1977.
The classic image of the american dream is the house with the white picket fence and nuclear family. Edward Albee addresses the value of the aesthetic nature of the american dream in his play, The American Dream. Albee uses the repetition of Mommy changing subject with the acknowledgement of the boxes to show how only the exterior of the american dream is valued and how those who chase it tend to become more and more frustrated because they cannot support their ideals.
Initially Mommy is quite pleased with the job Grandma has done with the boxes, she does not care what is inside but she praises the exterior. When a conversation delves deeper, Mommy will immediately switch back to praising the boxes when she is challenged logically. Mommy has gotten so caught up in the appearance of life that she has neglected to acquire any logic to back her reasoning up. Even when she was a child and had lunch everyday, she would not unwrap the box because the appearance of her lunch was more important than the actual contents, which ironically are much more important in reality. Switching back to the boxes serves as a quick and reliable method for Mommy to ignore the details of her ideas.
After multiple changes of subject mommy is eventually fed up with the boxes and criticizes them quite harshly. She is focused solely on the image of the american dream and gets increasingly frustrated as it becomes clear that it will take more than wanting it and having a vague idea of what one wants to achieve it. By the end she has given up completely on the boxes, showing the completion of her transition to the new american dream, which is ushered in with the entering of the Young Man.
Edward Albee uses Mommy’s adoration of the aesthetics of the boxes and her gradual animosity toward them to show how society values the american dream only at face value. The Young Man has taken over as the new american dream of the household, but Grandma still plods along her boxes in tow.
The only thing I can really tell you to add here are pieces of DIDLS throughout the whole essay to really show how Albee emphasizes the image of the American Dream. What does he say/what techniques does he do to prove this point other than character growth (or maybe Mommy really digresses.) You get it.
ReplyDeleteI know it's a little late for this, but you might want to branch out from The American Dream, I'm not suggesting you rewrite them, but maybe in your head come up with a different novel, just to help expand your pool of literature to draw from. This is really good, my only remaining question is what's a nuclear family.
ReplyDeleteNot having the prompt on the same page as the essay is irritating because I have to keep switching back and forth to double-check your essay against the prompt--and I have a feeling it would have benefited you to have them in the same place, as well, to have them on the same page. Your essay doesn't really answer the prompt. The task was to show the similarities and the differences between the series of parallel events and then to show how these parallel events support theme. What you have here is a somewhat unclear discussion of the boxes as symbols. This play, ironically, would work really well with this prompt--but the parallel events would be the two adoptions. Work on more straightforward language--your language is getting away from you a bit here and interfering with meaning.
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