Summary and Analysis of The American Dream

Setting:
The 1950s, in the living room of a middle-class American family's apartment.

Author:

The American Dream was written in 1960 by an American playwright named Edward Albee. He’s famous for writing plays that reflect modernist ideas of the post-WWII era. Many of his plays are part of the Theater of the Absurd, including The Zoo Story and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Setting:

The play takes place in the living room of a family apartment. It’s a very generic setting, a familiar scene to middle-class Americans. Though the time period is unspecified, the play most likely takes place during the 1950s or 60s, the era of consumerism.

Characters:        

Mommy is a cruel, authoritative, selfish woman. Since she was little, she manipulated others for her personal gain and always intended to marry a rich man. She treats her husband, Daddy, like a disposable tool rather than a person. In one instance, she tells Daddy, “I can live off you because I married you,” indicating that she values her husband because of his wealth, and nothing more. This quote also shows her attitude of being self-entitled to everything. Throughout the play, she constantly belittles and patronizes him. In an overt display of her aggressive and sadistic nature, Mommy also remarks, “WHAT a masculine Daddy! Isn’t he a masculine Daddy?” This quote fully displays her outright lack of human  for Daddy. She’s also very pretentious.

Although he’s a man, Daddy is a powerless and impotent character. He often acquiesces to Mommy’s domineering personality. When Mommy openly demeans Daddy, he never tries to defend his dignity. To add to this, Daddy has a physical disability that perpetuates his powerless persona: sexual impotency. He is a thoroughly emasculated character, both internally and physically.

Grandma is a character who takes on the role of a bystander rather than a real participant in the play. Unlike the other characters, Grandma isn’t pretentious. Her dialogue is often gruff and brusque. She doesn’t get treated well by Mommy or Mrs. Barker. Yet, the reader should recognize and appreciate Grandma’s genuineness because of how it contrasts with the other characters. If Grandma wasn’t in the play, we might have a harder time realizing how pretentious the other characters really are.

               

Plot summary:

The American Dream starts out with Mommy and Daddy sitting in their apartment living room, having a dull conversation and complaining about someone being late. Mommy begins describing the time she went shopping for a hat and made a giant fuss over the color. Grandma enters the room carrying a lot of wrapped boxes. Mommy comments on how nicely the boxes are wrapped. She then tells a story from her childhood, describing how Grandma would pack her lunch in nicely wrapped boxes, which Mommy wouldn’t open. Mommy would take sympathy food from her classmates during lunchtime and bring her unopened lunch back home for Grandma to eat. Now that Mommy has married Daddy, who is rich, Mommy says that she’s entitled to everything Daddy has. The doorbell rings and Daddy hesitates to open it. But when Mommy coaxes him and tells him he’s masculine, Daddy finally opens the door to let Mrs. Barker come in. Although Mrs. Barker seems to know the Mommy, Daddy, and Grandma, they don’t seem to remember Mrs. Barker very well. Mrs. Barker takes off her dress, making Daddy uncomfortable. The four of them sit down and talk about numerous small things. Throughout, Mommy and Grandma have arguments with one another. Daddy leaves the room after Mommy tells him to find Grandma’s television and break it. Mommy makes a snide allusion to the fact that Mrs. Barker’s husband is in a wheel-chair. Mrs. Barker becomes uncomfortable, so Mommy leaves the room to get her some water. While they’re out of the room, Mommy and Daddy struggle to find Grandma’s room. Grandma smugly remarks that she has hidden everything. Now that she’s alone with Mrs. Barker, Grandma begins to tell Mrs. Barker the reason why she’s here. Years ago, Mommy and Daddy adopted a baby from the adoption center Mrs. Barker works for. Mommy got annoyed with the baby’s habits, so she murdered it by cutting its body parts off. After Grandma’s story, the doorbell rings and Grandma finds a handsome young man at the door. Grandma calls him the American Dream because of his perfect physical appearance. The young man is the twin brother of the baby that Mommy murdered long ago. He lacks the ability to feel emotion or love, in ways that parallel his twin’s chopped-off body parts. Just like how the baby twin had its eyes ripped out by Mommy, the young man lacks the ability to look at people with pity. The young man explains that he’s looking for a job so that he can make money. Mommy sees the handsome young man and immediately becomes pleased with him. She takes him in, just like she adopted his twin (it’s implied that the young man has been “hired” to satisfy her sexually). The play ends right there, after Grandma leaves the house.

Author’s Style:

Albee’s choice to write The American Dream in only one act and one setting is important for the point of view. The entire play is set in the living room of Mommy and Daddy’s apartment home. This generic and static setting serves to emphasize the play’s focus on the reality of a consumerist family lifestyle and not a doctored image. With this setting, it feels as if the reader is taking a candid, uncensored look at the happenings of Mommy and Daddy’s life.

There is no spectacular action or frantic drama in the play. The imagery found in the dialogue of the play is generally dull. Even when Grandma is describing the time when Mommy mutilated her adopted son, she doesn’t use the image-invoking or emotional words that would warranted for such a violent thing. The plain and emotionless words in the dialogue create a surface appearance of a peaceful, untroubled family. But after discovering the horrors of Mommy’s sadistic nature and actions, the reader will realize that the lack of strong imagery in the play is a deceptive veil.

Theme:

A major theme of the book is the idea that surface appearances are often incongruous with reality. Behind the façade of Mommy and Daddy’s happy American lifestyle, there are many distressing things that go on. The play opens up with Mommy and Daddy having a mundane conversation in a plain living room, talking about fixing the toilet. This boring opening creates the impression that their lives are so untroubled that fixing the toilet is one of their biggest problems. But later, we learn about disturbing issues like Mommy’s sadistic control over Daddy, Daddy’s sexual impotency, and their mutilated adopted son.

This theme is supported by Albee’s choice of title for the play. The American Dream was written in the 1960s, a time where consumerism became a huge part of American culture. During this era, American people saw numerous magazine ads, TV commercials, and billboards that depicted middle-class American families living happily in houses with the latest household appliances and products (TVs, refrigerators, washers, toys, etc). Eventually, this culture of consumerism became a big part of the prevailing image of the happy American family. In the minds of many Americans, living the American dream meant buying a lot of things. As its title suggests, The American Dream is meant to pick apart the illusion of this so-called “American dream” and reveal how it’s incongruous with reality.

This general theme of reality clashing with image is symbolized by the handsome young man, whom Grandma calls the American Dream. The fact that this young man shares his name with the title of the play is very significant and should lead us to believe that he symbolizes a major theme of the play, which he does. In fact, he perfectly embodies the theme. On the outside, he’s young and handsome, and appears to have the potential to succeed. But as he later reveals, he’s empty inside. He can’t feel love, affection, pity, or even lust. His surface appearance is incongruous with reality, just like many of the things in the play.