Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Essay | Critical Essay #3

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Critical Essay #3

Hottan offers evidence that Albee's play, while a riveting character study, is also an allegory for the history of America, beginning with George Washington and the American Revolution.

Near the end of the second act of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? George, the professor of history, is left alone onstage while Martha, his wife, and Nick are playing the preliminary rounds of "hump the hostess" in the kitchen. Attempting to control his hurt and anger he reads aloud from a book he has taken from the shelf, "And the West, encumbered by crippling alliances and burdened with a morality too rigid to accommodate itself to the swing of events must—eventually—fall." George is clearly encumbered with a crippling alliance—his marriage to Martha—and does seem to be burdened with a kind of morality that makes it difficult for him to respond in kind to her vicious attacks. At the same time,...
(read more)