WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF: A TEXT OF OPPOSITE SEXES

Abstract

In the same institutionalised spirit does Albee see the fighting husband and wife as a threat to the so-called institution of marriage and a challenge to the concept of generation advancement as a goal of marital relationship. The first full length play to secure Albee‟s position in American literature as a versatile playwright, Who‟s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? caused many critics to see it as a fusion of realism and theatricalism. Its publication created havoc on the Broadway. A playwright who had been otherwise labelled as a versatile playwright, who had been otherwise labelled as a promising off-Broadway playwright invited bitter criticism from many. For instance, Harold Clurman acknowledged Albee‟s “superbly virile and pliant” dialogue, nonetheless concludes that “the pessimism and rage of Who‟s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? are immature”;1 Diana Trilling argues that “the „message‟of Mr. Albee couldn‟t be more terrible: life is nothing, and we must have the courage to face our emptiness without fear”;2 and Richard Schechner implies that the play celebrates decadent values, embracing “self-pity, drooling, womb-seeking weakness,...the persistent escape into morbid fantasy.”3 In contrast, the other side also yielded the ample number of qualitative criticism which genuinely raised questions sublimated at times. But, innumerable issues of multifaceted drama are, most of the times either left troubled or still untouched or non-discussed. Agreed upon Woolf‟s stylistic flaws, the play not only became the subject of intense clash among members of the Pulitzer Prize committee, but also causes the clash on its thematic issues even now. However, the sad part of these intellectual clashes is that the play has only been confined up to the issues of negative or positive nature of themes. Moreover, these criticism has been applied to certain frequently discussed psychological or metaphysical themes such as Truth vs. Illusion, Life vs. Death, and Reality vs. Dream. The issues like Feminism, Patriarchal power and prowness, fragmentation of speech and arbitrariness of action have been off sight or less talked.