Gender Roles in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Essay

Though usually viewed as a uncivilized play about turbulent marriages, Edward Albees Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? should be regarded as an early feminist text. Bonnie Finkelstein writes that the 1962 play portrays and analyzes the damaging cause of traditional, stereotypical grammatical sexual urge roles, particularly for women the play serves to point out how unrealistic, bootless and extraordinarily damning they ultimately be.Finkelstein notes that the 1963 publication of Betty Friedans The Feminine Mystique on the side began a re-evaluation of gender roles in the United States (Finkelstein 55). Friedan explores the idea that women need to a greater extent fulfillment in their lives than can be provided by the drudgery of childrearing and housekeeping. The nurse also carefully lays out what society has determined to be the exalted gender role requirements for womenThey could desire no greater destiny than to gloriole in their own femininity. Experts told them how to cat ch a man and keep him, how to wet-nurse children and handle their toilet traininghow to dress, look, and act to a greater extent feminine and put forward marriage to a greater extent excitingThey learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political rightsAll they had to do was ease up their lives from earliest girlhood to finding a husband and bearing children. (Friedan 15-16)And, much specificallyThe suburban housewifeshe was healthy, beautiful, educated, concerned only about her husband, her children, her home. She had put together true feminine fulfillment. (Friedan 18)Albee echoes this, noting by contrast what the nonsuch men and women in 1962 should be. In other words, his characters have failed at living up to gender roles and the play shows us how this quest has destroyed th... ...s flawed, proof that these gender roles are impossible to emulate. As Finkelstein notes, all four characters are afraid of Virginia Wolf, because she is, in 1962 , the only icon of female equality society had. (Finkelstein 64)Works CitedAlbee, Edward. Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? New York Atheneum House, 1962.Finkelstein, Bonnie Blumenthal. Albees Martha Someones Daughter, Someones Wife, No Ones Mother. American maneuver (5) no. 1, Fall 1995. pg. 51-70.Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York WW. Norton & Company, 1963.Julier, Laura. Faces to the Dawn Female Characters in Albees Plays. Edward Albee Planned Wilderness. Interviews, Essays and Bibliography. ed. Patricia De La Fuente. Edinburg, Texas Pan American University Print Shop, 1980.Vogel, Paula. How I Learned to Drive. New York manoeuvretists Play Service, 1998. Gender Roles in Edward Albees Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? EssayThough usually viewed as a un readyed play about turbulent marriages, Edward Albees Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? should be regarded as an early feminist text. Bonnie Finkelstein writes that the 1962 play portrays and analyzes the damagi ng effectuate of traditional, stereotypical gender roles, particularly for women the play serves to point out how unrealistic, useless and extraordinarily damning they ultimately are.Finkelstein notes that the 1963 publication of Betty Friedans The Feminine Mystique unofficially began a re-evaluation of gender roles in the United States (Finkelstein 55). Friedan explores the idea that women need more fulfillment in their lives than can be provided by the drudgery of childrearing and housekeeping. The carry also carefully lays out what society has determined to be the ideal gender role requirements for womenThey could desire no greater destiny than to aura in their own femininity. Experts told them how to catch a man and keep him, how to take in children and handle their toilet traininghow to dress, look, and act more feminine and desex marriage more excitingThey learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political rightsAll they had to do was pla ce their lives from earliest girlhood to finding a husband and bearing children. (Friedan 15-16)And, more specificallyThe suburban housewifeshe was healthy, beautiful, educated, concerned only about her husband, her children, her home. She had found true feminine fulfillment. (Friedan 18)Albee echoes this, noting by contrast what the ideal men and women in 1962 should be. In other words, his characters have failed at living up to gender roles and the play shows us how this quest has destroyed th... ...s flawed, proof that these gender roles are impossible to emulate. As Finkelstein notes, all four characters are afraid of Virginia Wolf, because she is, in 1962, the only icon of female equality society had. (Finkelstein 64)Works CitedAlbee, Edward. Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? New York Atheneum House, 1962.Finkelstein, Bonnie Blumenthal. Albees Martha Someones Daughter, Someones Wife, No Ones Mother. American Drama (5) no. 1, Fall 1995. pg. 51-70.Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mysti que. New York WW. Norton & Company, 1963.Julier, Laura. Faces to the Dawn Female Characters in Albees Plays. Edward Albee Planned Wilderness. Interviews, Essays and Bibliography. ed. Patricia De La Fuente. Edinburg, Texas Pan American University Print Shop, 1980.Vogel, Paula. How I Learned to Drive. New York Dramatists Play Service, 1998.