The American Dream Analysis and Summary

Author: Edward Albee. He was born in 1928, and is most commonly known for popularizing the Theater of the Absurd.

Setting: The setting of the play is not specified too much. It takes place in a living room in an apartment. He doesn’t really make anything too detailed about the setting.

Plot: The beginning of the play begins with Mommy and Daddy sitting in their living room. Mommy is going on rambling about how she bought a beige hat yesterday from the store. Throughout this elongated story, she continuously checks to make sure Daddy is paying attention to every detail she spits out. Daddy always responds with an answer that is relevant to her story. Mommy then goes on about how she ran into the head of the Woman’s board, Mrs. Barker. She then begins to tell Mommy how her hat is wheat. Mommy then goes and “exchanges” her hat for a wheat one, when really it was the same exact color as the first one.

            Soon enough, Grandma enters the scene. She enters with many, many boxes. These boxes are very neatly wrapped, and they show stand for her American Dream (the old version). In these boxes, grandma’s oldest possessions are kept. Pretty much, her life values are what are figuratively in these boxes. We learn that Grandma and Mommy don’t have a very strong relationship, and Mommy wants her to be put in a home. Mommy is more into wealth, seeing as that is why she is still with Daddy.

            Mommy has a very reversed relationship with Daddy. She is the masculine one in their case. When Mrs. Barker arrives at their apartment and rings the doorbell, Mommy tells Daddy to go answer it. Timid at first, he is then persuaded by Mommy when she tells him how masculine and decisive he is. Mrs. Barker then enters their room.  This is not what’s expected though. With many things wrong in their apartment, Mommy and Daddy were expecting them, the repairmen, to come. Instead, it was Mrs. Barker. She is commonly referred to as “them” because she represents large corporations and shows how dominant they are in today’s world.

             Soon enough, the doorbell rings again. It is the new American Dream (aka Young Man). He is brought to Mommy and Daddy through the Bye-Bye Adoption Agency. He isn’t their first child though because they had one before (another adopted son). Their other son wasn’t good enough for them though. They pretty much disemboweled the kid by hand. They couldn’t obtain satisfaction, which is another motif that is commonly brought up in this play.

            This new American Dream is strongly characterized. The Young Boy who represents it says he will do anything for money. He then goes on to tell Grandma how he can’t feel any emotions pretty much due to his separation of his twin brother when they were children. This brother is the first child that Mommy and Daddy adopted.

            In the end, the new American Dream replaces the old American Dream. The Young boy moves in, and simultaneously Grandma moves out and brings with her all of her boxes. Originally, this saddens Mommy. She is forced to think grandma stole something, but as soon as she realizes that the young boy is there to stay, she is perfectly satisfied. Solely by his appearance, the young boy is accepted into their family. Grandma is shoved out by the new dream, and at the end of the play she speaks directly to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, telling them that everyone thinks they are happy now. This is left to have us question how long their happiness will actually last.

Significant Characters:

Mommy: Mommy is a very dominant character in the play. She stands up to everyone, except Mrs. Barker. She emasculates everything Daddy does, and she knows how to manipulate him to do certain things. She can easily be called a gold digger. She married Daddy for his money, and that is solely the only thing that has kept them together. She helps show how materialism and consumerism affects today’s world.

Daddy: Mommy emasculates him throughout the entire play. He feeds off of her strong commands, and is persuaded to do things by being told how “masculine” and “firm” and “decisive” he is. At this point, he is staying with Mommy out of fear.

Grandma: As soon as Grandma enters the play, we begin to see how she is the most relatable and straightforward character. The other characters in the play do not easily understand her, except the audience understands most everything she does. She sees things that the other characters cannot see, because they live in almost a completely different world. She represents the old American Dream, and no one else can understand this version of the American Dream.

Mrs. Barker: She exerts dominance over Mommy, and makes her feel uncomfortable even in her own apartment. She is in charge of many different organizations and clubs. The most spoken about is that she is chairman of the women’s club and she is in charge of the Bye-Bye Adoption Agency (how they received both their children). She represents large corporations.

Young Man: He is characterized by looks. He is from the West Coast, and we know that he is extremely handsome, even Grandma is swept away by his beauty. He was torn apart from his twin brother, and can no longer love or feel emotion. He will do anything for money. That being said, he represents the New American Dream.

Style: Throughout the play, Albee’s style is very obvious. He tone is very sarcastic and he is very critical. He also lets all of the characters represent very large ideas, such as Grandma as the old American Dream. By not specifically naming the characters, we can tell that he is describing the typical American family, not just one specific one. His imagery is also very strong in the play; when he describes the previous bumble of joy that they had. As we learned before beginning the play, we knew that this was Theatre of the Absurd (basically, a play about nothing). However, as we read it, we discovered there were many different symbols and meanings deep beneath the lines. If someone read this play though and didn’t go through and depict it like we did, they would probably attest that this is solely theatre of the absurd.

Important Quotes:

11)   Mommy: “You can’t get satisfaction; just try. I can get satisfaction, but you can’t” (62).

-Throughout the entire play, satisfaction is continuously brought up. Mommy seems to think that satisfaction can be purchased. First, she is satisfied by buying the “wheat” colored hat, when in reality it was the exact same hat as the beige one that she had originally bought. Then, she is unsatisfied by her original bumble of joy. She finds the simple solution to this problem, killing the kid and purchasing a new one (new American Dream).

22)   Young Man: “I’ll be happy to tell you. It’s that I have no talents at all, except what you see…my person; my body, my face. In every other way I am incomplete, and I must therefore…compensate.” (113)

-The Young Man in this play clearly represents the new version of the American Dream and how it has taken over the old version. It is almost completely about materialism, consumerism, and looks. Albee is trying to say that people don’t see the true values in life anymore, and they just want money and satisfaction.

Theme: The American Dream has been manipulated by new generations and these generations have altered societal standards.

This theme is strongly supported by two characters, as well as everyone else in the play. However, the two most influential characters for this theme are Grandma and the Young Man. Grandma represents the old version of the American Dream. She can see things that no one else in the play can see. Whenever she tries to explain these things to the other characters, they don’t even bother to listen to what she is trying to say. This shows how the generation of Mommy and Daddy don’t even care, and that they care more strongly about themselves and what is currently going on in their lives. (Satisfaction, consumerism, materialism.) The Young Man is straight up told he is the American Dream by Grandma. He represents how the new dream is almost solely based on appearance, wealth, and instant satisfaction. He tells Grandma how he has to compensate for his lack of emotion by his looks. He was torn apart from his twin brother at birth, and ever since that moment he has not been able to feel love and give emotion. All of the other characters contribute to this, Daddy doesn’t really do much to change his life because it isn’t exactly terrible; he can live well and get pleasure when he wants. Mrs. Barker helps show how standards are being changed when she takes off her dress and arouses Daddy. Though claiming she is a professional, we know that a real professional would never do that. This is part of Albee’s sarcasm and exaggeration. In the end, instant satisfaction is what is very important to the characters in the play. When Grandma comes out and speaks directly to the audience and says, “So, let’s leave things as they are right now…while everybody’s happy…while everybody’s got what he wants…or everybody’s got what he thinks he wants” (127), she is showing how these characters will not stay satisfied with themselves forever, especially with how fast everything in the world keeps changing.