The American Dream Language Analysis

Through Albee’s portrayal of his characters language, gestures, and stage directions, he successfully develops their personalities and allows us to see their relationships with the other characters. His use of the “American Dream” theme further enables us to understand why characters behave in the way they do, and his intention of such behaviour.

Looking at the passage from the play, Albee presents his characters very differently, with clear contrast in particular between the two marital couples. George and Martha, named after the Washington’s, serve as a symbol for the United States of America , and their relationship, through its many dysfunctions, brings to light the false projections of the American illusion of “perfect family life” and

Whether he is doing this to belittle her and show his belief of superiority over her, or whether he is just trying to be a protective husband it is unclear, but what is, is that he takes great offence to George’s language, whereas he ignores Martha’s equally profound language. Whilst both Nick and Honey also are clearly trying to be polite to their hosts, Nicks frustration with George is evident, both through his response to George’s language but also due to the somewhat threatening way in which he says, “I told you we didn’t have children”. He could react like this due to a personality clash, but I think it’s much more likely that Nick has the intention of getting close to Martha (being his bosses daughter and all), and therefore George acts as a blockade to this. Albee gives Nick a name with a direct reference to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. As this play was in the era of the Cuban Missile Crisis, we can argue this symbolises Nick’s threat to George and Martha’s marriage (as they are symbols for America) and therefore gives us insight as to why he acts the way he does around George, and to why he doesn’t find Martha’s showing off