The American Dream: Summary and Analysis

Summary:

The American Dream, a play by Edward Albee, briefly follows an upper-middle class "family" in the living room of their apartment. Mommy and Daddy are the power couple, with Mommy having near total control over Daddy and dictating most of his decisions. Grandma, Mommy's mother, is nearly voiceless in the house. though can occasionally hold sway with Daddy. Grandma keeps up an act of foolishness and naivete, when in reality she is very aware of her situation. She is constantly under threat of being taken away by the "van man". Mommy and Daddy call Mrs. Barker to demand satisfaction, although it takes them awhile to figure out why exactly she's there.  The child that Mommy and Daddy bought from Mrs. Barker was too full of content, and despite mutilating the child to fit their wants, the child was unpleasing to them and eventually died. However, when the Young Man arrives, Grandma sets it up so that Mrs. Barker can present the Young Man as the replacement child: pretty on the outside but devoid of content, depth, and emotion. Grandma leaves and Mommy gets over it quickly, happy that she got satisfaction in the end.

Theme:

Albee's American Dream warns that the current generation of upper class Americans have gutted the heart and soul of what it means to be American and replaced our collective dream with a superficial, immature, materialism driving us to acquire power and wealth, but there is hope of change.

(The elements of this theme are supported below in the Analysis section)

Analysis:

Since there's no format by which to abide, I think I'm just going to separate this into chunks and address certain things separately.

-The Young Man clearly represents the modern "American dream". He lacks depth and content. ("Yup. Boy, you know what you are, don't you? You're the American dream, that's what you are" (108)). This can be related to several other parts of the play. It doesn't matter what's inside Grandma's boxes, it only matters that they look nice. The quality of the hat that Mommy buys isn't important, the name of the color is. Mrs. Barker as a person doesn't matter to Mommy, only the various titles and positions she holds do. Furthermore, Grandma is representative of the old "American dream". She's smart, hard-working, resourceful, and isn't a victim of consumerism. Unlike Mommy, it's what's inside the boxes that's important to her, and she even says that making the boxes is pretty is tiresome and makes her fingers hurt. Mommy is constantly at conflict with the old American dream: she's always arguing with Grandma and she, along with Daddy, mutilates their first child, who is similar to Grandma in that he has content. The Young Man is a result of the mutilation. He is what Mommy and Daddy want. He's the American dream, dead on the inside but beautiful on the outside.

-Gender roles play a very important role in understanding the characters of the play. As the play progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that Mommy wears the pants in the relationship between her and Daddy. She takes on a more masculine role, and as a result of this, Daddy is more feminine. We can see that he's been reduced to a more feminine role by Mommy, he's fickle and indecisive and needs her constant reassurance in order to make choices and decisions. And yet, Daddy wants to believe that he's masculine, even trying to prove it at times. This culminates when Daddy alludes to a sex change. He mentions having a surgery where he was given tubes. He tries to fight it, it seems. He mentions feeling pains in his stitches and gets a huge confidence boost when he ultimately does make the decision to open the door (this wasn't without Mommy's prodding however). But he ultimately seems to be fighting a losing battle. Grandma comes across as sexually androgynous. She mentions that given her age and her looks she could pass as either male or female, and even does pass for male when she wins the baking contest. To me, the gender roles show that women can easily have and take power, but it still takes actually male anatomy to get things done. Grandma had all the means to win that baking contest, yet she did so as a male. Mommy is the one basically dictating what happens in the apartment, yet it's Daddy who has to go through with most of the decisions. She leaves it up to him to open the door for Mrs. Barker and to call the van man. However, Mrs. Barker is able to dictate and execute as a woman, and she doesn't hesitate to remind people that she's a professional woman. This could perhaps signal a transition to female dominance, where no male is necessary for things to either be dictated or executed. Gender roles are part of the struggle for power.

-Consumerism is a motif that pops up often in the play. A lot of this ties in with the first chunk, so this will be briefer. Consumerism plays into the appearance part of the new American dream. Appearance, perception, and status are what's most important for the new American dream, and money is one of the biggest tellers of status and can greatly affect how others perceive you. It gives you power. Because of this, money, and therefore consumerism, becomes one of the most important things in society. Hell, Mommy basically says that she married Daddy for his money, and that she feels entitled to it. Mrs. Barker is the biggest symbol for consumerism. Her entire being revolves around business and she takes advantage of opportunities to improve her business. Even though Grandma is the one who arranges for the Young Man to give Mommy and Daddy satisfaction, Mrs. Barker is quick to announce that she will send them a bill in the mail. Also, despite being devoid of most other emotions, the Young Man still has a drive to make money, it's the reason he visits the apartment. The characters, save for Grandma, are often driven by their quest for power, which is through money and consumerism. ("They wanted satisfaction; they wanted their money back. That's what they wanted" (101)).

-The matter of age comes up several times as well. Mainly, in that it doesn't matter, and that it can even be better. Grandma is definitely the most "rootable" character in this bunch, despite being the oldest. And despite saying a bunch of self-deprecating things about old people, she proves a lot of those things to be incorrect through her actions. It's also Grandma's day-old cake that ends up winning the baking contest, and the old American dream that proves to be the better one (at least, that's the message we get).

-Albee incorporates Absurdist elements into his play. Although the play can't be fully classified as part of the Theater of the Absurd due to the amount of symbolism and actual meaning, the Absurdist elements are important in making the play what it is. Repetition is used to provide characterization, usually in a negative way (Ex: Daddy constantly forgets Mrs. Barker's name, belittling his intelligence). But primarily, other elements such as the illogical conversation flow, strange conclusions, and confusing dialogue are used to provide humor. I actually think the humor is used to show the seriousness of the issue Albee is having us focus on. It's all quite humorous, but then we reach the scene where Grandma describes how Mommy and Daddy brutally mutilated and ultimately murdered a child. It all seemed funny, but now everything has a much darker feel to it. And that scene forces you to go back and notice exactly what you were laughing at before. If the humor weren't there, that juxtaposition wouldn't exist, and that metaphor probably wouldn't be as powerful as it is.

-The ending seems to suggest that things won't stay the same, or that they at least might not. Grandma says that the play is ending because it's best to stop when everyone has what they think they want. ("...I don't think we'd better go any further. No, definitely not. 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)) This implies that they might realize what they have isn't really what they want. So there does seem to be potential for the characters to realize that they're unhappy with their new American Dream. Also, Grandma, the old American dream, doesn't completely leave the play when she exits the apartment. She's still on stage, observing, almost as if she's waiting for the right time to come back. Why else stick around?