The American Dream

The American Dream is a play written by Edward Albee. It is satirical, targeting the current American condition and highlighting the “substitution of artificial values for real values in our society”.

 There is no specific setting, but it can be reasonably inferred that the play takes place in New York, or some other large city.

Mommy: The dominant force in the play. She undermines both Daddy and Grandma, and is pleased to welcome Young Man into her life.

Daddy: The subservient husband. He lacks the ability to satisfy Mommy, but has the cash flow to keep her around.

Mrs Barker: A woman very similar to Mommy. She informs the family of the circumstances involving their adopted kid. Flirts with daddy.

Grandma: Omniscient. Critical of Mommy, Daddy, and Young Man. Understands the damaging effects of the value system present in the play.

Young Man: The twin of the baby Daddy and Mommy adopted. A hollow shell of a man.

The play starts with Mommy and Daddy arguing about how they struggle to get satisfaction. Mommy recounts her trip to the store earlier in the day. She bought a hat, but after a run in with the local Women’s club chairwoman, decided it was unsatisfactory, and returned to hassle everyone until she got the hat she wanted, and thus satisfaction. A strange story about lunches is told, than Grandma establishes that Mommy is a gold digger. Mrs. Barker arrives, with the purpose of the visit unclear. Then Grandma explains that Mommy and Daddy adopted a child from her twenty years prior and proceeded to mutilate it, because they never got the satisfaction they sought from it. Shortly after Young Man shows up at the door. He explains to Grandma that he lost both of his parents and all emotion. Grandma believes him a suitable solution to Daddy and Mommy’s problems and introduces them. Mommy agrees and there is much rejoicing, yet during the festivities Grandma disappears.  She reappear, this time communicating directly with the audience.  She wishes them a good night.

The author creates a feeling of uneasiness with the muted emotion his characters express, with an eerily robotic tone. They lament about their problems, yet they express no real emotion in doing so. It almost seems as if they want to struggle with the same things everyone else does, but can’t find any real emotion to do it right. The Hat in the story is a symbol for consumerism, she buys it because Mrs. Barker says she should have that one, although really it was no different than the one she had initially picked out. The detailed language describing the mutilation of the baby is the closest Albee got to symbolism, he doesn’t use it much. He did it to stress the harmful effects societies current values have.

“What a masculine Daddy! Isn’t he a masculine Daddy?”

This quote helps outline the dynamic between Mommy and Daddy. It puts Daddy in a more childlike role, Mommy certainly wears the pants in the relationship. She also is very condescending to Daddy, something that would have been wholly unacceptable during that time period. This was meant to appall readers and was Albee’s way to draw attention to the evils he saw in women who were materialistically motivated and possibly the whole feminist movement.

“When you get old, you can’t talk because people snap at you.”

This is Grandma bemoaning the fact that her values are being ignored. What she stands for is what Albee advocates for the American Dream. He sees these real values being rejected in favor of hipper, shallower replacements. Mommy certainly snaps at Grandma plenty.

Theme: The values created by a materialistic society are replacing real ones and causing great harm to the “American Dream”.

                The hardest concrete evidence I have to support my theme statement is when Grandma, who understands the situation and is a proponent of older values, presents the Young Man as the American Dream. This is condemning the current state of things because he is a man who lacks emotion of any sort and is willing to do anything for money.  The use of Grandma at the end to wish everyone goodnight, a technique called breaking the fourth wall used by the author, reinforces this plays role as a cautionary tale.