Theatre Of The Absurd Summary

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Edward Albee is a distinguished playwright who has owned Pulitzer Prize for Drama for three times and enjoys a high reputation as the pioneer of Theatre of the Absurd in America. The three-act play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which considered as one of his masterpieces that was written during his early period. In this play, Albee successfully presents a 1960s American society confronting its ecosystem predicament by depicting words and deeds between two couples that are of different age as there is also no specific scenario. Moreover, endless insults and humiliation between George and Martha reflect a society under both social and spiritual predicament. Under the impetuous social atmosphere, the climate of the interest-oriented has been …show more content…

Meanwhile, research on this play mainly concentrates on the analysis of the Theatre of the Absurd and its social thematic criticism as well as the analysis of the narration of unconsciousness. Besides, the research from the perspective of Eco-criticism is rather rare. It is well-known that Eco-criticism is a criticism discussing relationship between literature and the natural environment. Its primary mission is to revalue what human has already achieved as to criticize from the cultural aspect: to explore how human thoughts, civilization and social development patterns that affect human’s attitudes and behaviors toward nature, therefore result in the deterioration of the environment and ecological crisis. In the field of Eco-criticism, there are also divided into 3 aspects: natural ecology, social ecology and spiritual ecology.They are complementary and inseparable. In this play, the natural ecology is not involved thus social ecology and spiritual ecology will be the research emphasis of this thesis. Whereas human is part of the ecosphere, the inherent social attributes will undoubtedly influence its mental condition. Considering this circumstance, the author manages to analyze the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf from the Eco-critic aspects thereby exploring the far-reaching significance of the harmonious relationship between human and society

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