| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 英語學系 === 96 === Abstract
Whether Edward Albee is an Absurdist has long been a controversial dispute ever since he was labeled into the category of “The Theatre of the Absurd,” a term coined by Martin Esslin in 1961. According to Esslin, Albee comes into the category, “precisely because his work attacks the very foundations of American optimism” (The Theatre of the Absurd 311). However, few other Absurdist elements have ever been added to make his classifying Albee into this category convincing. In this way, he can’t but roughly subsume Albee’s works in the chapter of “Parallels and Proselytes,” saying that his survey is not complete. As a consequence, this thesis aims to supplement the common elements of the Theatre of the Absurd that determines Albee as an absurdist.
This thesis is divided into five chapters. In Chapter One, the definition of the word absurd, its philosophical meaning and the characteristics that Esslin specifies in The Theatre of the Absurd have been discussed. Although sharing similar subjects with Existentialists, the Absurdists make the difference in the approaches to present the sense of the absurd. Thus, the unity of absurdity on its subjects and forms is exactly the element that defines the Theatre of the Absurd. Aside from the attack on the American optimism, there are two more subjects that characterize Albee’s works into this category: the alienation of humanity, and the confrontations between truth and illusion.
Then, the succeeding Chapters Two, Three and Four will explore these three themes on the elements of absurdity shared in three of Albee’s major works, The Zoo Story, The American Dream and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. In The Zoo Story, to present the predicament of solitary human existence, Albee skillfully combines some traditionally conventional techniques of linear plots and recognizable characters with the absurdist elements -- the stylized setting, violence, ritual and the devaluation and disintegration of language. In The American Dream, he attacks the false, artificial American values based on the American Dream prevailing in the American society with the Absurdist elements of the universal setting, archetypal characters, no-solution ending, audience involvement, violence, allegory and most important of all, his language. As for Albee’s masterpiece, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, besides the elements of the Christian ritual and the American allegory mentioned by Esslin, there are many other important Absurdist elements contributing to setting this play apart from the realistic one: the circular theme, the unrealistic settings, the clichéd speech, and the use of violence and cruelty.
Finally, Chapter Five concludes that these three Absurdist subjects are not explored respectively, but rather interwoven in the above three plays. Different from European Absurdists, Albee skillfully creates his own special type of absurdity by combining both absurdist and traditional techniques to convey his own sense of absurdity. The unity of form and subject in expressing the absurd defines Albee as the American representative of the Theatre of the Absurd. This is exactly the unique contribution that Edward Albee makes to the Theatre of the Absurd.
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