The American Dream Analysis

Author: Edward Albee (1928-present), an American playwright that wrote in the Theater of the Absurd and often examined the modern condition in his plays.

Setting: The living room of Mommy, Daddy, and Grandma's apartment located in a city.  The play takes place within the 1950s-1960s. 

Significant Characters: 

Grandma- Considered the old “American Dream”. She has a way of controlling the plot through her comments and at the end of the play she even exits the action and speaks from an outside perspective like a director. 

Mommy- Immature, controlling, attention-seeking, masculine, and manipulative.  She threatens Grandma that she will be taken away and takes away Daddy’s masculinity to manipulate the characters.  She is far from the ideal house-wife and uses the other characters in the play.  She was born poor and married into money.

Daddy- Emasculated/Feminine, immature, and passive.  Daddy does whatever mommy tells him too and even was said in the play to possess female “parts”.

Mrs. Barker- Works at Bye-Bye Adoption Service and she is responsible for giving Mommy and Daddy their first child.  She is the chairman of the women’s club and represents the socially responsible housewife.  She often rather oblivious to the things around her and speaks to the characters in the play as though she is better than them.

Young Man- A representation of the “American Dream”.  He is the twin of Mommy and Daddy's first child that Mrs. Barker gave them.  He is strong and attractive but lacks substance.  He has not been able to feel since his twin brother was murdered and will do anything for money.  He is the satisfaction that Mommy and Daddy have been searching for.

Plot: The characters are all seeking some sort of satisfaction but they are not sure where to get it.  The story begins with Mommy talking to daddy about a new hat she bought.  She had a debate with Mrs. Barker about what color her hat was and told daddy about how she got "satisfaction".  Throughout this part of the story Mommy constantly asks daddy to repeat what she says.  Daddy faithfully and un-enthusiastically replies correctly every time.  Grandma comes out and Mommy and Daddy began to complain about how much of a burden she is around the house and mommy keeps bringing up sending her away to a nursing home.  Mommy and Daddy complement on how nicely Grandma wrapped her boxes but do not care what lays inside.  Grandma shows that she is ashamed of how mommy turned out.  Mrs. Barker then comes to the door and the characters, including Mrs. Barker, try to figure out why she is here.  Mommy then meets a young man out near the elevator who is very attractive.  Grandma begins a long conversation with the young man where it is revealed that Mommy and Daddy used to have a son.  Grandma says that they killed and mutilated him for being a "bad boy".  The young man tells Grandma that he used to have a twin brother and at this point it can be easily inferred that Mommy and Daddy's son was the young man's twin.  The young man says that without his brother he is empty and hollow on the inside and cannot feel emotion.  He is willing to do anything for money.  Grandma then leaves and the young man replaces her.  Mommy and Daddy do not seems to care that Grandma left because now they have a new "son" that has no emotion and is aesthetically pleasing.  For Mommy and Daddy this is their satisfaction.  The play ends hinting at incest between Mommy and the young man, and Grandma breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the audience saying, “Let’s leave things as they are right now… while everybody’s happy… while everybody’s got what he wants… or everybody’s got what he thinks he wants. Good night, dears”.

Narrative Voice/Author Style: 

- There is no point of view as it is a play, however Grandma moves the plot along with her dialogue and has the ability to in and out of the action of the play.  At the end of the play she has a narrator-like position.

- The tone is critical and comical.  The author criticize modern society and it’s materialism and shallowness however he does this in a rather comical way.

- There is little imagery in the play as it tends to be rather vague due to its absurdist style however the mutilating of the baby was described in great detail to represent the savageness of consumerism.

Symbols: 

Grandma - Represents the old “American Dream”

Mommy and Daddy - Represent the American middle/lower class 

Mrs. Barker- Represents socially responsible housewife

Young Man - Represents the “American Dream”   

Grandma’s Boxes- Represent the shallowness of society.  Mommy and Daddy only observe the outside of the boxes but do not care what is inside. 

Mutilated Baby- Represents the savageness of consumerism.Theme: 

Theme: 

A major theme in this play is that the "American Dream" is not what it used to be.  Albee chastises society for its change in values.  The "American Dream" is represented by the young man.  Grandma, who represents the "old American Dream" had pride and substance too her.  She may not have been the most beautiful person on the outside but she says exactly what she means and is honest with everyone.  She is not shallow and does not value money more than other pleasures in life.  On the contrary, the current "American Dream" has no substance to him but looks attractive on the outside.  He does not have any feelings and is willing to do anything for money.  This represents that the American Dream is shallow.  This is meant to show that people only care about aesthetic appeal these days and have lost their pride to earn money doing something meaningful and worthwhile.  The imagery of the mutilating of the baby is used to show how mutilated the "American Dream" has become. 

Closed Reading #2

Hillary takes responsibility for Libya but Obama's terror policy is real problem by K.T. McFarland

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/10/17/hillary-takes-responsibility-for-libya-but-obama-terror-policy-is-real-problem/#ixzz29zgrrXTE 

In this editorial, conservative K.T. McFarland attempts to persuade readers that President Obama’s foreign policy is not working and that the assassination of the ambassador in Benghazi is Obama’s fault, but is being covered up.  K.T. primarily uses diction, syntax, and imagery to display her opinion effectively.

McFarland uses imagery to paint Obama as dishonest.  An example of this is when she says, “Secretary Clinton says, there is such a “fog of war” that we’re not sure what happened, never mind that the fog was deliberately created by the Obama administration’s own fog machine.”  Fog makes it harder to see what is in front of us.  Through this creative metaphor McFarland is trying to show that that Obama’s administration is trying to cover up what truly happened in Benghazi.  K.T. also says, “The mainstream media, like an overindulgent parent, believes the Obama administration’s excuses, and most people don’t care what happens half a world away when they don’t have jobs at home.”  This simile portray’s president Obama as a child making excuses.  This paints a picture in the reader’s mind of an immature little kid making excuses to his mother after he did something naughty.  This simile makes the president seem irresponsible without directly stating this.  

The author also uses syntax to put emphasis on certain aspects of the editorial.  When K.T. wants to show how little information there is on a topic she uses questions that make the reader think.  This emphasizes the said Obama cover-up.  An example of this is when she says, “The president dodged the question with lots of references about how no one wants the answer to that question, or cares more than he does, but in the end he didn’t answer the question.  Now you have to ask WHY?”  Another way that the other emphasizes what she considers to be the most important details in the story is her use of paragraphs.  If there is a main point she is trying to get across she will leave that sentence in a paragraph all by itself so that it seems more important.  K.T. says “Looks like the Obama administration has gotten away with it.”  The author placed this short statement in a paragraph all by itself to show its gravity and to give the reader a short pause in the flow of the editorial to think about the statement.

K.T. McFarland uses diction to show show the deceitfulness of the Obama Administration’s Benghazi “cover up”.  She uses words such as “dodged” to show how Obama dodged difficult questions about the Benghazi assassination.  The word dodged makes the reader think that President Obama has planned out how to evade the questions so that he doesn’t have to say the truth.   Another example of this is when K.T. says that until Al Qaeda is defeated they will have an “escalating” series of attacks to put fear into the reader’s mind.  Al Qaeda has already caused so much terror in our country and the word escalating makes it seems as though the attacks will get worse and worse without any real proof that they will.  

McFarland created a very convincing and persuasive editorial using many literary techniques that attempt’s to show the deceitfulness and flaws of Obama’s foreign policy in general and with respect to the Benghazi assassination.  

Open Prompt #2

  In the classic novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville Moby Dick is thought of by Captain Ahab to be the ultimate evil.  Moby Dick is a sperm whale who tore off Captain Ahab’s leg.  Throughout the novel Captain Ahab, filled with a lust for vengeance, tries to defeat the whale. 

  A major theme of this novel is that revenge is not worth it.  Throughout the novel Captain Ahab, filled with a lust for vengeance, tries to defeat the whale.  Ahab was obsessed with this as his only goal was to hunt and kill the whale.  Ahab let this obsession consume his thoughts and he could not find happiness in life until this whale was dead.   

Moby Dick clearly represents represents greatness.  It is an insurmountable task to kill Moby Dick as he is so giant and powerful.  Moby Dick is clearly the villain in the novel as he ripped off Captain Ahab’s leg during a whaling incident and led to the deaths of almost the whole crew.  Moby Dick’s attacks are not unwarranted, but he causes harm to many characters in the story and is portrayed by Captain Ahab as complete evil.  Moby Dick’s villainy is caused by the whaling crew hunting and attempting to kill it so Moby Dick is not truly evil.

Ahab met another whaler named Captain Boomer who lost an arm to Moby Dick.  Instead of being angry and seeking vengeance Captain Boomer was just happy to be alive.  The two different responses to being attacked by the two men represent that everyone has a choice to make when they are wronged.  They can choose the unfulfilling choice of revenge or they can choose to forgive or forget.  It is clear that revenge is not the correct choice as Ahab’s quest for vengeance results in Moby Dick sinking the whole ship, resulting in every man dying except for one lucky character named Ishmael.  Captain Boomer chose not to seek revenge and as a result lived a much happier life.   

Response to Course Materials #2

Since my last “Response to Course Materials” we covered a lot of ground in AP English.  Our class has read The American Dream by Edward Albee, we have learned what DIDLS stands for and how to apply it to literature, we analyzed we have learned about the literary eras and we have learned about critical perspective.  I think learning the acronym DIDLS was the most helpful thing that we have learned so far.  DIDLS stands for Diction, Imagery, Details, Language, Syntax and these are very helpful literary elements to use when analyzing a piece of literature.  I already have this phrase ingrained in my memory and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.  Now whenever I look at a piece of literature I try to identify all of these literary components and show how they relate to the meaning, and I think this is starting to become a natural instinct already.  The part of DIDLS that I think I need the most work on is analyzing a piece of literature for its syntax and showing how this relates to the story.  This is not very easy for me as I have never been trained to think in terms of sentence structure relating to meaning until this year.  I think this will take a lot of work for me but with a little extra practice I think I will be able to start to get the hang of it.  When we took the quiz on critical perspective I didn’t do as well as I had hoped.  I think I need a little more work on memorizing these different critical lenses.  It will be very useful to consider the lens being used so I can better identify the authors motivation in their writing.  I think it is very important to know the general trends of each literary era because this will help me better understand the meaning or the motivation of the other.  The literary trends sheet that we are working is definitely helping me to see trends over time of the literary eras and I think it will help make this information more concrete in my mind. The American Dream by Edward Albee was a very fun play to read in the class.  After the first read through I did not really understand the meaning of it but after we read the paper that analyzed the story I started to understand it a lot better. The paper also helped me better understand what The Theater of the Absurd is the writer of the analysis was debating whether or whether not this book fit the qualifications.  In the end the writer decided that it wasn’t truly absurd as the plot seemed to kind of go somewhere instead of going completely full circle.  I think I will understand the themes of the story much better after a second read through.  I have taken in a lot of information over the past few weeks and I just need to keep practicing these techniques I have learned to cement them into practice.