Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf

Who’s Afraid of Reality? In Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, there are many universal themes that one could apply to one’s own life. Throughout the entire book, illusion is virtually indistinguishable from reality. George and Martha live with the fantasy of having a son while Nick doesn’t feel any real passion towards Honey and only married Honey because she had a hysterical pregnancy and she’d inherit her father’s wealth after her parents died. Martha also imagines that she has a close relationship with her father when they are really quite distant from each other. The most prominent and prevailing theme throughout the play is reality versus illusion which is revealed through the character and plot development and leads to a unique perspective of the American experience.

From two in the morning to dawn, the characters have their illusions stripped away until they are their true selves in front of the others. George and Martha have the fantasy of the son stripped away when George kills him by saying, “We got a telegram; there was a car accident, and he’s dead. POUF!” (3.449). Since their son was just an illusion, they could kill their son whenever they wanted to. George is the one that ends up killing him because Martha and George made a pact to not tell anyone about their child, but Martha tells Honey after they get a little drunk and went upstairs to have a little chat. At the same time, Nick reveals to George that he didn’t marry Honey out of love. Nick and Honey build the illusion of being the perfect couple whenever they are out in public and act very