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In The New York Times Magazine (February 25, 1962), Albee protested against the view that his plays, and others of the so-called theater of the absurd, are depressing. To what extent does this statement help you to understand (and to enjoy) The Sandbox? 6. The play K is a condemnation of complacency, cruelty, emasculation and vacuity it is a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen. In a longer play, The American Dream, Albee uses the same four characters that he uses in The Sandbox. What do you make of the sandbox? Is it an image of the grave, with suggestions that life is meaningless and sterile? Or is it an image only of the sterility of life in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century? Does the fact that Grandma was married to a farmer suggest an alternative way of life? Explain.ĥ. Why, in your opinion, does Albee insist in the first stage direction that the scene be "a bare stage"? Do you think a naturalistic setting would in some way diminish the play? Explain.Ĥ. Of the four characters in the play, which do you find the most sympathetic? Exactly why? Set forth your answer, with supporting evidence, in a paragraph, or perhaps in two paragraphs Xthe first devoted to the three less sympathetic characters, and the second devoted to the most sympathetic character.ģ. By the way, why doesn ¦t Albee give them names?Ģ. In a sentence, characterize mommy, and in another sentence characterize Daddy. In fact, the most useful function of this list may be that it will stimulate you to think about ways in which the play departs from itġ. In thinking about (and in reading) The Sandbox, you may find that it does indeed embody some of these characteristics, but of course it may embody other qualities, too, and some of the points listed may not be relevant. The plays are relatively plotless (nothing much seems to happen). Characters behave illogically, speak in clichés, rarely if ever communicate with each other, and seem to have no clearly defined coherent characters.ĥ.
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The plays are serious but often (or at least intermittently) comic, especially satiric.Ī) human loneliness in a world without God,Ĭ) the dehumanization and impotence of individuals in a bourgeois society, andĤ. The plays are §theatrical ¨ rather than realistic, often setting forth obviously impossible situations with obviously unreal characters.Ģ. In fact, we urge you, after reading the list, to think about the ways in which Albee ¦s The Sandbox does NOT quite fit the list.ġ. We do not mean, of course, that all of these qualities are found in all of their works. Here we can briefly list the characteristics usually found in the works of these playwrights. Generally speaking, the theater of writers as Beckett, Ionesco, Pinter, and Albee is called the theatre of the absurd.
Theme of the play the sandbox by edward albee full#
Obvious symbolic meaning is that the sandbox which is square and full of sand is made to keep in whoever is placed there much like a coffin.
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a strong connection between the very old and infant, both are unable to care for themselves, both require an inordinate amount of patience from whoever is responsible.In Albee's "The Sandbox," the scene is a bare stage on which the stage-center is "a large child's sandbox with a toy pail and shovel."