Existential Themes And Dramaturgic Devices In Edward Albee's Plays

Edward Albee is one of the foremost dramatists in America and one of the leading figures in the Theatre of the Absurd.Many of his plays, like The Zoo Story, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The American Dream,rank among the most excellent ones and has won such prominent prizes as Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award, etc.This thesis explores the universal themes of existentialism in them and analyzes how techniques are employed to highlight the themes.The introductory part makes a brief survey of literature and presents the central argument of the thesis.The second subsection of the thesis gives a definition of the Theatre of the Absurd, lists its major features,and then explains why Albee is seen as a spokesman for the American Absurd theatre. The third part conducts a close examination of the three aforesaid plays to pin down the major existential themes:the loss of culture and humanity, emptiness of life and the failure of communication.Part Four focuses on Albee's craftsmanship, demonstrating how his use of symbols and manipulation of language serve to reinforce the existential themes.Symbols are shown as mirroring the chaotic reality of human condition, i.e.the world is falling and people are living in a world without faith but money. As for manipulation of language, tautologies and cliches are used to show the emptiness of life while stories are cooked up by characters to fuse illusion and reality out of their attempt to evade the harsh reality. The concluding part recapitulate the major points in the body part of the thesis,and then proceeds to point out that Albee is rated as a great dramatist because with his dramaturgic devices, he brings the absurd modern world vividly to life to arouse reader/audience's contempt on the pseudo values that lie at the root of the meaningless life he portrays in his plays.