Animal Characters And Human Alienation In Edward Albee’s Plays

Edward Albee(1928-2016)was an influential playwright in the history of the American theater.Albee was very much concerned about human existence and as a prolific writer,his plays cover a wide range of topics and themes,among which the exploration on human alienation has been a coherent one throughout his writing career.Besides,Albee particularly paid attention to man’s relation to animals,with various animal characters in his plays which reveals his attitude towards human alienation and his ways to deal with it.This thesis intends to figure out the possible reasons behind the alienation issue reflected in Albee’s plays and the links between human alienation and those animal characters at different stages of his literary creation.By virtue of Erich Fromm’s theory of alienation,this thesis will analyze man’s relation to other men,to oneself and to nature so as to get a comprehensive understanding on human alienation reflected in Albee’s plays.This thesis consists of five parts.The first chapter is the introduction of this research,including research background and theoretical framework.The emphasis of this chapter is to find out the possible reasons accounting for the alienation issue in Albee’s plays through the joint analysis on his relevant life experience,social context and his writing intension as well as philosophical foundation.The following three chapters are respectively the analysis on human alienation reflected in three plays of Albee at different stages of his literary creation.Specifically,chapter two deals with Albee’s earlier work The Zoo Story which mainly reflects man’s alienation from others in a materialistic society where men are surrounded by indifference and isolation.People fail to reach contact with others so that they could only seek breakthroughs by turning to animals.Then chapter three discusses Albee’s later work Seascape which reveals man’s self-alienation and marks his discovery of the root of human alienation in the context of evolution.And chapter four focus on Albee’s play in the 21 century The Goat,or Who’s Sylvia? In this play Albee exposes the extreme of human alienation,that is,man’s alienation from nature.Through the analysis of the tragedy caused by the intercourse between the protagonist Martin and the goat,conclusion can be drawn that in this play Albee expresses his concern about the opposition between man and nature and man’s extreme way to reconnect with nature.