A Study Of Point Of View In Albee’s Dramatic Texts

Edward Albee is one of the most influential playwrights in American Theatre, whois also the winner of three Pulitzer prizes for drama and a Nobel Prize for literature. Theresearch on his plays in the West began in the1960s. His popularity rose sharply in thehistory of American theatre, even in the history of the world drama. His creation on thetheme and style are both influenced by the European playwrights. Albee profoundlyexposed the ugly phenomenon in social reality. In The Sandbox, the playwright showshuman’s tininess in the vast expanse of the universe and life is meaningless from oneside; from another side, he attacks the ills of American society indignantly and reflectsthe tragedy of the old people who are abandoned by their children. In American Dreamand Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, this kind of social criticism tendency also exists.Albee’s many plays are developed from the social phenomenon, but Albee favors to bedetached from this kind of social criticism and then manifests a “common suffering” ofhuman. He also prefers that the concerned questions in his one-act plays areconcentrated in a narrow range: the fragility of family, cultural impoverishment, thehuman predicament and so on. This aspect is the place where Albee differs fromEuropean absurdist playwrights. This thesis selects Albee’s early four representativeworks--the Zoo Story (1958), the American Dream (1960), the Sandbox (1960) andWho’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1960)--to explore the narrative perspective features inAlbee’s dramatic texts.As an important aspect of narrative techniques, Narrative perspective has also beenconcerned by many scholars. Narrative Perspective proposed by Genette is mainlycomposed of three parts: the external focalization narrative, the internal focalizationnarrative and the zero focalization narrative. External focalization is described from theoutside by the narrator who is standing an unknown perspective. The narrator says lessthan characters know. Internal focalization is narrated from a perspective of a characterin the story. The narrator just tells the information the characters know. In zerofocalization, the narrator knows more than any other characters in the story. These threeperspectives have played different functions and have a very important influence on thedevelopment of the whole story. The research method of this thesis is exemplification analysis. The first is collectingthe variety of data which are related to the study context. The author needs to pick upsome data for the research from The Zoo Story, American Dream, Who’s Afraid ofVirginia Woolf? and The Sandbox. Then, the analysis is to develop on the basis of thecollected data and materials. The thesis also pays attention to the collection of therelated perspective theories in order to lay solid foundation for the later investigation.Data and theories are both important for they will play important role in how to developthe whole story.Attempting to use Genette’s narrative perspective theory, this thesis carries out amore detailed analysis on the narrative perspectives reflecting in Albee’s four earlyworks. Albee’s first work is The Zoo Story, which creates the precedent of the absurd ofthe American theater, and opens the prelude of American theater of the absurd. It hasthe obvious features of the Theatre of the Absurd: the absurd plot, absurd characters andabsurd language, which reflect the absurd themes. Subsequently, The Sandbox is theshortest play to commemorate Grandma, which is also considered to be a typical theaterof the absurd, with a strong feature of America. The American Dream has exposed thecontradiction and crisis existing in the modern American family, which successfullyportrays the loneliness, alienation and despair of the ordinary people in America. Thelast one is Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which is the most famous and influentialplay of Albee.By applying Genette’s perspective theories, the thesis analyzes the variousperspectives in Albee’s plays and attempts to investigate the effects created by usingdifferent perspectives in Albee’s four plays. It is hoped that people will understandAlbee’s plays deeply and it also hoped that my study will cast a clue and provide a newangle for the future study of Albee’s plays.