The American Dream

Author Edward Albee

Setting 1950s America (post WW2, during the rise of consumerism). The play is centered in Mommy and Daddy’s apartment, specifically the living room.

Characters

-Mommy: Daughter of Grandma. Mommy is obsessed with power and material possessions. In her relationship with Daddy, she plays the more masculine role.

-Daddy: Wife to Mommy, has many feminine characteristics.

-Grandma: represents the old American dream. Resourceful, intelligent, and VERY sarcastic (this sarcasm is lost on the other characters, however)

-Mrs. Barker: Chairman of a woman’s club that Mommy belongs to, and a part of “Bye Bye Adoption Service.” Her husband is in a wheel chair. Often referred to as “them” in the play.

-Young Man: Represents the new American dream (a beautiful but hollow shell of the old one). Communicates well with Grandma. Adopted by Mommy and Daddy.

Plot

At the beginning of the play, Mommy and Daddy are sitting in the living room, complaining about how “they” are always late. The audience discovers Mommy and Daddy need something fixed, and that they can’t get satisfaction. Mommy forces Daddy to pay attention as she tells him a pointless story about a hat she bought yesterday. Later, Grandma arrives with an armful of boxes. Mommy and Daddy focus on how beautifully-wrapped these boxes are, while Grandma couldn’t care less. After that, Mommy tells another story about the lunchbox Grandma sent her with every day when she was younger. Mommy then tells how she believes she has a right to live off of Daddy. Grandma remembering how Mommy always wanted to marry a rich man when she was younger reinforces this. Suddenly, the doorbell rings, and Mommy emasculates Daddy to get him to open the door. Mrs. Barker (a/k/a “they”) arrives, but Grandma can’t see her. She removes her dress, which turns Daddy on and makes Mommy jealous. They begin conversing, and Daddy admits that he had a sex transplant. Throughout the conversation, Daddy is unable to remember Mrs. Barker’s name, while Grandma and Mommy constantly argue. Mommy also threatens Grandma that they’ll have her carted away by a van man if she doesn’t start behaving better. Eventually, Mommy commands Daddy to go destroy Grandma’s TV. Since Daddy is gone, Mommy wants to have some “girl talk” with Mrs. Barker. However, Mrs. Barker says she feels faint and Mommy instead leaves to get her some water. While she’s gone, Grandma tells Barker a story about a woman “very much like Mommy” and a man “very much like Daddy.” According to Grandma, this man and woman adopted a child from Bye Bye Adoption Service. When the child (referred to as an “it”) didn’t do exactly what they wanted it to do, the man and woman tore it apart limb from limb. Eventually, they killed it. Mrs. Barker expresses her agreement with what the man and woman did as she hears this. Meanwhile, Mommy and Daddy are unable to find anything in the apartment. Because of this, Mrs. Barker leaves to get the glass of water herself. At this point, the Young Man enters the scene. Him and Grandma talk for a while, and Grandma tells him that he is the American Dream. The Young Man confesses that he is there looking for work. Grandma tells him that she has a lot of money from a baking contest, where she entered a cake called “Uncle Henry’s Day-Old Cake.” Upon hearing this, the Young Man confesses that he’d do anything more money, because he has no particular talents. He’s empty. He then tells the story about how he used to have a twin, but that they were separated when they were young. Then, from time to time, he would feel these twinges (e.g. his eyes burned) until one day he couldn’t feel anything anymore. As Mrs. Barker re-enters the room, Grandma makes the Young Man pretend to be the van man. Grandma leaves with her boxes, and leaves the Young Man in the house. Grandma now comes out of the play and becomes a part of the audience. Mommy and Daddy adopt the Young Man, and Mommy finally has satisfaction.

Style

-There is no narrative voice in this piece because it is a play. However, Grandma plays somewhat of a narrator towards the end because she begins to address the audience directly.

-Over all, Albee is quite critical towards the way current American society is. He portrays Mommy, the Young Man, and even Daddy as quite selfish and materialistic. After all, the Young Man is willing to do anything for money, and Mommy and Daddy rip apart and eventually kill a child. Grandma, on the other hand, is resourceful and kind.

-The imagery used in this book is especially vivid when Grandma describes how Mommy and Daddy rip the child apart. This makes the action stand out from the rest of the play. A lot of imagery is also used when the Young Man is describing how he feels nothing. Again this is used to make Albee’s point (that the new American dream is hollow) stand out.

-Albee uses symbolism heavily in The American Dream. Grandma represents the old American dream, while the young man represents the new American dream. Mrs. Barker stands in to represent government. This helps the play to be a comment on society as a whole; it makes the play bigger than itself.

Quotes

1.) “You’re turning into jelly; you’re indecisive; you’re a woman.” (Mommy to Daddy)

-This single quote sums up Mommy and Daddy’s relationship with each other. Mommy is emasculating Daddy as she says this, and also showing how masculine and controlling she is. Also, Daddy tolerates this abuse, which shows just how feminine he is.

2.) “Oh no; we’re much too efficient for that.” (Mrs. Barker to Daddy)

-Because Mrs. Barker refers to herself as “we,” this shows that she is standing in for someone bigger than herself. This emphasis on efficiency is also consistent to values of the new American society/dream.

3.) “So, let’s leave things as they are right now…while everybody’s happy…while       everybody’s got what he wants…or everybody’s got what he thinks he wants.” (Grandma to audience)

-This ending was bitter. It’s clear from this line that Mommy and Daddy are only temporarily satisfied. It’s clearly a comment on American society how nothing is ever good enough. Also, because Grandma addresses the audience, this makes her seem more relatable—who the audience should aspire to be.

Theme

People need to return to the old American dream, because the new one is materialistic and lacking real values.

This is seen quite clearly with plot and symbolism. Throughout the play, Grandma represents the old American dream, while the Young Man represents the new one. Grandma is resourceful (e.g. making thousands off of day-old cake) and kind (e.g. she wouldn’t eat dinner when Mommy was a child so Mommy could have lunch the next day). The Young Man, on the other hand, claims he’ll do anything for money and even admits that he is empty. At the end of the play, the Young Man replaces Grandma, symbolizing the replacement of the old American dream with the new one in American society. Another element that supports this is the characterization of Mommy and Daddy. They both constantly want more products for satisfaction and are never happy with what they have. The fact that they love the Young Man shows that they are pursuing the new American dream. Because they are so materialistic, this shows that the new American dream is materialistic, just like them.

Close Reading #2

Bryan Fischer: We have forgotten God. That's why all this happened.
http://www.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147524440

            In the article "Bryan Fischer: We have forgotten God. Thats why all this has happened," Bryan Fischer argues that the separation of church from state is the root of America’s problems. In other words, he believes that prohibiting prayer in our public schools system led to increased homicide, rape, etc. While he uses diction and details to create this meaning, his use of syntax is extremely detrimental to his goal in this article.

            Fischer is very careful with the details he chooses to include. His whole article, in fact, only focuses on how the United States is worse off as a society now then it was in 1962 (when compulsory school prayer was declared illegal). According to Fischer, “SAT scores began to plummet almost immediately” and “the rate at which teens were arrested for rape…and murder shot through the roof.” He also claims that the “nuclear family is breaking apart” and that the “sexual and physical abuse of children is out of control.” Obviously, these details are playing on people’s emotions. Of course no one is happy about increased murder rates, or happy that sexual abuse of children is apparently on the rise. Fischer uses these to his advantage because while scaring people, he also provides a solution (re-starting organized school prayer). When people are scared, or the situation is desperate, as Fischer paints it to be, history shows us (just look at the Nazis) that people are more likely to look towards extreme solutions.

            Fischer also uses strong diction to strike fear in the hearts of readers. For example, teen births have “skyrocket[ted]” and school violence is “shooting through the ceiling.” These words make it seem like these issues are extremely out of control, doesn’t it? On top of that, he chooses scary, colorful words like “massacres”, “catastrophic” and “destroyed”. This word choice certainly makes our nation seem like a dangerous, scary place. Whether our current situation is "catastrophic" or not, Fischer makes sure to associate colorful words such as this with our nation. This is a scary thought, which could make readers more likely to accept Fischer's message as the solution to our problems.             

The overly wordy sentence structures in the article detract from the meaning that Fischer is trying to create. For example, the article opens with: “The quote that serves as the title of this column was spoken by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, who had witnessed the horrible and devastating consequences in the life of a nation that turned its back on God.” There are some shorter sentences throughout the article; however, the majority are long, wordy sentences.  This detracts from the message of the article because it’s too hard to maintain interest and remember what the sentence was saying by the time you finish reading it. The syntax makes the issue seem very boring and unimportant.

            Overall, Fischer uses details and diction very much to his advantage. He chose the scariest, most horrific details and words to associate with the current state of our nation. This created a powerful message over all. However, it could have been much stronger if Fischer had thought to consider syntax.

Open Prompt #2

1980. A recurring theme in literature is the classic war between a passion and responsibility. For instance, a personal cause, a love, a desire for revenge, a determination to redress a wrong, or some other emotion or drive may conflict with moral duty. Choose a literary work in which a character confronts the demands of a private passion that conflicts with his or her responsibilities. In a well-written essay show clearly the nature of the conflict, its effects upon the character, and its significance to the work.

            If you had the choice between a life of security and respectability, or a life of passion, which one would you choose? Or would you try to have it all? In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, this is the choice that Daisy Buchanan must make more than once, and it his her difficulties making this choice that causes problems for her—as well as for others.

Throughout the work, Daisy Buchanan must deal with her conflicting feelings between Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. Tom is a good American, who attended college and has loads of money. In other words, he is the respectable man for Daisy to marry. He is the man her family expects her to pick. However, Daisy is passionately in love with another man, Jay Gatsby. The problem is that Gatsby does not have a respectable family name, a respectable job, or a respectable amount of money. This is the conflict that Daisy deals with before marrying Tom. The majority of the book explores this issue later in their lives, after Daisy has already been married to Tom and has a child. Jay Gatsby moves into the house across from the Buchanan’s, and him and Daisy end up meeting to have tea. From that point on, Daisy wrestles between her feelings and passion for Jay Gatsby, and her desire to remain wife to Tom Buchanan.

            Daisy’s conflicting feelings cause many problems for her. In fact, the night before her wedding to Tom, Daisy drinks herself into a stupor and almost calls the whole wedding off. Many years later, Daisy does not hold many moral dilemmas about starting an affair with Jay Gatsby. However, she refuses to leave or tell Tom about the affair (as Gatsby wants her to do). This causes problems as Tom begins to invite Jay to parties and dinners. Neither Daisy nor Gatsby can hide their love for each other, and Tom does not remain oblivious for long. The conflict comes to a head when Tom, Daisy, and Jay all find themselves in a private room during a sweltering day in New York City. Gatsby and Tom have a confrontation, and Daisy is forced to choose between the two of them. She realizes she cannot have the best of both worlds, and chooses respect and security over passion. Driving home, in her anger and sadness, she hits a woman and kills her.

            Daisy’s personal war between her passion and her responsibility plays a significant role in The Great Gatsby. Her conflicting feelings are the driving force of the novel. Jay’s whole reason for moving close to the Buchanan’s, the reason that he throws these huge parties, is all for Daisy. If Daisy did not have feelings for Gatsby, there would be no novel. This conflict that she has plays a particularly significant role at the end of the novel, when she hits that woman. The woman wasn’t some random stranger; it was actually Tom’s mistress. This is ironic, since the day Daisy’s affair with Jay ends, Tom’s affair with his mistress ends as well. That irony would not be present if it wasn’t for Daisy’s internal conflict.

            Over all, Daisy’s internal struggle between her love for Jay Gatsby and societal obligation to her husband, Tom Buchanan, causes problems not only for her, but for other characters as well in The Great Gatsby. She refuses to accept the fact that she will never be able to have everything that she wants. It’s simply not possible for her to have both men, which Daisy does not realize until the end.

Response to Course Material 10/7

Boy, has this class been moving quickly. I feel like there has been so many packets of information thrown at us since the last "Response to Course Material" post. Luckily, I already had a good grasp on the literary movements (thank you, Ms. Huntley) but it's still a lot to process. The biblical stories were probably the hardest for me to remember. I only knew a few of the stories, whereas I recognized everything that was presented on Greek mythology.

...Then we read The American Dream. That play is unlike anything that I have ever read. The first time through reading it, I couldn't make sense of it. I had no idea what to think about the play, let alone what it was even about. It wasn't until Ms. Holmes handed out that life-saving packet that explained everything. Suddenly, the play was crystal clear--of course Grandma represents the old American Dream! And isn't it obvious that the Young Man represents the new, materialistic American Dream? Not everything made sense, but a lot more of it did. If I hadn't gotten that packet, I probably could have read the play fifteen times and still not figured it out.

Finally, working on the AP essay in class has me freaked out for the test. I am still not good at reading poetry or applying DIDLS to poetry. Seriously, how is anyone supposed to analyze a poem and write a good, solid essay in under an hour? Right now, that seems impossible. Especially since I still didn't have the poem figured out after working with it for a whole class hour.