George and Martha, an Analysis

While we're on the topic of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, I wrote this for my psych class:

George and Martha present an interesting case.  They are a middle-aged, married couple – George is 46, Martha is 52 – living in the New England college town of New Carthage.  George is a History Professor and Martha is daughter of the university president. 

Martha married George in a fit of infatuation.  Their love has since turned to empty love.  They are committed to each other, but their relationship lacks intimacy or passion.  Neither has romantic feelings or physical attraction for the other.  Martha seeks to vent her sexual desire by pursuing a series of affairs with younger men.  They were originally drawn together by mutual passion, and – on George’s part – a desire to move up in the History department.  They are no forced together by the commitment of marriage. 

Their frustration with this situation has led to increased aggression.  George and Martha cannot have children, which frustrates them greatly.  Martha is also frustrated with George’s failure to move ahead in life.  She calls him a “bog” in the History department to others and uses “swampy” as a nickname when she is talking to him.  Martha’s frustration and aggression also derive in part from the factor of relative deprivation.  As the daughter of the university president, she thinks she should be able to advance her husband in some way even if he were useless; when she compares herself to the other history department wives and to her expectations for herself, she feels intense deprivation.  This leads to aggression.  George is rejected by Martha.  She taunts him and makes him feel less than human.  This breeds aggression in George.  After years of this treatment combined with the mutual frustration of the relationship, George is out for revenge.  On the night this couple was observed, these situational factors were amplified by the disinhibition bred by alcohol consumption.  George and Martha began drinking at a faculty party around 9:00 PM and continued to drink until 4:30 AM.  They had guests over around 2:00 AM.  The lateness of this night also creates physical discomfort – extreme exhaustion –, which amplifies the aggression between the two even further.

This couple will stay married.  It would be unacceptable for them to separate for a variety of social factors.  But they do not address the main source of their frustration.  They have created an imaginary son to replace the one they could not conceive and they use him as a pawn in their mind games instead of addressing the fact that they have created an imaginary child as a crutch.  Martha, an alcoholic, will continue to drink.  George will continue to submit to Martha’s attacks only to vent in a fit of futile catharsis. On the night this couple was observed, George’s attack came when he killed their imaginary son.  Their aggression will continue to grow and perpetuate itself, each attack bringing a counter attack of greater intensity.

Oh Honey...

This is actually an essay I wrote for English class.  The page numbers refer to my copy of the play.  It is relevant for reasons...

Fifty years after it first opened on Broadway, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? still packs a punch.  One character often relegated to the background even by the others on stage is Honey.  She is in many ways a non-entity.  She does not often participate in the games of George and Martha, and in fact spends a great deal of time in the bathroom being sick.  Honey’s disconnect from the action allows the audience to observe themselves in many ways.  We can watch our experience played out on the stage.  She also serves as a child figure.  She needs caring for and George and Martha use her in the same way that they use their possibly imaginary child.  She is a mirror both for the audience’s experience and for George and Martha’s parenting skills.

            Honey begins the play as a non-entity. Her name in and of itself is a term of endearment not necessarily a name.  There are women out there named “Honey”, but when compared to a name like “Martha” which is definitely a name, it seems inadequate.  Even before we hear her name, Honey is described as “a mousey little type, without any hips, or anything.” (10) When we see her, she does live up to this description.  Her skirt is unflatteringly long, the green of her shirt is unflattering, and her clothes look somewhat too big for her.  This is, of course, intentional, but it really brings out her lack of personality in comparison to the larger than life characters George and Martha.  She is a boxy, mousey type that barely registers in comparison.  As the night wears on, we notice a pattern in Honey’s speech: she repeats.  She often does not add to the conversation instead saying things like “(Idiotically) When’s the little bugger coming home? (Giggles)” (77) She does not register the exchange between George and Martha which hints at troubles to come regarding the existence of their son, but instead repeats “idiotically” a question George posed.  Honey knows the others do not notice her.  After George introduces the fake gun, Honey says, “(Wanting attention) I’ve never been so frightened… never.” (63) Honey has to repeat herself to register to the other partygoers and even then they do not acknowledge her.  In response to this, she retreats within herself.

Honey’s withdrawal and quietness allow George and Martha to paint a picture of the kind of parents they would be on a living, breathing human.  Honey’s removal from the games makes her very childlike; her nondescript personality translates to a kind of innocence.  She is not an innocent and she is not a child; but George and Martha exercise their power over her as though she were a pawn between them, which, because she is younger than both of them, renders her their child and their plaything.  George brings up her hysterical pregnancy in a game called “Get the Guests” (156) to get his revenge on Martha for humiliating him.  George does so in a horrible way without regard for Honey’s feelings.  Her hysterical pregnancy is horribly embarrassing and emotionally charged.  She responds to the story with “hysteria” (163) “outlandish horror” (164), but George does not care.  He shows no remorse.  He shrugs off the incident saying “The patterns of history.” (165) As readers of the play, we are given to believe that Martha would behave the same way when her parenting is described in Act III.  Both George and Martha use their children and their child figures to their own ends.  George uses Honey to get his revenge and to play his own game.  Martha, according to George, acted the same way with their son.  Since Martha’s recriminations indicate that George was guilty of the same games when their son was involved, we as readers have reason to believe that the game of Get the Guests is indicative of the games George and Martha played on their child.  Honey’s apparent, childlike withdrawal allows them to show the audience.

            Because of her character’s detachment, Carrie Coon plays the drunken observer perfectly.  Her performance as Honey balances engagement and withdrawal perfectly.  She withdraws within herself when the other characters ignore her for too long.  However, she does not fully disengage.  Coon peers at the action through slit-like eyes, watching but not involving herself.  In this way, she becomes the audience, albeit a little more intoxicated.  Albee creates a way for the audience to watch itself through the character of Honey.  She calls out “violence… violence!” (151), in many ways asking for a reprieve from the mind games as well as stating the obvious as George and Martha fight physically for the first time.  We as an audience can understand violence.  To a modern audience, it is commonplace.  In 1961 the theatergoers would not be that far removed from war.  Physical aggression is a universal truth.  In the middle of the plan, violence is, in a sick way, a refreshing break from the mind games.  Honey can call out for it, the audience cannot.  Not only is it unacceptable to call out this way in a theater it is also embarrassing; as modern humans, we like to think that we are removed from violence in our daily lives.  To need it is embarrassing.  Yet in this scene we need a break from the mental aggression.  We need violence.  The audience can watch Honey stand on a couch, above the fray, and egg it on and laugh, but secretly that’s what the audience needs.  We know of or know personally abusive relationships where one party is a physical aggressor.  Relationships like George and Martha’s, where the mind games are a part of daily life, are not as familiar.  Seeing this familiar scene grounds us and acts as a breath of fresh air.  But we cannot ask for it.  Honey must do so, and can do so because she is drunk and part of the play.

            Honey’s mousey disengagement allows Albee to show important aspects of the other characters and of humanity as a whole as it is represented by the audience in a theater.  We as audience members can watch two horrible parents play mind games and destroy a younger woman and we can watch ourselves made manifest on stage and released from our inhibitions by brandy.  Honey’s drunkenness turns her into a child and a mirror.  Much of the intensity of Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? derives from the way Albee forces us to engage in the play.  We are Honey.  We are the observer of a wild night of fun and games, sick though they are.  We watch our mirror destroyed by the parenting of George and Martha and we watch Honey call out for the very thing we need.  We can laugh at Honey all we want, but, ultimately, we are one in the same.