Don’t Judge a Book or Marriage by Its Cover

*Seriously this play has the most boring cover I have ever seen.

This entire weekend, I have been racking my brain for something, anything, meaningful to say about Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and, still, I have nothing. It is not a lack of debatable material in this play, Albee provides plenty, that is causing me to not be able to write about it; rather, it is the complete alienness of the scenes he presents. Several things in this play are strange to me, like the 2:00 AM setting and why Nick and Honey decide to stay or even come over in the first place, but what stands out in particular is the relationships, particularly George and Martha’s marriage.

I am not going to claim to be any expert in marriage. The only experience I have of it is based on my parents’ marriage, my brother’s, and however books and movies decided to portray it. But George and Martha’s definitely do not match any of the aforementioned examples. They have an insincerity with each other and never seem to be acting honestly toward one of each other, and then there is the fighting. That one is at least familiar. I myself have heard my fair share of yelling, name calling, and door slamming, and I am sure every child has witnessed this at some point, but it is different with George and Martha. It seems to be a part of the game they call their marriage, and (enjoy is the wrong word but that is what I am going with) they seem to enjoy it. They thrive off of each other’s anger and frustration, and it acts as a band-aid, straining to cover a wound that is much to big for it to handle. There is a constant undercurrent of discontent and uncertainty in their marriage, yet for the majority of the play it is never directly acknowledged; instead it manifests itself within the vehemence and bitterness of their “games.”

I want to judge their marriage so badly as it is vastly different from the ones I am used to seeing. It seems dysfunctional, unhealthy, and neither seem to appear particularly happy in the relationship. They argue, they degrade, they flirt with others in front of each other, and at one point George even begins strangling Martha, causing Nick to pull them apart. While I am aware this was (most likely) not a serious attempt on her life and that this was just a part of their games, it does not seem to make for the basis of a good marriage. And yet, this a system that appears to work for them. Martha expresses to Nick that George is the only one who can make her happy. George has given up everything for her, including his chance to be published. And at the end, after George has “killed” their son, there is a real tenderness and love between them.

While George and Martha’s marriage seems dysfunctional, unhealthy, and miserable on the surface, it is a marriage that works for them. It is not my place to judge it based on one drunken night just because it does not match the marriages I am used to seeing.