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Use of Surrealistic Techniques in Edward Albee's Plays

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Use of Surrealistic Techniques in Edward Albee's Plays Use of Surrealistic Techniques in Edward Albee’s Plays Submitted by: Muqaddas Javed Roll No. 13 Supervised by Sohail Ahmed Saeed Assistant Professor Department of English Literature A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY (English Literature) Session: 2010-13 DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH The Islamia University of Bahawalpur ABSTRACT This research will trace various surrealistic techniques present in Edward Albee’s plays. Surrealism has been a very important movement of art and literature before World War II, it has greatly influenced the modern and post-modern theories of literature. Edward Albee is the first American playwright who has incorporated these techniques in his plays, hence revolutionizing the American theatre. Edward Albee is best known as a dramatist belonging to the Theatre of the Absurd. This research will initially explore the surrealistic techniques evident in the absurd plays of Edward Albee, after that it will identify the same techniques as being used in some of the other plays of Albee that fall under the category of realism or expressionism. This study aim to examine the surrealistic themes, motifs, stylistic techniques and other stage devices that appear again and again in Albee’s work; giving it a distinctive trait. This research will throw light on the fact that Albee’s works are not nihilistic rather he critically evaluates the modern human condition in order to break the modern materialistic myths of success. This research intends to examine Albee’s purpose of using different surrealistic techniques and their effect on the audience. In conclusion this study will try to prove that through use of surrealistic techniques Albee has experimented with different forms of playwriting. In fact these techniques extend his vision and link him with the post-modern writers. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 8 Chapter 3: SURREAL PASTICHE 34 Chapter 4: SURREALISTIC REALISM 53 Chapter 5: A PURE SURREALISTIC EXPERIENCE 78 CONCLUSION 106 WORKS CITED 110 Javed 1 Chapter 1 Introduction This research aims to emphasize the use of surrealistic techniques by Edward Albee in his early plays. Edward Albee is the most influential contemporary dramatist. He has changed the nature of American drama by fusing realism and absurdism through use of surrealistic techniques in his plays. This study traces the different contemporary themes and issues that have been the key themes of Surrealists. Surrealism has been known as an anti-rational movement. Albee‟s characters also inhabit a world that defies reason. Self-deception, insanity, exaggerated and fake emotions and compulsive actions rooted in a desire to make human contact are the traits of Albee‟s characters. The research further analyses surrealistic techniques such as automatism, elliptical expression, use of grotesque, element of surprise and fusion of opposites that are some surrealistic techniques of exposing the reality. These techniques are also being used by the post- modern writers for exploring the truth behind all the grand narratives of human progress and explaining the objective reality. Albee is given credit to reinvent the post-war American theatre in the early 1960‟s. C. W. E. Bigsby maintains, “If Edward Albee had not existed he would most certainly have been invented” (249). Bigsby believes that the American theatre was in a state of crises when fortunately Albee appeared with his first play The Zoo Story which was an immediate success. Harold Bloom also calls Edward Albee “the crucial American dramatist of his generation”(01) as he stands as a link between the older dramatists such as Eugene O‟ Neil, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and the best of the younger ones like Sam Shepard and David Mamet. He has brought the French avant-garde movement to the American theatre but he has molded it to the Javed 2 current American social condition. He is grouped with writers of the Theatre of the Absurd. Albee has pleaded the case of the new plays as early as 1962 when he wrote that The avant-garde theatre is fun; it is free-swinging, bold, iconoclastic and often wildly, wildly funny. If you will approach it with childlike innocence- putting your standard responses aside . if you approach it on its own terms, I think you will be in for a liberating surprise (qtd in Amacher). Albee‟ plays also follow the same line. They are bold, free-swinging, iconoclastic and wild, an effect that has been created by the use of different surrealistic techniques. Albee has always been very vocal about his views regarding theatre in general, American theatre, its audience and the role of dramatist and critic. He does not believe that any art form can be “just like life”. According to him, “Reality on stage is highly selective reality, chosen to give form. Real dialogue on stage is impossible . .” (qtd in Amacher). So he uses surrealism as a mode of presenting absolute reality as he sees it. Surrealism was a movement in the visual arts and literature between World War I and II. It flourished in Europe and deliberately defied reason. The term was coined by Guillaume Apollinaire but its first manifesto was given by Andre‟ Breton in 1924. Breton drew upon the theories of Sigmund Freud and concluded that unconscious was the real source of all imagination. The aim of the movement was to revolutionize human experience concerning all personal, social, cultural and political aspects. The Surrealists wanted to free people from false rationality and restrictive cultural structures. According to Encyclopedia Britannica surrealism is a means of joining dream and fantasy to everyday reality to form “an absolute reality, a surreality” (Surrealism). The surrealists saw a Javed 3 deep crisis in Western culture and tried to revise the then current values. This was performed by involving unconventional techniques such as automatism and juxtaposition of opposites. Albee has been concerned about the American condition. He believes that the present day world made no sense “because the moral, religious, political and social structures man has erected to „illusion‟ himself have collapsed” (qtd in Amacher). So he uses surrealistic techniques in his plays in an attempt to make sense or at least free his readers from the false illusions which hinder him from comprehending reality. Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms defines Surrealism as an attempt to reach beyond the limits of the real. Accordingly, Surrealists break down the boundaries that separate rationality from irrationality. They explore dreams, hallucinations, and sexual desires by creating bizarre imaginative effects. Oxford Companion to French Literature define surrealism as the exploration of the subconscious, a state in which there is fusion of dream and reality, a point in the mind where pairs of opposites (e.g. life and death. The real and the imaginary, the past and the future) cease to be perceived as contradictory. Columbia Encyclopedia states that surrealism is a movement dedicated to expression of imagination, free of conscious control of reason and convention. It maintains that the surrealist writers were interested in the association and implication of words rather than their literal meanings. Hence from all these definitions it can be perceived that the surrealistic techniques involve harnessing of opposites. The boundaries that divide conscious from unconscious, sane from bizarre, real from imaginary, rational from irrational and even past from future disappear. The characters of the surrealistic plays give a free hand to their imagination, as a result their subconscious controls and direct their desires and actions. Albee‟s plays abound with such characters. Jerry of The Zoo Story, Grandma of The Javed 4 Sandbox and The American Dream, George and Martha of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Julian of Tiny Alice are few such characters. Antonin Artaud, an early surrealist started the Theatre of Cruelty, in which feelings and emotions were not expressed through language but through allegory, mythological or archetypal vision. He felt that rational discourse was based on falsehood and illusion. Surrealism officially died down by the end of World War II but many postmodern literary movements were directly influenced by it. Many themes and techniques which are identified as Postmodern are similar to Surrealism. The concept of simulacra and hyperreality as discussed by the French philosopher Jean Baudrilled in his work Simulacra et Simulation and magical realism are extensions of surrealism. As they also delight in puzzles and breaking down of barriers. The playwrights grouped under the Theatre of Absurd by Martin Esslin use many of the themes and techniques used by the Surrealists and Edward Albee is one of them. He uses surrealistic techniques in most of his plays to present the absurd condition of modern civilization in general and American dream in particular. Surrealism is anti-rational and anti-realist. Albee‟s plays do not present a rational world. The characters and situations are bizarre. Truth and illusion, sanity and insanity, revelation and self-deception overlap while the barriers between the conscious and unconscious mind dissolve. Dialogues appear non-sensical and actions stem out of hallucinations, hidden compulsive emotions or forced dream like situations. Most of the characters are living in private hells and inflicting anguish on those around them. Thus Edward Albee‟s plays present an interesting study in the use of surrealism. Nightmarish atmosphere is a characteristic technique used by surrealist. The world presented in surrealist art seems more unreal than real, it has a nightmarish quality. Albee‟s plays also present a similar world. Jerry and Peter, Mommy and Daddy, George and Martha, Julian and Javed 5 Miss Alice all live in unreal worlds where anything is possible. The atmosphere of Death of Bessie Smith and Tiny Alice is like a bad dream that never ends.
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