Open Prompt 3: The American Dream

2002. Morally ambiguous characters -- characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good -- are at the heart of many works of literature. Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then write an essay in which you explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

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I once read that 'Only crazy people see things in black and white'; that the reality exists in all shades of grey, that for every good there is also a bad. In Edward Albee's play The American Dream, exists a character named Mommy, a figure of a scheming, witty, impatient woman. Though, with all her bad qualities, the reader never identifies her as 'evil' nor 'good', because, through a litany of literary techniques, Albee was able to characterize Mommy so that she comes to life, where, in her, resides both the good and bad of humanity.

Albee's play showed a classic dysfunctional American family, one where no one in the household can have satisfaction, where the past plays not role in the present and every moment could act independently from the moment before. Albee writes a play based on the idea of The Theater of the Absurd, bringing into light the consumerism of the American society. 

A key player in Albee's play is Mommy, who is shown to be childish and scheming yet kind, sometimes mean yet humanizing all at the same time; much of this characterization is shown through his use of language and detail. Mommy's initial characterization comes in the first couple pages of the text where she throws a very childish temper tantrum over a wheat/beige colored hat. That language that Albee uses to show Mommy's personality is very distinct; there are many 'ands' and 'she said/he said' characteristic of how a child would tell a story. Furthermore, the contrasting language between how she treats Grandma are very contrasting, at one moment she pitys Grandma, in another she is telling her to "Shut up", however she cries when Grandma is taken by the 'van man'. The varying reactions to Grandma is characteristic of any child throughout their lives, carrying a love-hate relationship to their care givers. Finally, Albee details the readers into Mommy's childhood, showing how guile Mommy can be, deceiving other children that she does not have a lunch so that she could save food. All in all, Albee uses various techniques to show the shades of grays in Mommy's personality and characters, both the good and bad.

In The American Play, one of the biggest reveals is the fact that Mommy and Daddy had an adopted son in which they disemboweled and murdered, however, even then Mommy is not shown the be evil or antagonistic. Part of this comes from Mommy's symbolic nature, representative of the materialistic and shallow America, where Mommy isn't an individual entity, she is one part of a whole society that Albee is representing through her. Because she is representing the nature of humans, Albee knows that humans are inherently childish, scheming, unsatisfactory creatures and draws from it. 

Through his portrayal of Mommy, The American Dream is further heighten because it fits into the imagery the playwrite has created; Grandma as the old American Dream, the Young Man as the current American Dream and Mommy as the changing character who picks and chooses which dream she wants. Albee is showing the reader what could become because naturally, being humans, everyone is at one time or another, childish and hateful, kind yet resentful and hopeful.