Open Prompt Revision #4

1975 Also. Unlike the novelist, the writer of a play does not use his own voice and only rarely uses a narrator's voice to guide the audience's responses to character and action. Select a play you have read and write an essay in which you explain the techniques the playwright uses to guide his audience's responses to the central characters and the action. You might consider the effect on the audience of things like setting, the use of comparable and contrasting characters, and the characters' responses to each other. Support your argument with specific references to the play. Do not give a plot summary.

            In a play, the author cannot narrate, instead having to get meaning across in other ways.  This is true of Edward Albee’s The American Dream, in which the characters drive the action.  Through indirect characterization, literalization, and character interaction, Albee communicates meaning without using his own voice.

            Onstage action develops the characters.  It shows Mommy as savage and childish through her treatment of Daddy and Grandma, and the excessive use of a/an in her story of a shopping trip.  She tries to control the other characters through bullying language, and forces Daddy to have a vasectomy.  Daddy is the opposite of a man's stereotypical gender role.  This can be found in his lack of desire to open the door for Mrs. Barker and his inability to fix anything in the apartment. From these stage actions we can assume that he is wishy-washy and unable to do “manly” things.  Grandma is the least absurd character in the play, as evidenced by her rebellion against Mommy’s authority and break of the fourth wall at the end of the play.

            Bringing abstract ideas into the physical world allows Albee to create a harsh tone without a narrator.  Figurative language comes up in the body throughout the play. Daddy’s “Qualms” are transferred to his scars.  Grandma comments that the bodies of old people are “twisted into the shape of a complaint”.  The mutilation of the “bumble”, itself a deformed word, is described in figurative language that is turned literal.  In the universe of The American Dream, ideas take a physical form.  This creates a materialist atmosphere that shows the audience how superficial the American Dream is: we cannot understand ideas, only objects.

            Relations between characters, especially Grandma’s interactions, allow Albee to express meaning.  Grandma, the only character who fights back against Mommy’s control, has a special power in the play’s rhythm.  She has the power to make characters leave at will, as shown by her extraction of Mrs. Barker from the stage.  When sexual rhythm is created between Mommy and Daddy, Grandma interrupts and destroys it.  This power is even taken beyond character interaction; she can change reality by hiding rooms and the apartment’s water.  Grandma is able to control the play as a director does, ending it at the time she feels it is appropriate.  This power dynamic shows that, although the old American dream may seem to lack strength at the surface, it is actually in control under everyone’s noses.