A Study Of Family Ethics In Edward Albee’s Plays

Edward Albee is one of America’s most important playwrights of the 20th century.This thesis will mainly study the theme of family ethics in some of his works.Adopted by a wealthy couple soon after his birth,Albee failed to maintain a harmonious relationship with his step-parents until his mature years.Such a personal life experience profoundly influences his creation,making most of his plays focus on the relationship inside the family.Some of his representative plays centering on this issue are:The Goat,or Who Is Sylvia?,Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,The Sandbox,The American Dream,and Seascape.By referring to the theory of family ethics,the thesis discusses the theme of family ethics of Albee’s plays and investigates the distortions of family ethical relations,which deviate from the traditional family and marriage ideas based on the love,equality and mutual assistance.As family is the cell of a society,its stability and harmony do have practical significance for the society.Albee’s purpose is to arouse American public attention to these social problems and call on people’s returning to traditional values and virtues.This is the value of this study.The thesis firstly conducts a review of Albee’s life experiences,his main works,achievements and historical influence.Secondly it illustrates the theoretical framework,family ethics.Then it mainly discusses the deformation of marriage and the distortion of family ethics in Albee’s plays.With aforementioned analysis,the thesis concludes that the family relations in Albee’s plays are unhealthy,deviating from modern family ethics.And it does have something to do with playwright’s adoption experience and more with the turbulent social environment,which shows Albee’s negation of and reflection on western social values.Finally,the author analyzes the changes of family ethics in Albee’s late play.One of the demerits and limitations of this thesis lies in that as time passes by and the playwright’s thoughts change,his attitude towards female images has undergone certain changes which can be found in his late plays,yet due to the limited space and time,the thesis has not touched upon the issue,which is worthwhile for further research and discussion.