Edward Albee is most well known for being an author of the theatre of the absurd. He was born in Virginia and soon adopted and moved to New York where he grew up in Westchester County. He was expelled and dismissed from many schools growing up and finally left his adoptive family home, saying he never felt comfortable there. Albee's plays started to be published in 1958 in post-war America. In The American Dream, Albee uses an interesting style that makes the characters in his book seem normal but not quite right. There is always something missing behind the character's words.
Setting:
Though the play does not say what time in American history, we know that play takes place in an apartment building, mainly in Mommy and Daddy's apartment.
Significant Characters:
Mommy: Mommy is definitely the most commanding character in the play. Everything she says is an order or something to degrade another character in the play. Everything she says to Grandma or Daddy is usually negative. She is the most assertive in the play, showing that she wears the pants in the relationship by emasculating Daddy with every chance she gets and manipulating him with sex.
Daddy: Daddy is a pushover. He lets every character walk all over him in the book, especially Mommy. He allows her to emasculate him. He shows how society conforms to a certain group of peoples' ideas and doesn't really have a true identity of his own.
Mrs. Barker: Mrs. Barker is a strange character because she seems to be a powerful woman, always clashing with Mommy but she is not very bright. She does not know why she is at Mommy and Daddy's apartment, but neither do they. She could represent corporations in society being always referred to as "us" or another plural.
Grandma: Grandma is the most relatable character in the play. She is who most people who read it find easy to like and the only character that seems to have a real personality. She is not really understood by any of the characters in the play, but the reader can understand her. She represents the old American dream.
Young Man: Only a part of the story at the very end of the play but a key aspect of it. He is believed to be the twin brother of the baby Mommy and Daddy had adopted, mutilated, and killed, and he represents the new american dream in a consumerism society.
Plot:
The play begins with Mommy and Daddy in he living room discussing how Mommy bought a beige hat yesterday that turned out to be wheat. Mommy tells him how Mrs. Barker called it a wheat hat, so Mommy had to go back and demand a beige colored hat. She says she knew that they just gave her the same hat again but doesn't do anything about it. Daddy and Mommy say you can satisfaction anymore anywhere. Then they discuss how they need to get the bathroom fixed and how "they" are very late and we expect that a plumber or apartment attendant is coming but they never do.
Then Grandma enters the story and is carrying many boxes, that are so nicely wrapped that Mommy and Daddy find it necessary to comment on this for a long time. The doorbell rings and we thing that the person or people they were waiting for has come to fix the toilet. Daddy won't open the door because he is too scared for some reason. Mommy uses her manipulative ways to convince how manly it would be if he just opened the door. He finally does and in walks Mrs. Barker.
Mommy seems to pretend like she and Mrs. Barker have never met even though later on we figure out they've known each other for a while. Mommy tells Mrs. Barker to make herself comfortable and to take off her dress and various other comments, when Mrs. Barker does take her dress off Daddy gets very excited and acts like a giddy child. Later, while Daddy and Mommy are off looking for water and Grandma's room in the apartment, Grandma tells the story of the child Mommy and Daddy adopted that Mommy wasn't satisfied with. Since Mommy did not like the child, they cut off all of its limbs and body parts until the child finally died.
During the play, Mommy, Daddy and Grandma keep saying how a nursing home man is going to come and take Grandma away. This seems plausible because of the boxes Grandma has wrapped filled with all of her belongings, but when the doorbell rings and Grandma answers it, it is the Young Man. We learn they he is from the west and come to find work. Grandma and all of the characters find him very attractive. Grandma realizes that he is the American Dream and begins to call him that. She knows that he has to take her place. Grandma plans with Mrs. Barker and the Young Man that she is going to leave and then she does. Mommy is upset at first at the absence of Grandma and we see Grandma watching the scene unfold. Mommy gets over it quickly when she realizes she gained the very attractive Young Man. The audience, the Young Man, and Mrs. Barker can all see Grandma after she has left the play but Mommy and Daddy can't. Mommy is finally satisfied with her replacement bumble the Young Man and the play ends while everyone is somewhat happy.
Important Quotations:
"Yup. Boy, you know what you are, don't you? You're the American Dream, that's what you are. All those other people, they don't know what they're talking about. You..you are the American Dream." -Grandma (Albee 108)
Grandma says this to the Young Man after they discuss how beautiful he is and how he is from the west and all of these characteristics he has that make him the American Dream. This quote is important because we finally see what Grandma and Albee think the new American Dream is and how if Grandma can recognize it as important than it must be. Albee uses Grandma to make a point about how the play is about the American Dream.
"Oh, we're still here. My, what an unattractive apartment you have!" -Mrs. Barker (Albee 77)
This quote shows how Mrs. Barker and everyone in the play refers to her as plural, as "us", "we", or "they". It shows how Mrs. Barker represents corporations or the government and how they are always present in peoples lives. When she says that their apartment is unattractive it shows how rude and judgmental society is.
Theme:
