In the play The American Dream, Edward Albee uses foil characters and devices in the dialogue such as repetition and insulting language to show the relationship between Mommy and Daddy as well as compare and contrast Grandma to the Young man. Albee establishes these relationships in order to tell readers that the old American Dream has been replaced with a new Dream that embodies only physical appearances and consumerism.
Mommy and Daddy have switched traditional gender roles to the point where Mommy is completely in charge while Daddy is reduced to almost a childlike state. At the beginning of the play, Mommy tells Daddy all about her shopping trip where she, the shopkeeper, and Mrs. Barker all are unsure of the color of the hat she buys. While she is enraptured by her consumerist attitude, Mommy also keeps asking Daddy things like "What did I say? What did I just say?" while Daddy responds "You didn't like any of them, not one bit." repeating everything she says. In this manner, we see how Daddy isn't the dominant member while Mommy rules the house. Later, Daddy tries to stand up to Mommy when he doesn't want to answer the door, but she convinces him to by saying "...you were masculine and decisive." when he decided to have the person come to the door. When he still doesn't get the door, Mommy insults him by telling him "...you;re indecisive; you're a woman." This statement also shows how masculine Mommy has become, since she thinks that womanhood is a bad thing. Daddy thinks that she can take away his masculinity, even though it was gone long ago from being subordinate to Mommy. In fact, Daddy had a surgery where "the doctors took out something that was there and put in something that wasn't there." suggesting that Daddy is physically a woman with a vagina instead of a penis. Mommy's manly role and abuse of Daddy show how Mommy is greedy and uses anyone to get what she wants, which include wealth, an aspect of the new American Dream, as well as the "bumble of joy," the baby that the couple dismembered in order to try and get satisfaction. This is less hard to believe once we learn what a cruel person Mommy is.
Albee uses Grandma and the Young Man as foils to show the differences between the old American Dream and the New American Dream. For one thing, Albee made the character's appearances reflect which ideals they represent. Grandma describes herself as "...gnarled and sagged and twisted into the shape of a complaint." while the Young Man has a"Good profile, straight nose, honest eyes, wonderful smile..." to appeal to the common American. Grandma's ideals are outdated like her body, while the Young Man looks fresh like his ideals. However, on the inside, the Young Man can't feel anything. He himself simply states "I can feel nothing. I can feel nothing." since his heart was ripped out when his twin died. His outside looks like all the things a person could dream for, but these goals aren't full of emotion and don't give you the satisfaction that all of the characters strive for. Grandma, on the other hand, is the only character in the play who has any true emotion. Every time she speaks, she uses verbal irony to show just how twisted the other characters are. For example, when Grandma describes the incident with the "bumble" to Mrs. Barker, she uses a matter of fact tone to describe this horrible event. She says they "smiled and cried and bit their fingers, and said some more intimate things, which were totally irrelevant..." Of course normal people would be genuinely exited about the event, but Mommy and Daddy don't have real feelings and just went through the motions. In the end, since no one can feel like Grandma does, she leaves the scene all together while the Young Man, the new dream, takes her place. She then joins the same level as the audience and speaks directly to them, as if to warn us not to end up this way. This shows how these ideas aren't just in the play, and that the dream Grandma believes in isn't dead.
The relationships between the characters in The American Dream show how the New American Dream has consumed the minds of Americans, while the old Dream is almost forgotten. All of the strange connections and reactions of the characters serve as a warning not to becomes consumed by consumerism and to remember what true dreams are.
This is a well-written essay. However, there are a few things that need to be fixed.
ReplyDeleteIn the last line, you say: "...to BECOMES consumed by consumerism and to remember what true dreams are", while it should be "become". Although I'm sure it was just a typo. :)
When you discuss how emotionless the Young Man is, it would help your argument if you elaborated on the "these goals" that "aren't full of emotion". What are these goals? Or did you mean the goals of the American Dream (the idea, not the Young Man)?
Also, when Mommy tells Daddy: "you're indecisive; you're a woman" I don't think this single quote IMMEDIATELY shows how Mommy is more masculine... I think it first points to how Mommy is much more assertive, forceful, and arrogant; and how she thinks of women as annoyingly demure creatures. It is from these two points that you can say that Mommy swore off womanhood for manhood.
Could you also explain what Grandma and the Young Man's opposing ideals are? If these are not mentioned, then the essay might have a few gaps in it.
And when you talk about how Grandma has more emotion than the other characters, your argument would be more solid if you talked about how much more compassionate she would be. You say that Grandma uses "verbal irony to show just how twisted the other characters are", but that just shows how much Grandma doesn't like them. And using your explanation, one might say that Mommy has emotion because she constantly ridicules Grandma.
You should change that section of your essay to how Grandma is more compassionate and displays more loving traits than the other characters.
Lastly, I liked your introduction, thesis, and your conclusion.
Keep up the good work! :D
Julia, your piece is really good. Your introduction piece is really well written and shows your thesis very well. I think most of Daphine's critisms could be covered by saying that you should write to a broader audience than just our the kids from our AP Lit class. We all know a lot of the points you are trying to convey because we know the background information, but others might not. I think you have a great piece, just maybe elaborate a little more to give the reader more understanding.
ReplyDeleteI think this was a really good piece; you made effective points and backed them up with plenty of evidence. I'm pretty sure you were supposed to copy the prompt onto your blog, though, but I could be wrong. Your introduction is a little stiff, but then, it's not like you're trying to capture the attention of millions of bored readers. I could also maybe criticize the thesis, because it's vague, and sort of changes from the introduction to the conclusion. Maybe try and revise that; it would help to have a more solid foundation. I understand what you're trying to say, though.
ReplyDeleteJulia, I think that your essay was pretty good, but could use a little work in some areas, particularly on the techniques that the author used. I agree that repetition and insulting were very important in the play, but I think you should make your topic sentence for the paragraph when you talk about those devices have more focus about the devices themselves.
ReplyDeleteIt's also hard to tell if your essay is a good response to the prompt, since you didn't include it, but it looks as if it probably is. This is a good essay for only being written in 40 minutes! The time constraints are hard to work in.