Edward Albee: Truth Beyond Absurdity
...ehave. Jerry’s persistent attitude towards Peter represents the undeniable need for human contact in everyone. Jerry longs to be understood by others and to have some kind of contact with other people. Like Jerry, we also want to have human contact. We hug our family members and friends and shake hands with strangers. We all need to be able to talk to someone and let out our feelings. . Jerry is relieved and content that he has reached someone, just like how we feel after a good tight hug with someone special. As he is dying from the knife wound he says: Thank you, Peter. I mean that now; thank you very much. Oh Peter, I was so afraid I’d drive you away. (He laughs as best he can) You don’t know how afraid I was you’d go away and leave me… Peter…Peter?…Peter…thank you. I came unto you (He laughs, so faintly) and you have comforted me. Dear Peter. (60-1) Often when we talk to others about something deep, we are nervous about what the other person will think. Likewise, Jerry is satisfied that Peter stayed with him and talked to him, even though he is now about to die. Like Peter, most Americans feel uncomfortable and uneasy talking to complete strangers. One does not normally feel comfortable being approached by some guy on the street and having him pry into his personal life. People in America just do not do that. At the end of the story when contact is finally made, Peter is horrified with what happened, saying, “Oh my God!” over and over again (60). Anyone else would have been just as terrified to witness a murder, and unintentionally by himself at that. Albee includes ironic twists in his plays that add even more unrealistic and unreasonable behaviors. In The Zoo Story, just before Jerry dies, he appears to be content to finally reach someone. For the first time in his life, another human being understands him. All he ever wanted was for someone else to understand him, to know him. This is why he is content, even though he reaches Peter at the expense of his own life. Although he has finally reached Peter, he will not be able to enjoy his new friendship, as he is about to die. The movie, City of Angels, portrays an experience similar to this. Shortly after the angel becomes a human, the girl he loved – his whole reason for becoming human – dies. Just like the movie, Jerry’s experience is not considered normal, but tragic. That incident is very disturbing and sad. As Jerry discovered, the best way to deal with people is with an equal balance of love and hate. He did not reach an understanding with his landlady’s dog with just love when he brought it hamburgers. The dog would eat the meat and be right back at him again. Nor did he reach an understanding when he poisoned the dog. The dog got sick and almost died, although he did not want it to die. I loved the dog now, and I wanted him to love me. I had tried to love, and I had tried to kill and both had been unsuccessful by themselves. I hoped… and I don’t really know why I expected the dog to understand anything, much less my motivations… I hoped that the dog would understand. It’s just… it’s just that… (Jerry is abnormally tense, now.) … it’s just that if you can’t deal with people, you have to make a start somewhere. WITH ANIMALS! Don’t you see? A person ahs to have some way of dealing with SOMETHING. (42) The two actions combined, however, allowed the two to reach an understanding, although something was lost in the process. Since the dog does not attack him anymore, no more contact is made. I have gained solitary passage, if that much further loss can be said to be gain. I have learned that neither kindness nor cruelty by themselves, independent of each other, creates any effect beyond themselves; and I have learned that the two combined, together, at the same time, are the teaching emotion. And what is gained is loss. And what has been the result: the dog and I have attained a compromise; more of a bargain, really. We neither love nor hurt because we do not try to reach each other. And, was trying to feed the dog an act of love? And, perhaps, was the dog’s attempt to bite me not an act of love? If we can so misunderstand, well the, why have we invented the word love in the first place? (43-44) Albee’s ironic twists in The Zoo Story have some truth-value applicable to American society as well. Like Jerry, many people do not reach the important moral of their actions, until they have had to suffer numerous and painstaking consequences first. Jerry learns how to successfully interact with people as he is faced with the finality of death. In life, it is necessary to fall in order to understand one’s incorrect behavior and what one should be striving to accomplish. It is necessary to make mistakes in order to learn, even if it appears that the lesson comes too late in life. In order to explore Albee’s plays deeper, one must also look at his The Death of Bessie Smith in the light of the themes previously discussed. The relationship in Albee’s The Death of Bessie Smith between the Nurse and the Intern is based on insults and sex vibes. The Nurse hypocritically rejects the Intern’s advances on the basis that they are cheap and disgusting displays of affection aimed towards her. At night, however, the Nurse indulges in the same kind of cheap and disgusting behavior. Hayman confirms this in his book: Albee shows how mixed the Nurse’s feelings are towards the Intern. She still wants him to drive her home, but he knows all too well that if he does, it will only be for fifteen minutes of preliminary love-play, followed by frustration and wrestling. Soon they are quarreling more violently. (23) Through the senseless contradiction of arguments and flirting, one can see a similarity in one’s own actions. Even though the Nurse and Intern’s relationship is based on physical infatuation, it represents the fickle and hypocritical behavior of the common individual. The Nurse’s unpredictable mood shows how people are constantly having a change of heart based on the different situations. The Nurse’s hypocritical rejection of the intern’s advances shows how many people lose sight of their own weaknesses and short comings when dealing with or judging others. This “strange” behavior by the Nurse and Intern is in all actuality common in American society. What is considered to be strange is actually the norm, only it is not realized and continues to be viewed as being strange. The Nurse and the Intern also behave in ways that contradict what one would consider normal behavior. After a series of flirting and fighting, the Nurse and the Intern engage in make out sessions at night. The Nurse rejects the Intern’s advances and proposals at work, but repetitively gets a ride home with him every night, with a little happy hour at the end. One is not supposed to argue with the people he loves. While they are working, the Nurse allows herself to make fun of the Intern as much as she wants, but she gets angry with the Intern at the slightest hint of playfully poking fun at her. If one is going to dish it out, he should be able to take it too. The Nurse and the Intern represent the hypocritical nature of most individuals. One tends to poke fun at the people one cares most about in life, but they make up for it later. Many times, one’s enemy turns out to be one’s best friend in life. Like the Nurse, many people look down upon and lash out against behavior tendencies that they really possess themselves. Similar to The Zoo Story, The Death of Bessie Smith, shows how there needs to be balance of love and hate in order for relationships to survive. The Nurse and the Intern display hate when bicker at each other all day long, and then love when they make out in the Intern’s car at night. In The American Dream and The Sandbox, Albee again portrays relationships. This time, however, he speaks of those shared within an extended family as...