The Futility of Language as a Means of Communication in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Fam and Yam, and The Sandbox

Abstract

The three plays Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) The Sandbox (1959) and Fam and Yam (1959) all display the absurdist tendencies to dispel the traditional view of language as the rational means of communication amongst mankind. In absurdist drama the world is portrayed as one that is meaningless and incomprehensible to the human mind. Language, which is confined to faulty human perception and subjectivity, is inefficient in the face of an unfathomable universe. A gap persists between the meanings in language and the world it purports to describe. In addition, the lack of fit between what language permits man to say and what he actually wants to say leads to a breakdown in communication and ultimately to the alienation of the individual. In absurdist works this chaotic sphere of existence is reflected in the dispensing of traditional elements in drama as well as in the illogical usage of language by the characters. Thus, absurdist drama acts as a counter-discourse to the previously dominant, essentialist discourse of realist drama. In this article a brief overview of the absurdist depiction of language’s insufficiency in communication is presented to serve as a backdrop for the analysis of certain segments in Albee’s aforementioned plays in order to assess the extent to which Albee’s plays demonstrate the absurdist’s notion of language’s deficiencies. Thus, the sections chosen for discussion are those that showcase language’s apparent shortcomings in generating human contact.