america is number one

Author: The American Dream was written by Edward Albee and first performed in 1961, when the Absurdism movement was well underway. Having written other Absurdist pieces, including The Zoo Story and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?, Albee was prominent in the movement.

Setting: The play takes place in an apartment, presumably in some city. The time period is never specified, though one can assume it takes place in the 1950s. The apartment itself has many problems (the john, icebox, and doorbell are broken) but Daddy is supposedly rich, so it isn't clear how nice the apartment is. The vague details about setting allow the play's themes to be applied more widely.

Plot: Mommy and Daddy are sitting, complaining about their late visitor. Mommy begins to recall her conflict at the hat store, despite Daddy's apparent lack of interest. She commands him to listen to her rant about the store passing a wheat hat off as beige, and he does. Grandma enters the room, carrying a lot of nicely wrapped mystery boxes. She rants about being old. Mommy tells Daddy the story of the phrase "day-old cake" in which she deceives her schoolmates to get free food. Grandma calls Mommy a gold-digger. The bickering subsides, and Mommy and Daddy's guest arrives. For some reason, sexual tension mounts as Daddy prepares to open the door, until it's broken by Grandma. Mrs. Barker then enters. They all make pleasant conversation, and a subtle power struggle begins between Mommy and Mrs. Barker, and to a lesser extent, Grandma. Mommy suggests that Mrs. Barker take off her dress, which she does, creating some more sexual tension. By now, everybody has forgotten why Mommy and Daddy called Mrs. Barker in the first place. It comes to light that Daddy had an operation, and then more bickering. Eventually, Grandma is left alone with Mrs. Barker. Grandma tells Mrs. Barker about the child Mommy and Daddy adopted and mutilated. They want to adopt another child. A Young Man comes to the door, and Grandma invites him in. She refers to him as The American Dream, and after some fawning, she asks him to help her move her boxes outside. Grandma leaves, leaving the Young Man in her place. Grandma watches from the audience as Mommy, Daddy, Mrs. Barker, and the Young Man celebrate their satisfaction.

Characters:

1. Mommy is an immature, superficial control freak. She will do anything to get what she wants, including throwing fits, using sex, and killing babies. She butts heads with Mrs. Barker and occasionally Grandma when she feels she isn't in control of the situation. She values money and power. She clearly wears the pants in her marriage, regularly asserting dominance over the effeminate Daddy.
2. Daddy is spineless. He is easily manipulated by Mommy when she essentially holds his masculinity in front of him like a carrot in front of a horse, if that's a valid simile. He sticks up for Grandma at times, but still bows to Mommy in the end. He had an operation and may or may not be literally emasculated.
3. Grandma is the only character with any depth. She rants about how badly old people have it, and is constantly berated by Mommy. She has a moral base, and is capable of logical thought. She is the only character that knows what is really happening over the course of the play. Going into the audience, she seems to transcend reality at the play's close. She represents the original American Dream.
4. The Young Man is a physically attractive character who says he would do anything for money. The murder of his twin brother by Mommy and Daddy stripped him of his ability to feel. He represents the new American Dream, focused on money, and the fall of the old American Dream.
5. Mrs. Barker is a condescending character much like Mommy. She is materialistic, like Mommy, and controlling, like Mommy. For one reason or another, she is always referred to in the third-person. She is described as a professional woman.

Style: The American Dream is not considered Absurdist because the story has a resolution: Grandma leaves and the Young Man stays. Despite this, it still features many Absurdist elements. The story is full of repetition, from certain phrases to topics. It's frequently said in the play that "you just can't get satisfaction these days," for example (76). Everything also always returns to Grandma's boxes. The play doesn't exactly have a point of view. It's just dialogue and stage directions. The tone of the piece is lighthearted and jolly; awkward or morbid topics are talked about in a way that doesn't dampen anybody's spirit. Symbols include Mommy's hat, Grandma, the Young Man, and the mutilated bumble of joy, representing consumerism, the pure American Dream, the corrupt American Dream, and the death of moral values, respectively. Not much imagery is present in the play.

Theme: Materialism and self-centeredness have corrupted the moral American Dream.
Many of the themes of the piece are common in the Theatre of the Absurd as well: the "sterility and lack of values in the modern world, breakdown of communication, [and] civilized people acting in uncivilized and barbaric ways" (that one existentialism/TOTA handout). Grandma's replacement by the Young Man illustrates the theme of lost values, and sterility is a doubly fitting word, given Daddy's emasculation. The breakdown of communication is evident in the fact that nobody other than Grandma knows what's happening, and most of the dialogue is insincere. Infanticide is also apparently totally normal in the world of The American Dream because nobody bats an eyelash at the grotesque way in which Mommy and Daddy killed their baby. All of these tie together into the statement above. As said earlier, the vagueness of the setting doesn't restrict the application of the themes. The lighthearted tone and cryptic nature of the play make it hard to vehemently attack it. The title's relation is a no-brainer.

Two more quotes that I didn't work into the thing above:
"Boy, you know what you are, don't you? You're the American Dream, that's what you are." (108)
There's some repetition in this quote, like the rest of the piece. It also establishes the symbols of the Old and New American Dreams.
"bumble of joy" (wherever)
The bumble of joy could represent how this alternate world is still different from ours, but oh so similar as well.