The Relationship Between Martha and George Edward Albee was an American playwright producer and director. He was born on March 12, 1928 probably in Virginia. He was adopted at an early age, which influenced him to write about characters that are different. His writings were characterized by realism; fidelity to life as perceived and experienced, and were considered to be absurd dramas. Albee, in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , portrays a primitive sex struggle between a middle aged couple; the relationship between George and Martha is acted out in a series of games in which one sex dominates the other through unapparent love, weapons that each have mastered, and the most hurtful insult, the revealing of the hidden truth. The unapparent love for one another is one of the most interesting aspects of George and Martha’s relationship.
Throughout the play this point is brought out in some of the most memorable scenes. At the end of the play, when George triumphs in the battle, he shows sympathy towards his wife even though he has regrets about revealing the truth about their hypothetical son. Each understand and appreciate one another even though each is a tortured person. In Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , Martha states ‘George who is good to me, and whom I revile, who understands me, and whom I push off; who can make me laugh, and can choke it back in my throat, who can hold me at night, so that it’s warm… who keeps learning the games we play as quickly as I can change the rules; who can make me happy’, she continues, ‘George who tolerates, which is intolerable, who is kind, which is cruel, who understands, which is beyond comprehension’ (191).
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Truth and illusion is key to this plays understanding. It starts as a play focusing on two couples failing marriages and the intensity of their relationships between each other as well as the audience. However, as the story progresses, the alcohol flows and the tension increases, it becomes clear that truth and illusion play a deeper and more complex part. The first example of this is simply shown ...
Gassner notes in Best American Plays ‘Their most violent attacks are not without a loving component and each provides the other with the opportunity for expressing these ambivalent feelings’ (148).’ Their relationship is an incredible inferno of sa do-masochism’ (148).
After Martha commits adultery, George jealously attempts to choke her to death. Their relationship is demonstrated in the series of insults in which they enjoy the negations of love. The battle fought between George and Martha is played with the weapons that each sex has perfected. In American Plays and Playwrights of the Contemporary Theater, Lewis notes ‘Martha has instinct for the right wound; her tongue for the cutting word and her body for the most humiliating insult’ (89).
George has a greater vision of cruelty. When threatened by Martha, to cheat on him with one of the guests, George pretends not to care in order to upset his wife.’ I’m necking with one of the guests’ ‘Good…
good. You go right on’ ‘Good?’ ‘Yes, good… good for you, why don’t you go back to your necking and stop bothering me? I want to read’ (Albee, 171, 2).
At the end of the play, George triumphs in the battle by using what he knows will hurt Martha the most; their son. Amacher states in Edward Albee, ‘All of the games, in terms of Albee’s purpose, relate directly or indirectly to George and Martha’s attempts to hurt each other’ (93).’ The method that draws most blood, that shatters each character, one by one, is the statement of an unpleasant hidden truth’ (Gassner, 147).
‘The distinctive emotional effect has something to do with the arousal of pity and fear’ (Amacher, 92, 3).
Martha knows George’s most hidden secrets and insecurities and uses them to humiliate him in front of the guests. One of George’s biggest insecurities is his attempt to write a novel. ‘Georgie-boy had lots of big ambitions in spite of something funny in his past… which he turned into a novel… But Daddy took a look at Georgie’s novel…
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On the night of July 26 th, 1856 one of the greatest playwrights in history, George Bernard Shaw, was born. George's mother, Lucinda Elizabeth Gurly, was an aristocrat, while his father, George Gurly, was a poor alcoholic. Shaw had two sisters, Elin our Agnes, who died of tuberculosis at age 20, and Lucinda Frances who died of starvation at age 40. Both were spinsters and had no children. In ...
and he was very shocked by what he read… a novel about a naughty boy-child who killed his mother and father dead… And Daddy said… ‘Look here, I will not let you publish such a thing’ (Albee, 133, 4).
Another one of George’s big insecurities was an incident from his childhood. For one of the most hurtful insults she reveals this secret to the guests. ‘And you want to know the clincher? You want to know what the big brave Georgie said to Daddy? … Georgie said… But sir it isn’t a novel at all… this is the truth…
this really happened… TO ME!’ (136, 7).
But Martha also had some skeletons in her closet; and George knew which ones to bring out. One of Martha’s biggest insecurities is her infertility. In the final act titled ‘Exorcism’, George exposes her secret to equal the humiliation. The mentioning of their imaginary son leads George to triumph in the last battle and brings Martha to the most excruciating pain and torture.
‘An exorcism serves to remove all that is unreal from both George and Martha. An exorcism of final despair eliminates all fantasy and returns them to reality, or to the point where new rules and new games can be advised’ (Lewis, 89).
The relationship portrayed by Albee is one that is captivating and complex. It shows that underneath all the hate, there is also love; And the middle aged couple truly do understand and appreciate one another. Both characters depicted in this play have mastered the skills and use their instincts to hurt one another. The revealing of the unpleasant truth is a method that causes the most pain and suffering.
As George stated ‘When you get through the skin, all three layers, through the muscle, slosh aside the organs, them which is still slosh able, and get down to the bone… you know what you do then? … when you get down to the bone, you haven’t gone all the way, yet. There’s something inside the bone… the marrow… and that’s what you gotta get at’ (Albee, 212, 13).
Even though it is unapparent, the depth of their love for each other is truly immeasurable.
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Throughout the evolution of man, power and control have been idealized. When power is attained by manipulative dictators, citizens may initially view them as a means to satisfy their need for structure and direction. An author's grim prophecy of mankind in a totalitarian society is depicted in George Orwell's, 1984. Citizens in Oceania are governed by the Party Big Brother, which succeeds in ...
