Our founding fathers were committed to creating a perfect society, free from the “corruption and oppression of the West they left behind” (Holtan ). As America aged, this idea of ​​American perfection developed into an image, now known as The American Dream. In the 1950s the “perfect” American family needed a happy wife, a handsome man with a brilliant career and, above all, two and a half children. Most Americans felt pressure because of the image of perfection portrayed in shows like “Leave it to Beaver” that were to follow. Phrases such as "keeping up with the Joneses" were used to describe Americans who purchased unnecessary material items such as cars, homes, and luxury clothes to appear richer and higher class than they actually were. In this trend, people were afraid of being below the status quo. By trying to live up to their neighbors, they often only brought more unhappiness instead of contentment. Their lives seemed more meaningless and empty when they were shrouded in a thin veil of success. While the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" is usually used to describe consumerism, the same principle is demonstrated in Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. In the play, George and Martha are an unhappily married couple who have invited two seemingly happy young newlyweds, Nick and Honey, out for a drink. Throughout the play George and Martha ridicule each other, as well as their guests, with elaborate games that cause the characters to divulge the grotesque details of their seemingly perfect lives. Albee's characters reveal that in their attempts to appear as the perfect American family they actually only lead to more unhappiness and a greater sense of inferiority. Albee continues this idea in his play The Sandbox where the characters Mom and Dad ignore the dying grandmother until she dies. They then briefly pretend to cry for her because they want to appear normal. Throughout his work, Edward Albee's characters create illusions to disguise their lives and thus support the status quo. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, George is "an old swamp in the history department" (Albee 71). Throughout the show, George is made to feel inferior to Nick by his wife Martha who constantly ridicules him. While Nick is the young and ambitious new biology professor who is “handsome and well done” (Albee 18), George is the old and tired history professor who is struggling to become the head of the history department. Martha constantly denigrates George, emasculating him by calling him “Georgie boy” (Albee 70) and deliberately pointing out to their guests that George does not “run the History Department” (Albee 54). When George complains that it is not easy being married to the “university president's daughter” (Albee 70) he ridicules him by saying that “for some men it would be the chance of a lifetime.” (Albee 51) By suggesting this comparison to men like Nick, George has inadequate drive and ambition. Martha criticizes George for his inadequacies by making him feel like a failure, when in reality he is only average. Instead of allowing him to be content with himself, he is forced to dwell on his inferiority. Martha causes George to dwell on his inferiority because she too is trying to "keep up with the Joneses". She wants to be the wife of a successful man. At the time women had no real careers, so the only way for her to be a partfrom a successful, wealthy, high-class family was to marry a successful man. She blames George for not being that man and thus trapping her in his boring life. Although Martha blames George for depriving her of the American family, she is equally guilty. Martha is unable to have children, this is especially diminishing in an era when fertility was such a fundamental part of femininity. Because of Martha, the couple can never be the American family with 2.5 children. Just as George feels inadequate compared to Nick, Martha feels inferior compared to Nick's wife, Honey. While Martha cannot have children, Honey can. While Martha has to endure the pain of having an inadequate husband, Honey gets to enjoy a successful one. While Honey becomes the attractive young housewife with the “thin hips” (Albee 58), Martha is getting older. If in patriarchal societies women are supposed to be a “mirror” (Hoorvash) of their husband, then Martha was disappointed in her gender role. In response to this unfortunate reality, Martha takes revenge by sleeping with other men. From the moment Nick and Honey arrive, Martha openly begins flirting with Nick. George, unhappy with his wife's behavior, reveals that “musical beds are the sport of the faculty” (Albee 50). Martha compensates for her sense of inferiority by seducing men and sleeping around. For her it is reassuring of her success as a woman, if she can seduce Nick then she is as attractive as Honey. In an equally grotesque and desperate attempt to conform to the status quo, George and Martha create an imaginary child who is very real to them. Their reasoning for creating the child is highlighted when George describes him as their "blond-eyed, blue-haired son." (Albee 229) Here George is implying that the boy should have blonde hair and blue eyes, traits typically associated with being an all-American boy. By choosing to give the child “all-American” traits we can see that the child exists so that the couple can achieve the perfect dream of being an American family. Unable to be the perfect American family in reality, the couple replaces it with an illusion. While most illusions are meant to mislead other people, George and Martha's son is meant to mislead themselves. The extent to which George and Martha care for their imaginary son reveals how empty they feel without a child and, ultimately, not living up to the American dream. This is evidenced by their grief at the end of the show. After enduring an entire night of brutal ridicule and disrespect from Martha, George decides that he is done pandering to the false image of their happy marriage. He adds to his son's narrative, explaining to Martha that late in the afternoon, "[their son] swerved...and went straight into a...big tree." (Albee 245) and died. Mortified by the knowledge that George killed their son, Martha becomes hysterical. When she comes to terms with the death of her imaginary son, she becomes very quiet and speaks slowly. George says, “Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf” (Albee 256) and she replies “I…. I'm Giorgio... I…. am…” (Albee 257) The death of her son is the only thing that has humiliated Martha all night. Supposedly fearless, Martha is afraid of Virginia Woolf, which means she is afraid of accepting her reality. She becomes silent when she realizes that her son's death has removed the mask from her marriage, revealing how sad and meaningless their lives are. Now that their imaginary son is dead, the couple may finally give up hopes of becoming like "The Joneses." In pursuit of the American dream, George and Martha becameincredibly unhappy, forced to dwell on their inferiorities. Hopefully they can now learn to accept each other for who they truly are. Ironically, because George and Martha are made incredibly miserable trying to live up to Nick and Honey, in reality "The Joneses" are as flawed as they are. While George is talking to Honey, he realizes that she has secretly aborted his children. Honey confesses to Nick that “I don't want kids” (Albee 162) and George asks “how do you do your little secret murders? Pills?” (Albee 163). Christianity, a fundamental part of the image of the American dream, opposes abortion. When Honey reveals that she aborted her children, the image is completely shattered. Honey and Nick embody the American dream. It's ridiculous that George and Martha feel like failures compared to Nick and Honey, when beneath the surface they are actually very similar. It is absurd that Martha feels she must create an imaginary child to satisfy the American family when Honey, who is supposed to embody the American family, is aborting her children. In an attempt to live up to the American family, George and Martha ultimately destroy their marriage. Edward Albee uses Virginia Woolf to argue that basically the American Dream actually hurts people and marriages by giving people an overwhelming sense of failure because they can't live up to perfection. George and Martha are unable to have a healthy marriage because they constantly compare themselves and each other to "the Joneses." Instead of being content with their reality and loving themselves for who they are, they fixate on what they don't have, making them forever unhappy. George and Martha's wedding is meant to be a revealing and harsh light on the real American family. George and Martha are named after George and Martha Washington, two all-American figures, implying that all American families have elements of George and Martha within them. Throughout his work, Albee continued this theme. He was particularly "concerned" (Kingsley) with the "disparity" between the "fantasy world and the world in which his characters must live" (Kingsley), particularly in his plays "Tiny Alice", "The American Dream" and “The Sandbox” (Kingsley). This disparity between the actual emotions of his characters and the emotions they present is echoed in Albee's play The Sandbox. In the one-act play, the middle-aged couple called Mom and Dad are as if George and Martha intended to represent the real American family. The play begins with the characters arriving at the beach, shortly thereafter carrying the grandmother “by her armpits” (Albee 1297) and then “more or less dumping her in” (Albee 1297). Throughout the play the characters are completely unaware of their grandmother, never speaking directly to her or interacting with her. Towards the end of the play the grandmother dies in the place where mum and dad dumped her like a piece of rubbish. After completely ignoring Grandma, Mom and Dad for a split second become mockingly emotional: “Ohhhh…poor Grandma…poor Grandma” (Albee 1298). After this brief and insincere mourning, the mother falsely says: "We must put aside the tears, remove the mourning and face the future." (Albee 1299). The empty way in which the characters pretend to mourn their grandmother's passing gives insight into the way Americans pretend to do the right thing to maintain the status quo. It would be terrible if parents ignored their eldest at the end of her life and did not care about her death. The play shines a light on the phony way Americans briefly pretend to mourn their elders simply because it is what is perceived as the morally right thing to do. Albee's devotion to the idea of ​​falsehood and American culture.