Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf Elements of Absurd

The Theatre of Absurd emerged after the WWII and its major representatives are Beckett,
Ionesco, Adamov, Genet, Pinter. The centre of this theatre was in Paris where most of the
playwrights lived and wrote.
The term is created by critics and it encompasses plays that drastically diverge from the rules
of the realistic drama. Absurd drama appeared as a response to the situation in the world after the
WWII. As in some other literary genres, realism was no longer applicable in drama because it no
longer (if it ever did) depicted reality. People started realizing that the world was not perfectly
ordered, organized and logical but that it was actually completely absurd and devoid of meaning.
This realization came after great disillusionments after the WWI and WWII. After that much
death and destruction people stopped believing in social progress and lost their faith in God.
Disillusionment often appears as a motif in absurd drama. Sterility and barrenness, moral and
spiritual emptiness are major traits of the post-war society. The world of the 20th century loses its
meaning and this is reflected in the drama of absurd.
Furthermore, in such a meaningless world language loses its meaning and purpose. It is no
longer a proper means of communication. It becomes inadequate to denote all the things and it is
used just to fill in the emptiness, break the awkward silence and cover alienation between people.
In drama of absurd such corruption of language is criticized and mocked.
The humour in absurdist plays is usually dark or black humour. These plays are also full of
sarcasm and irony. This kind of humour is a response to the absurdity of the world and often the
only means of coping with its meaninglessness. Instead of being desperate, people accept the
world as it is and make fun of it.
Since the world makes no sense, the events are no longer logically connected. There is no
more cause-result relationship between them. Instead, they are connected by association,
similarly to development of events in dreams. So the plot of an absurd drama more resembles a
dream than a realistic situation.
It is dubious whether we can talk about a plot of an absurd drama at all. As you have noticed,
there is not much going on and there is no real action. However, we do get a sense of movement
and development in drama. This is not a development of events and action, but a development of
a poetic image. Instead of an event or a series of events, poetic image is in the centre of attention
of an absurd drama. Throughout a play we no longer expect to see what is going to happen next,
but to understand what message the author is trying to convey to us. As it is the case with poetic
images in poetry, they can have various meanings in drama.
Even though it officially appeared after the WWII absurdist drama has origins all the way back
in ancient times. It has roots in Greek and Roman mimes; theatre of pantomime and clowning;
morality plays; fools and madmen in plays (Shakespeare). It is very important to mention that it
also has origins in ritual drama, when religion and drama were one. Contemporary writers,
such as Genet tried to find traces of rituals in Christian Mass and incorporate them in their plays.
Other influences were
Strindbergs plays which were often about dreams, nightmares;
Joyce and Kafkas novels;

Chaplin and Keatons clowning;

Dadaists and surrealists Jarrys Ubu Roi from 1898 is considered the first absurd drama;
Camus and Sartres philosophy of existentialism
To sum up, major differences from realistic drama are related to plot, characters and dialogues.
Plot starts at an arbitrary point and ends similarly. It is not organized. Often there is no real
plot/action.
Characters, that are often not even human, are flat and absurd. Their actions are mostly
unmotivated and incomprehensible to the audience.
Dialogues in absurdist drama are very often meaningless babble. They no longer have the
purpose to entertain the audience, but to reflect the absurdity of the world and lack of
communication between people.
Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf contains both elements of realistic and absurd drama.
Elements of absurd:
The play starts in the middle of Martha and Georges conversation which is meaningless
babble and empty drank chatter. George and Martha have guests whom they dont even know at
2AM. There is a seeming development of the plot, but rather on psychological and metaphorical
level. There is no real action. The plot is not organized and start at an arbitrary point.
Characters of George and Martha, as well as Honey and Nick are (auto)-destructive, violent,
difficult to understand and their actions are mostly unmotivated, at least they seem so to us. They
also dont seem to be ordinary people we meet every day, even though they seem so at the first
sight. We certainly do not expect such behavior from elderly scholars or a young couple.
Dialogues in the play are often meaningless babble and empty chatter. Still very often they
sound very realistic and familiar, even though they make no sense. The characters dont seem to
listen to each other (Nick at the Maths Department; he and Honey have no children). Their
conversation often serves just to fill in the emptiness and break the awkward silence. Their
dialogues reflect the alienation between people who seem to be talking, but not really
communicating.
The sense of disillusionment is very important in this drama. The characters keep trying to
escape reality by fooling themselves and the others, making up stories and playing games, but
also through alcohol. It seems as if they are trying to merge reality and illusion on purpose in
order to escape. George and Martha have an imaginary son. Honey lies to Nick about having a
baby, etc. Even though only Martha openly admits it at the end of the play, all characters seem to
be afraid of Virginia Woolf, that is, of life without illusions. However, it is very important for
them to get rid of those illusions and face reality no matter how ugly it is. George plays the role
of the exorcist who kills the demons and destroys all the illusions by killing his and Marthas
imaginary son. He also reveals the secrets Nick and Honey kept from each other but confided to
him, a total stranger. This is a kind of purging for everyone. Disillusionment gives all of them an
opportunity to face their fears and problems and try to solve them. Martha and George and
Honey and Nick could sort things out and start afresh.
Language in the play reflects alienation between people and lack of real communication.
Protagonists use language not to convey a message or reveal something, but rather to hide the

truth. Both couples lie to each other. They have great troubles in communication since they
refuse to admit the truth, and language serves them as a means of creating illusions. Very often
they do not listen to each other and do not mean what they say. Martha keeps claiming Nick is in
the Math Department, even though they correct her several times. George keeps forgetting that
Nick and Honey have no children, even though he was told that several times. Furthermore, they
use language to create an image of themselves for the others. Through their exchanges we get a
false impression of their feelings and relationships. For instance, from their Martha and Georges
conversation we might conclude that they hate each other. On the other hand, from Marthas
remark that George is the only man who ever satisfied her we see that this is not completely true
and that they still love each other. Also, through courteous answers and remarks Nick and Honey
try the leave the impression they are enjoying the visit, while they are obviously very
uncomfortable.
Their conversations are full of dark humor and cynicism. George and Martha mostly use this
kind of humour to make fun of one another and their marriage, but also to make fun of their
guests.
The whole action takes place late at night which gives it a kind of dream-like quality. Also,
all the characters are drunk, meaning their state of mind is changed and they do not think or act
logically. What is more, Honey even falls asleep and has a nightmare. She wakes up, but still has
troubles distinguishing dream from reality. Furthermore, the visit to George and Martha might
resemble a nightmare to Nick and Honey, since they are trapped in the middle of the night in the
house of a middle-aged couple who keep fighting and insulting one another and their guests.
As previously mentioned, there is no real plot in this play. The movement in the drama can be
seen as development of a poetic image. In this play this is the image of American society and its
sterility. The characters names George and Martha obviously allude to the Washingtons. Even
though Nick was named after Nikita Khrushchev and he and his wife should represent Russia in
the Cold War, they can also represent the new young generation of America. These two couples
who are childless reflect the sterility and barrenness of American society. They dreamed of
democratic society full of progress and success, and instead they got a society full of exceeding
materialism, moral decay and spiritual emptiness. Just like these two couples, the entire
American society lives under the mask of glossy material success and false democracy. Albee
strips off all the illusions and try to point out to the emptiness, sterility and pointlessness which
hides under the shiny glamorous surface.
Traces of ritual drama are also present in this play. The second and third acts are named
Walpurgisnacht and Exorcism. Walpugisnacht refers to a pagan ritual.
It is a night in May when witches gather and summon the devil and everything that is bad and
evil happens. This corresponds to the events in the second act which is full of fights, violence
and illusions. All the characters show their worst sides. Exorcism is a Christian ritual of
exorcising the devil from a person. In this case, George is the exorcist and all the illusions
represent the devil. George even recites parts of the requiem in Latin. These two rituals represent
combing pagan and Christian elements, which is present in other absurd dramas.
Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf is not entirely an absurd drama, but it contains realistic elements
as well. However, elements of absurd much more contribute to depicting the reality in this play.

In an absurd and meaningless world absurd art turns to be much more realistic than the art of
realism.