of a new age" (Paolucci 67) and said to be an existential playwright who wishes to push his opinions on the public. (Hayman 89) "The links between Albee's work and his childhood are indisputable. Everything is there. His mother, his father, his childhood friends. Even his earliest homosexual urges come out in his plays." (Gussow 106) Within each of Albee's plays there is a character that is his mother, A Delicate Balance was written about her, and many of his female "Mommy's" are based on the tall horsewoman, and the way she treated Edward and his father.(Paolucci 56) Her child that she "bought" wasn't exactly what she expected, though she loved him the best she knew how, ironically, Edward Albee used children as a very blatant symbol of sex, and the loss of sex in a marriage. "In the attention and care the child requires, the selfish and very human demands of the parents are turned into selfless giving"(Paolucci 47).
Francis Albee is Edward Albee's adopted mother. She, through actions towards her son and husband, she played a significant role in the development of her son's aversion towards women. In his plays they are copy cats of his mother, and though he loves here and always did, he will not apologize for writing her the way he does. "Mommy exists to exert her will on others." (Paolucci 28)
Works Cited
Albee, Edward. The American Dream. New York: York Playhouse. 1961
Albee, Edward. The Sandbox. New York. Lion Associates. 1960.
Albee, Edward. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? New York. A.B.W. Productions. 1963
Albee, Edward. The Zoo Story. New York. Princeton Playhouse. 1960.
Circle Theatre. Circle Theatre of Miami. 05-07-05.
"Edward Albee." Artist's Repertory Theatre. Artist's Reperatory Theatre. 05-07-05.
Gussow, Mel. A Singular Journey: A biography. New York. Simon and Schuster Rockefeller Center. 1999.
Hayman, Ronald. World Dramatists: Edward Albee. New York. Frederick Ungar Publishing. 1973.
Moonstruck Drama Bookstore. Moonstruck drama company. 05-07-05.
Paolucci, Anne. From Tension to Tonic: The Plays of Edward Albee. Southern Illinois University Press.1972.