American Dream Summary and Analysis

Author

The American Dream was written by Edward Albee in 1960. Edward Albee is a famous playwright who also wrote Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and several other notable plays. He has received multiple Pulitzer Prizes for his work. In this particular play, Albee delivers a stinging attack on the consumer culture of the 1960s through a comic, absurdist play.

Setting

The play takes place in a family apartment. It is implied that it is in a city, but the city is never named. The time period is also unspecified, it is probably meant to take place at or shortly before the play was written. The unspecified time period helps make the play's message more general.

Plot

The play opens with a conversation between Mommy and Daddy discussing the late arrival of an expected guest. While waiting, Mommy tells a story about how she went shopping for hats earlier. The conversation is dominated by Mommy, and Daddy is often inattentive. Grandma then enters carrying a load of boxes. She joins the conversation, and Mommy briefly describes her childhood with Grandma. Grandma herself is sarcastic, and makes many comments about being old. Then Mrs. Barker enters. None of the characters quite remember why she has come, and they engage in pleasant conversation about family matters and Daddy's ambitions. Daddy and Mommy leave the room, leaving Grandma alone with Mrs. Barker. The two talk, Grandma talks, telling a story implicitly about Mommy and Daddy. After the story, Mrs. Barker and Grandma realize why she had come. Mommy and Daddy return and Mrs. Barker exits the room again with them. A young man comes to the door, and grandma invites him in. The young man says he is looking for work, and Grandma asks him questions about himself, referring to him as "The American Dream." Grandma then prepares to leave the apartment with the boxes she packed, and tells the young man he will be able to find work there. Grandma departs, leaving the young man to stay with the family. 

Characters

Mommy: a commanding character with a cruel, somewhat twisted personality. Throughout the play she dominates and manipulates Daddy and Grandma, but clashes with Mrs. Barker. She has exaggerated characteristics of an upper class woman in a consumerist society. Mommy exhibits a disconnect from other characters and logical thinking.

Daddy: a weak character, who is subservient to Mommy throughout the play. He has many feminine attributes, and is manipulated by Mommy calling him masculine at several points. Daddy also exhibits a disconnect from other characters and logical thinking.

Mrs. Barker: a self-described professional woman who visits the apartment. She has a controlling and disdainful personality, often asserting her authority over other characters. She engages in gossip and generally shares the extreme consumerism demonstrated by Mommy. She too exhibits a disconnect from other characters and logical thinking.

Young Man: a character who appears only at the end of the play. He comes to the apartment looking for work. Though physically attractive, he says he is deprived of feelings because of the loss of the twin, which it is understood was Mommy and Daddy's adopted child. He appears less disconnected than the other characters, and ironically, to have more feelings than them. 

Grandma: Mommy's mother. She constantly makes sarcastic and self-degrading remarks about old people. Originally, she seems senile to the audience, as she does to Mommy and Daddy, but as the play progresses, it becomes apparent that she is aware of her surroundings and only mocking the other characters. Unlike the other characters, Grandma has strong morals and is able to think logically. 

Style

The play is written in an absurdist style. There is constant repetition of thoughts and actions, to the point that it is extremely frustrating to the audience. The play deviates from absurdist style in that it does not end in the same place it begun. Comedy is also present throughout the play. The humor results from both ironic statements and situations, and also from small vulgar jokes.

Voice 

The authors voice is not apparent throughout most of the play, since most dialogue is devoted to the absurdist style, focusing on repetition and disconnected interactions. In these places, it is difficult to see any specific elements of Albee's style. In general, the author speaks through Grandma. Her sarcastic remarks and challenges to the audience at the end clearly represent Albee's opinions. Through Grandma, he speaks directly to the audience. 

Point of view

Mommy, Daddy and Mrs. Barker share a capitalistic, selfish point of view. Each is focused on consumerism and material wealth, to the point where their morals are destroyed. This contrasts strongly with Grandma's more humanist point of view. Grandma values morality over material wealthy, and the two parties conflict throughout the play, though only Grandma is conscious of it. It becomes clear throughout the play that Grandma's point of view reflects Albee's own opinions. 

Tone

Albee's bitter tone in the play is clear from his satirical portrayal of characters and conversations. By exaggerating negative characteristics and events, Albee makes his displeasure at consumerist ideals clear.

Imagery 

The imagery in most parts of the play is intentionally dull. This blandness creates an atmosphere that is generic and unexciting in the apartment, and this helps convey the themes of emptiness and amorality. In some places, however, vivid description is offered. This occurs mostly when the image reflects negatively on the characters. The most prominent example of this is the story about Mommy and Daddy's adopted baby. The ways in which they mutilate the child are described in great detail by Grandma, creating horrific images. In instances such as this, the imagery serves to create disgust in the audience and direct it at consumerist values.

Symbolism

There are several symbols in the play that represent consumerism. The first one that appears is the hat that Mommy describes in the story. Symbolically, the hat represents the consumer nature of buying things for their image or for the status they give rather than their actual purpose. Mommy is angry when the hat is described in a different way, changing its image, while it doesn't change the hat itself. The baby or "bumble" also becomes a negative symbol of consumerism, becomes it comes to represent the destruction of reason and morality with the obsession of for economic satisfaction. Masculinity also becomes a symbol for power. Daddy lacks masculinity, and because of that Mommy controls him almost at will throughout the play. At the same time, Mommy and Mrs. Barker gain masculinity through being a chairman (rather than woman) and through being the dominant household figures. This masculinity is reflected by the authority Mommy and Mrs. Barker assert over other characters.

Themes

One theme of the play is the pursuit of satisfaction above all else. Throughout the play, the characters, especially Mommy, work towards happiness. In their eyes, happiness is primarily achieved through material wealth. The characters continually search for satisfaction in this way, but as Mommy says "You just can't get satisfaction these days." Their search for wealth ultimately makes them sacrifice many other things, which should be far more valuable, like love, family and kindness. 

A second theme is the commodification of things that should not be commodities. The most prevalent example of this is the child. Mommy and Daddy treat the child like a product or toy. First they literally buy it, as Mrs. Barker says, "I can remember Mommy and Daddy coming to see me, oh, about twenty years ago, about buying a bumble…". The bumble of course refers to the baby. Once they buy the baby, they treat it as a product, growing bored with it over time, then trying to "fix" it when it "breaks". Ultimately, they dispose of their old "product" and buy the latest version in the form of the young man. 

Sunday, Oct 21 Close Reading

For my close reading this week I read the article The Census: Phantom Constituents by Brent Staples. The entire article can be found here: http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/the-census-phantom-constituents/.

     In the editorial The Census: Phantom Constituents, Brent Staples argues that prison populations are skewing the political process because prisoners are counted by the census as residents of the area in which they are imprisoned and therefore affect political representation, even though they cannot themselves vote. Staples strongly denounces this loophole in political representation and calls for it to be fixed. In the article, Staples uses subtle tricks of word choice, language that evokes guilt, and chooses only to include specific details.
     At many points in the article, Staples gives no evidence to support his claims. Normally, this would call the reader to question his statement and possibly lose trust in the whole article. However, in most of these places, Staples simply mentions, as if in passing, that the fact is "clear" or "obvious". There are numerous examples of this: in paragraph seven he begins "The obvious solution is...", the next paragraph begins "Not surprisingly," and many similar statements can be found throughout the article. The effect of this diction is that is causes the reader to accept the fact without much consideration, making him/her agree instantly with things that could be debated. This is a subtle but extremely useful technique in editorials, because it allows the writer to focus on the main points without spending time defending every detail. In addition, it is slightly condescending and gives the writer a tone of authority.
     At one point, Staples compares the prison situation to the touchy subject of slavery. He claims that counting many prison inmates for votes when they cannot themselves vote is similar to the way slaves were counted as three fifths of a person in the census but were likewise not allowed to vote. He writes,  "And it brings to mind the slave-era United States, when enslaved persons were denied the vote and counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of apportioning representation in Congress." He furthers this comparison by pointing out that many of the inmates are indeed African American. This comparison, while it makes sense, is a little extreme. It does, however, have a powerful effect and emotional impact. The statement evokes guilt and defiance in the reader, since nobody wants to appear as if they are supporting anything even remotely similar to slavery. Effectively, this draws the reader to Staples's side of the argument through disgust and guilt. 
     Staples also uses rather contrived examples to support his point. He gives a specific example of an area where the majority of the population is composed of prison inmates, and tells the story of how a candidate was elected in this area and how the situation would have been different had the inmates been counted as residents of their homes rather than the prisons. Obviously this is an extreme example. In most districts, the election situations would be little different if whichever place the inmates were considered residents of. By choosing such a specific example which is a statistic outlier, Staples legitimizes a claim that would be discredited as far from the norm had he proved other less extreme examples of the effect. 
     With all these techniques, Staples creates an effective argument without the use of excessive facts and figures. His appeal is primarily emotional, and when the article is not read closely, the techniques can completely escape the reader and change his or her opinion almost subconsciously. 
     

Open Prompt Response October 14:

Prompt:

2004. Critic Roland Barthes has said, "Literature is the question minus the answer." Choose a novel, or play, and, considering Barthes' observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers answers. Explain how the author's treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

Response:

     In the allegorical novel Animal Farm, George Orwell implicitly addresses the question of why communism fails. He addresses this question indirectly by investigating an example of a communistic society in which events are not marred by propaganda or time. Through his example of the farm animals' society, Orwell answers his own question by showing the reader that communism fails because, it manifests in corrupted form, it provides only a temporary solution, and because members of society are innately unequal.

     George Orwell shows us the corruption of true communism through the animals' deviation from the vision of Old Major, who is representative of Karl Marx. In the beginning, Old Major presents his pure form of communism, but as the play progresses, it is corrupted as the pigs seize power. This seizure of power occurs gradually, so the animals are unaware of it. But the reader, who can perceive events neutrally and whose memory is superior to that of the animals, see the gradual progression that leaves the system in a totally different state than it began in. These changes are explicitly presented on the wall in the novel, where the commandments of the system are written, but which change many times throughout the novel. Each time they change, the animals still treat them almost as divine law. By showing this, Orwell means to parallel it to events of the Russian Revolution, and how the corruption of a pure idea was obscured because it occurred gradually. 

     The novel ends with a scene that brings the story to complete a circle, making it end exactly as it started, but with pigs in place of farmers. Thus the problem of oppression the animals experienced was solved only temporarily, because the pigs eventually oppress them just as the farmer had.

    Orwell's main answer to his question, which is presented constantly throughout the novel, but never explicitly stated is that there will always be inequality because of the innate inequality of people (or animals). Each type of farm animal in the novel represents a stereotypical type of person in society, and throughout the novel the differences between the types destroy the system. The main example of this is the horse Boxer, who is loyal and selfless, giving far more into the system than anyone else but receiving no reward. In the same way, each of the types of animals on the farm contributes a different amount unintentionally because of different attributes of their species which they cannot control. This results in the society being destroyed because some species like Boxer are worked to death, while other contribute nothing. 

     All the events and representations in Orwell's allegory serve to answer his question indirectly. Instead of explicitly stating why communism fails in a way that could be attacked or challenged politically, he instead emphasizes what is wrong and lets the reader decide for himself/herself what the true problem is and how it might be fixed. The implicit question about the nature of communism ties Orwell's novel together, but also makes it relevant outside of literature. 

Response to Course Material, Sunday October 7

It seems to me that the course material has been skipping around a little bit in the past few weeks. We've spent some of the time learning about literary techniques and the literary periods, and some of the time reading and analyzing The American Dream. I am wondering if this is going to be what it is like for the whole year, or if there will be a point where we're done having lessons about DIDLS and other techniques and we focus more on applying them to literature. I realize that the lessons about general techniques and themes are necessary for our understanding, but I enjoy it much more when it is in the context of concrete examples in certain works. I'm excited to get to the point when we start applying DIDLS and the critical lenses to The American Dream and other works in greater detail.
With regards to The American Dream, I'm still quite baffled about a lot of points in the play. After our reading and short discussion in class, I understand some of the basic themes and messages in the play (or at least one interpretation of them). But I'm still not understanding why Albee thought the particular style of play was the best way to communicate the things he tries to say in it. Personally, I find it hard to take a serious message away from a play if the play itself is not serious. I hope we discuss this and finer details about specific passages in the play in more detail in the coming weeks.