The Representation Of Consumer Culture In Edward Albee's Early Plays

Edward Albee(1928-2016)is one of the most distinguished playwrights in America.He contributed to the world more than thirty plays,some of which were adapted from novels.In his plays,he made America the representative of the decline of the western civilization by depicting the life of the middle-class people.Albee's early plays,such as The Zoo Story,The American Dream,and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,are featured with absurd elements which are used to serve his social criticism.Scholars from around the world have studied Albee's early plays from a variety of perspectives,including gender studies,spatial criticism,psychological analysis,naturalism,existentialism,expressionism,etc.However,they have rarely studied Albee's works from the perspective of consumerism,though it is the major background for Albee's early plays.Some researches mention the materiality and commodity fetishism in Albee's characters,but their concentration is not enough.In order to better grasp and decode Albee's social criticism and his concern for the societal problems,a research specially focusing on the consumer culture presented in his early plays is necessarily needed.This thesis examines the consumer culture revealed in Albee's three early plays in The Zoo Story,The American Dream,and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?based on Mike Featherstone's theory of consumer culture.It deals with different perspectives of consumer culture embodied in these three plays.The first is the consumption of the symbolic value of merchandise as the new tendency of consumer culture in The Zoo Story.Motivated by the economic prosperity after WWII,the daily need of life was no longer a problem,and the symbolic value invested in the commodity began to be explored and employed.Consuming the symbolic value looked more important than the behavior of merely buying or consuming the products.The symbolic value embodied in the possessions of Peter is considered as a tool for class differentiation and thus the social value is accepted unconsciously by him but picked out and debunked by Jerry.The second is the production of consumption and the inhumanity caused by undue desire of material in The American Dream.The play shows that people are no longer the owner of the material,but the slave of consumer culture and the extension of the products they buy.The couple in this play,Mommy and Daddy,buy a baby from Mrs.Barker which they feel disappointed so they kill him and request for refund.Their act of buying and murdering the child indicates the death of humanity and their surrender to consumerism.The Third is the consuming of pleasure and its subversive effects in Who 's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.In some liminal spaces,such as a night party,in which the everyday world is turned upside down,the taboo is broken,and impossible dreams could be expressed.With discipline and control,people's consumption of games,art,and other products is an act of destroying the excess of consumer goods,which would bring life aesthetic pleasure and amusements.As a result,people could open up themselves to a variety of emotional experiences which would enrich their life.The main characters Martha and George are found to consume liquor,game,and other things as the escapism from consumer society,which is negative and also not beneficial for improving their life.However,they can restrain themselves to strike a balance between hedonism and rationality in their life so as to resist against the manipulation of consumerism.By analyzing the characters,dramatic dialogues and the settings in Albee's early plays,we can better grasp how consumer culture is presented in these plays.We can also see how the loss and confusion of the people are revealed in the postmodern society featured by material abundance,prevailing consumerism,and chaotic social order,so as to criticize the complacency of the American society,the unconsidered acceptance of consumer behavior,and the lack of self-introspection at large.The study of Albee's early plays is expected to give us a lesson on how to keep a delicate balance in our life instead of losing ourselves in the material world.