Edward Albee's mother characters and the American dream

Edward Albee's plays display a mixture of realistic, absurd, and avant-garde characteristics. With his plays, Albee's purpose is to effect a change in society's culture and customs. Albee's underlying theme is that individuals should actively shape their own society and not leave the determination of social standards to others. He conveys this idea through the actions of his characters, whether they range between the absurd and realistic. Albee has, with each of his characters, explored the differences between people who escape their obligations and those who engage in life. Albee's characters choose either to accept a value system that they do not fit into or to rage against that value system and create one based on their own individuality. When a character tries to fit into a false value system, that character is portrayed with absurd qualities. However, when a character creates her or his own value system, Albee depicts the character realistically. Albee uses these spectra of absurdity and realism as he develops most of his characters; however, this study focuses on Albee's female characters, specifically real mothers, those female characters who have children, and imaginary or non-mothers, those female characters who do not have children. In both cases, the motherhood or non-motherhood of the character is an important aspect of that character's development, which allows Albee to comment on The American Dream, at least as it was desired by American women of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.