AMERICAN SOCIETY IN EDWARD ALBEE’S ‘THE ZOO STORY

Acar Y., Özen Ö.

9. ULUSLARARASI ÇİN'DEN ADRİYATİK'E SOSYAL BİLİMLER KONGRESİ, Antalya, Turkey, 20 - 23 March 2019, pp.7, (Summary Text)

  • Publication Type: Conference Paper / Summary Text
  • City: Antalya
  • Country: Turkey
  • Page Numbers: pp.7
  • Bilecik Şeyh Edebali University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

Early in the twentieth century, Edward Albee was among the first generation of American dramatists that managed to establish their own American theatre. He is a controversial playwright and he reflects both realist and absurdist point of view in his plays. Albee also uses American social values for social criticism thus his plays often focus on alienated individuals’ suffering from illusionary social, moral, and religious values. Albee’s The Zoo Story was first staged in Berlin, Germany, on 28 September 1959, and represents many of themes such as conflict of characters, necessity and impossibility of communication, the interrelationship between love and hate, indifference and the loss of human connection as a result of strict social rules. In The Zoo Story Albee creates two main male characters Jerry and Peter, and various stereotypical female characters that are provided by Jerry’s memories or innocent explanations of Peter In order to evaluate the detachment and impossibility of human companionship as well as communication, the boundaries of social rules, the place of the roles of female and male characters’ in the society. Both American men and women have difficulties to conform to images of society; in fact, it is virtually unreachable. For men and women conforming to these images is both all too important and impossible, so they create an illusionary life, an escape from these unbearable situations. Albee’s main point of attack is that situation, which is illusionary reality they live in. The main aim of this study is to investigate the way of presentation of American society in Edward Albee’s “The Zoo Story”. So, Social criticism is used in order to determine and clarify American society as represented by Albee in his play.