Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf? Is a Three Act dark comedy play by Edward Albee that was first performed in October 1962 during the heights of the Cold War. The play is one of the most successful plays belonging to the Theatre of the Absurd and it suggests the imprints of the Cold War and the Berlin Wall built between East Germany and West Germany during that time. However, it is not a political play, rather it tells the story of a dysfunctional and self-destructive marriage between a history professor and his wife during a course of a night at their home on the campus of a small college in New England. At one instance, while arguing against his wife, the history professor shouts "I will not give up Berlin!"
The play investigates the themes of Reality and the importance of illusions in life. The two married couples discussed in the play rely upon their illusions for the success of their married life and as soon as they dare to face reality, they find their marriage is going into shambles. In addition, the play also criticizes the American dream of perfect life.
Despite its title, the play has nothing to do with the late celebrated English novelist Virginia Woolf. Rather it is a pun on Walt Disney’s song ‘Who is Afraid of Big Bad Woolf.’ The title actually means ‘Who is Afraid to Live without Illusions?’ Another theme of the play is the contradiction of love and hate. The married couple love each other but they do feel intense hate against each other too.
Characters of Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Martha is the fifty-two-year-old wife of a college history professor. Her father is the president of that college situated in New Carthage, a town in New England. As a teenager, she fell in love with a low-income earning Gardner and married him against her father’s permission. Though her marriage was consummated, her father succeeded in annulling that marriage, and later on, Martha married George, believing he had the potential to become the head of the history department and eventually to replace her father as president of the university. Despite her father’s efforts, George failed to attain that high position. This frustrated Martha but she always tried to hide her frustration. As time passes away, she becomes bitter and flirts with other faculty members of the college. George is her forty-six-year-old husband and a professor of History who failed to become the head of the department. There are rumors that as a teenager he may have accidentally shot his mother and accidentally killed his father in a car crash. However, it appears as if it is just a fictitious story created by George himself. He knows his marriage is a failure, but he tries to ignore the problems within his married life. As a couple, Martha and George fail to become parents but they assume that they have an imaginary son. Nick is a 30-year-old professor of Biology who is very popular at the college. He got his Masters degree at the very young age of twenty and it is believed that he will soon become the head of the department of Biology. He appears smart and sexy and there are rumours that he often succeeds in sleeping with the wives of other faculty members. However, when he attempts to sleep with Martha, he proves impotent. Honey is Nick’s frail, beautiful wife who belongs to a rich family. She often appears sad and frustrated and she tries to hide her sorrows in alcohol. She faced a teenage pregnancy that failed. Nick married her after her abortion. Honey shares her fears of the pain of childbirth and of getting pregnant and tells him that she and Nick failed to have a child because she takes birth control pills to avoid becoming a mother. Later on, it is revealed that all this is an illusion that she created just to hide from the impotence of Nick.
Summary of Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
It is a three-act play and the first act is titled Fun and Games. The play begins as George and Martha return home after a late-night University faculty party held at Martha’s father’s home. Martha’s father is the president of the college while George is a professor of History at the same college. It is early morning and both George and Martha are a bit drunk. George says that they may take a final drink before going to bed. But Martha reminds him that they are expected to attend some visitors pretty soon. Nick, a biology professor who is new to the university, and Honey, his wife whom Martha describes as a mousy woman without any hips have planned to visit them. George is not happy about their visit but Martha’s father insists him that they must entertain the visitors. George says that they must not talk about their son in front of the visitors. Martha begins singing ‘Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf to the tune of “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,” which she seems to have invented at the party and laughs hysterically at it. The doorbell rings at the same time and George opens the door. This startles Martha and she abuses him. Seeing their drunken situation, Nick and his wife Honey feel that they visited them at the wrong time. However, Martha soon manages the situation and welcomes them in. Nick expresses his gratitude for the president’s parties in helping him grow acquainted with the college. Martha and Honey excuse themselves to go to the restroom. George provokes Nick and then tells him about the campus practice of “musical beds”—of sleeping with other professor’s wives. Nick is not very keen to continue the topic and tries to belittle the young professor. He bitterly says that he may soon become the head of the Maths department. Nick informs him that he is not a professor of Mathematics, rather he has joined the department of Biology, and his particular research topic is genetics.
Honey returns to the room and says that she didn't know George and Martha had a son. George is distressed by this and gets furious with Martha. Martha follows her and Nick notices that she has changed to a seductive outfit. She begins telling Nick and Honey about the circumstances of her marriage with George and says that their son’s twenty-first birthday is the very next day. After taking a drink, Honey grows bolder and asks George and Martha when their son will be coming home. Soon, Nick expresses doubt that George may not be the biological father of Martha’s son. Martha reveals that she was pregnant before her marriage to George. Honey says that she is afraid of getting pregnant and that is why she takes anti-pregnancy pills to avoid having a baby. Soon she feels that she is getting sick and goes to the bathroom.
Martha continues to flirt with Nick while belittling George and tells about how she punched George when he refused to join in a boxing match with her father. George grows fed up and leaves the room. Nick couldn’t take anymore and he went away. He soon returns with a rifle and shoots at Martha, but it is a false shot and a parasol hits Martha which lightens the mood. George now continues to talk about his son and begins arguing which one of them has been the worse influence on the boy, and Martha proceeds with her tact of humiliation by telling Nick and Honey how George is a flop who failed to take over the History Department, as she'd anticipated when they got married. As she continues shouting at George, he goes to the bathroom, drags Honey back into the room, and dances around with her while singing ‘Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf.’
Act 2 is titled "Walpurgisnacht." Martha goes to the kitchen to make some coffee and Nick reveals to George that he married Honey because she was pregnant with what ended up being a hysterical pregnancy. The added bonus is that she is rich as her evangelist father left a fortune. He half-jokingly confides his plan to rise to power at the college by sleeping with the wives of important faculty members. Nick comments about getting Martha in a corner and ‘mounting’ her. George shares an anecdote of a boy, whom he says he knew in prep school, who ordered "Bergin" at a gin joint with his friends. This boy had accidentally killed his mother with a shotgun, and a year later, with his learner's permit in his pocket, he crashed into a tree and killed his father.
Soon Martha and Honey return to the room. While Honey again begins feeling sick, Martha becomes more emboldened and openly flirts with Nick. Honey suggests that they may play a game of ‘Interpretive Dance.’ Martha is excited about that and desires to dance with Nick lasciviously. Nick gets furious and shouts that the ‘Bergin’ boy who accidentally killed his mother and father was he and berates about his failed attempt to publish a novel on that story. Martha says that his father stopped George from publishing such a preposterous story. George gets furious and attacks and tries to strangulate Martha but Nick intervenes and separates them.
George says that they must change the game. He says that they have played ‘Humiliate the Host’ and ‘Hump the Hostess’ may be played later, but now they must play ‘Get the Guests.’ He then tells a story about a girl named Mousie who puffed up and whose puff went "poof." Honey interprets that the story is about her. She feels sick again and runs back to the bathroom.
Martha continues to flirt with Nick but notices that George is now ignoring her and she feels frustrated about it. Nick begins to kiss and grope her on the couch while Martha begins getting annoyed that George is not intervening. Nick then drags her to the bedroom and while they move, they hit the doorbell chimes on the way. Honey listens to the sound of bells and returns back to the room. She tells George that she is terrified of getting pregnant and thus, she takes anti-pregnancy pills to avoid having a child. She continues talking about the sound of the doorbell that she heard. This offers George an idea of a new trick to torture Martha. Honey goes back to the bathroom.
Act Three is titled ‘The Exorcism’. Martha returns to the room and finds that both Honey and George are missing. She is drunk and confused. She begins crying and says how much she adores George. She says that she and George cry all the time, then freeze their tears into ice cubes for their drinks. Nick comes back too and wonders what is happening. Martha says that Nick is impotent, he cannot get an erection. She further says that no one but only George can satisfy her. She tells Nick not to believe appearances and praises George's ability to learn the games as quickly as she can change the rules. Nick wonders what games she is talking about. Martha continues to chide Nick and calls him a gigolo and a houseboy. The doorbell rings and Martha orders the houseboy to attend the door. Nick gets furious at this but opens the door. He finds George at the door who came back with a bouquet of flowers. He pretends to be a Western Union man and acts as if he's mistaken Nick for his and Martha's son. Nick gets fed up and calls them vicious, and George and Martha join together in deriding them.
George and Martha again begin arguing over trivial issues. George throws the bouquet on the floor and shouts that his marriage with Martha is a failure. He then goes to the bathroom and brings Honey back to the room. He says that now they will play one last game named ‘Bringing up the Baby’ till death. Honey is very drunk by now and she still holds a bottle of brandy in her hands. She says that she wishes to play ‘Peel the Label.’ George tells her they are playing the same. Then George tells about how Martha’s dominating presence scared their son and he ran away from the home. Martha counters this with her own story of how idealized her childhood was. Honey gets frustrated while listening to all this and begins crying. She reveals that she desperately wishes to be a mother and suggests that Nick is impotent. Martha blames George for bringing their son into the discussion and George shouts at her that he told her not to mention their son. Honey pleads with them to stop fighting. George calms down and deliberately says that he recently got a telegram informing him about the death of their son. He informs that Martha’s son was driving on a country road, swerved to avoid a porcupine, and crashed into a tree. The story exactly matches with the Bergin story that he told before. Martha gets furious and shouts that George has no right to do this and he shouldn’t devise the death of their son. She demands to see the telegram announcing this news, and George says that he has eaten it.
By now, Nick understands that the son is imaginary. He asks George and he confirms this. George informs that they cannot have a baby because Martha cannot become a mother. He then suggests that Nick and Honey should go back to their home. After Nick and Honey are gone, Martha painfully complains that George shouldn’t have killed their imaginary son. George assures Martha that things will be better. Martha requests him to have another baby but George sternly says no to this. He then begins singing ‘Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ which acts as a lullaby to Martha and she sleeps after saying ‘I am.’ The play ends as George tenderly puts Martha into the bed.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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