Embracing the Absurd of a Meaningless Life: Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance

• Main Author: Andra Elena AGAFIȚEI
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Casa Cărții de Știință 2015-12-01
• Series: Cultural Intertexts
• Subjects: american studies; theatre of the absurd; drama; family
• Online Access: http://files.cultural-intertexts.webnode.com/200000270-1cf6c1cf6e/06-09%20Agafitei%20-%20Embracing%20the%20Absurd%20of%20a%20Meaningless%20Life%20%E2%80%93%20Edward%20Albee-s%20A%20Delicate%20Balance.pdf
• ISSN: 2393-0624; 2393-1078

The passing of time, the development of technologies and services and the emancipation of women are just some of the elements that have brought their contribution to the shaping of the new American family. In the modern American family, everything has suffered immense transformations, starting with the role reversal between the husband and wife and ending with the altered relationships with the other members of the family. The American home has become just a simple house, a space in which love, affection, mutual respect, comfort, and security are no longer its attributes. The home is not a shelter anymore, but a hiding place; a place in which the spouses, who have grown so accustomed to each other that they have nothing else to talk about, choose to live their meaningless lives, waiting for the final moment of existence – death. One such couple, who fears and denies reality and tries to escape into the comfortable world of illusion, is the one Edward Albee presents in A Delicate Balance. The present paper aims at awakening the readers’ consciousness regarding their condition as human beings “trapped” in an absurd world, the purpose being that of bringing forth the social function of the Theatre of the Absurd.