Absurdist Elements in Edward Albee’s The Am...

Absurdist Elements in Edward Albee’s The American Dream: an Overview

Author Name : Saroj, Dr. Hemant Kumar Shukla

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the themes of absurd in The American Dream, a master piece of Edward Albee, where the playwright explored the different themes of absurdity and existentialism. Albee examined the absurdity of the human condition and exposed the experiences of loneliness, insanity, and despair inherent in modernity.  The absurd plays reveal all the attributes of existentialism and squeeze out the evidence which occur as a result when human actuality lacks meaning or purpose of life and the communication collapses.  Edward Albee used the absurd techniques to show the absurdity of man’s situation through the characters like Mommy, Daddy, Young Man and Grandma. The absurdism of the action of human being is staged clearly when Daddy search for Grandma's television, blind Pekinese, and her room, but at the end fails to find them because Grandma has hidden everything.

Keywords: Absurdity, existentialism, loneliness, despair and modernity.