The American Dream

 Characters, setting, plot: The American Dream by Edward Albee is a play about materialism and the search for satisfaction. It takes place around the 1960s, in the apartment of the two main characters, Mommy and Daddy. Most of the play is simply conversation between Mommy and Daddy, if you can consider their cyclical speeches conversation. Mommy dominates the room, always controlling everything and making sure Daddy is always paying attention to her. Grandma is also present throughout most of the play. Mommy, however, resents her presence. Mommy, to continue to assert control, constantly threatens to have Grandma taken away by “the van man”.

Soon, Mrs. Barker arrives at the front door. No one seems to know why Mrs. Barker is there, and even Mrs. Barker can’t explain it. Mommy and Daddy eventually get distracted and begin looking for Grandma’s things, but can’t seem to find anything. While they’re busy, Grandma talks to Mrs. Barker and tells her a story about how people like Mommy and Daddy adopted a “bumble” but destroyed it. Not too long afterwards, a young man comes into the house and Grandma recognizes him as the American Dream. She thinks up the plan to allow everyone to be happy: this young man is looking for work, so she will have Mommy and Daddy hire him. Mommy and Daddy are looking for a new “bumble”, so this young man will work out perfectly. Mrs. Barker will also be satisfied because she will be off the hook; the reason why she went to Mommy and Daddy’s house was to give them a replacement “bumble” and this young man will do just the trick. The play ends with all characters being mostly satisfied, and Grandma escapes from the scene and is with the audience.

Style: Albee uses various techniques to get his theme across the work. First is tone. There isn’t a single tone used throughout the play, but each character takes on his/her own specific tone. Mommy, for example, is very bossy towards Daddy and rude and disrespectful towards Grandma. Daddy doesn’t have too strong of a tone and seems to agree with most things Mommy says. Grandma seems to be the voice of reason of the play. She represents the old American dream and often takes on a tone of disappointment towards the younger generation, especially towards Mommy.

Another technique Albee uses is symbolism. The major symbols of this piece are the new and old American dreams. Grandma embodies the old American dream; Mommy mentions that Grandma can’t stop working and Grandma even calls herself “pioneer stock”. The young man is the new American dream, which is made pretty obvious since Grandma actually calls him “the American dream”. This also ties in to different points of views. Grandma and the young man, being such opposites, have very different views: the young man will do anything for money, while Grandma seems very much against everything this new American dream embodies.

Finally, Albee uses imagery to reach his audience. Once of the major images in the play is the destruction of the “bumble”. Grandma talks about how a two parents like Mommy and Daddy cut the hands, tongue, and private parts of the bumble because it wasn’t perfect. Eventually, because Mommy and Daddy tried so hard to create the perfect child, the bumble simply stopped working; it died.
 

Quotes:

“That’s all that’s important… a sense of dignity.” (Grandma)

            While Mommy and Daddy had been stressing satisfaction, Grandma stresses having a sense of dignity. It doesn’t matter what one looks like or how much money one has, what matters is that one has a sense of self-worth.

“So let’s leave things as they are right now…. while everybody’s got what he wants… or everybody’s got what he thinks he wants.” (Grandma)

            This quote suggests that satisfaction – the one thing Mommy and Daddy seem to be striving for – is only ephemeral. People try so hard to get what they think they want, but once they get it, they realize that it’s not that great after all. Suddenly, they’re no longer satisfied and look for the next thing that they believe will finally grant them “true” satisfaction.

Theme: Albee’s The American Dream warns that the current generation of Americans has gutted the heart and soul of the traditional American values and replaced them with a superficial longing to acquire complete satisfaction.

Albee’s play is simply called The American Dream, as though there is only one, but the title is really a question: which American Dream will you choose? Albee presents two versions of the American Dream through his work: the old (represented by Grandma) and the new (represented by the young man, as well as Mommy and Daddy). The play seems to be about the negative aspects of the new American Dream and the positive aspects of the Old American Dream, proving Albee’s bias. There is the literal image of Mommy and Daddy gutting their bumble of all its substance, but this can be taken figuratively; the couple can be seen as stripping the old American Dream of all its substance, until it simply looks perfect, but has no real value. Albee wants to portray to his readers the horrors of becoming too materialistic and hopes that you will choose to embody the old American Dream.