Subversion of Gender and Marriage in Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"

Abstract

If we imagine culture as a rainbow, Literature can be defined as one of its various shades of colour which not just constitutes it but also expresses it to some extent. Literature can be called an important bi- product of culture which constitutes the ideas, customs, practices, and social behaviour of human beings living in a specific time- period in society, impacted by the varied social, political, and economic conditions of the times. Edward Albee’s plays comes under the genre of Absurd Theatre which was a predominant product of literature after World War II. His plays give us a preliminary glimpse of post-modernist society, in rebellion against order and structure, its disillusionment, confused identities, shattered values, fumble beliefs and the acknowledgement and acceptance of it without offering resistance. One of the major themes in the play “Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf” is the theme of Gender identities and marital relationships. In this play, Albee has subverted the conventional notion of marriage and gender, which has provided more agency and control to the male counterpart as compared to the female. Love also defies the usual notions of ‘love you forever’ and ‘till death do us apart’ by being based on ‘If not you, then somebody else’, ‘Not a big deal as it is not a commitment of lifetime’, mind games, teasing, exploitation, jealousy, infidelity overall, doing as one likes.