Edward Albee Archives - Page 2 of 3 - WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF

Summary and Analysis Act III: The Exorcism: Scene ii

In this scene between Nick and Martha, Nick reports that Honey is again lying curled up on the bathroom tiles and is peeling the label off the brandy bottle. This scene ends when George enters with the snapdragons. The first significant revelation is that, for all of his youthfulness and […]

Summary and Analysis Act III: The Exorcism: Scene i

Edward Albee

In scene i, Martha is alone, and her soliloquy reveals her sense of abandonment and a desire to make up with George. She imagines a scene where they admit that they would do anything for each other. After remembering the game, “Hump the Hostess,” she prepares the audience for Nick’s […]

Summary and Analysis Act II: Walpurgisnacht: Scenes x-xi

Edward Albee

In scene x, George is left alone and his reactions reveal his inner emotions. The passage from the book George is reading, Spengler’s Decline of the West, is appropriate because it deals with “crippling alliances” and “a morality too rigid to accommodate itself . . .” After a pause, he […]

Summary and Analysis Act II: Walpurgisnacht: Scenes vii-x

Edward Albee

In scene vii, Nick re-enters to report that Honey is resting on the tiles of the bathroom floor. In scene viii, while George is out getting ice, Martha and Nick continue their sexual flirtation and Martha is the aggressor. George re-enters, notices their actions, and exits again without acknowledging them. […]

Summary and Analysis Act II: Walpurgisnacht: Scenes v-vi

Edward Albee

In scene v, Nick tells of his resentment about the story George has revealed and threatens to get even with George and then exits to look after Honey. After he is gone, George and Martha argue about the events of the night. In the conversation between George and Martha, George […]

Summary and Analysis Act II: Walpurgisnacht: Scene iv

Edward Albee

This scene begins with the entrance of Martha and Honey, continues with the narration by Martha of George’s attempts to publish a novel, and then shifts to George’s narration which is a description of Honey and Nick’s courtship and marriage, presented as though it were the subject of George’s new […]

Summary and Analysis Act II: Walpurgisnacht: Scenes i-iii

Edward Albee

The subject matter of scenes i–iii concerns George’s and Nick’s views of their respective wives and other matters. It is briefly interrupted (less than a page) by Martha’s appearance to report on the state of Honey’s relative sobriety or drunkenness; otherwise, without this brief interruption, this should be considered thematically […]

Summary and Analysis Act 1: Fun and Games: Scenes x-xi

Edward Albee

In George’s absence, Martha tells her guests (and thus the audience) how she met and married George. Earlier she had married a young gardener at a finishing school, but her father annulled the marriage immediately. Then she decided to marry someone in the college and “along came George” who in […]

Summary and Analysis Act 1: Fun and Games: Scenes vii-ix

Edward Albee

These two short scenes begin with George continuing with the fun and games. He returns with the fake gun and pretends that he is going to shoot Martha. Since the arguments between George and Martha have been so vituperative and seemingly bitter, Nick and Honey are horrified. (In some productions, […]

Summary and Analysis Act 1: Fun and Games: Scene vi

Edward Albee

This very short scene involves Martha’s narrating a story about how at the beginning of World War II, her father wanted everyone in good physical condition, so one day when people had boxing gloves on, she put on a pair and accidentally knocked George into a huckleberry bush. The actual […]