Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

1. -Sex and infidelity are mostly used as weapons
   1. -Characters commit sexual acts or threaten them as way of gaining power over each other
      1. -These attemps at true intimacy are short lived
         1. -Sex is a tool for battle
            1. The sex life that George and Martha have is almost inexistance. At the beggining of the play George did not even want to kiss her
            2. Nick might want to sleep with Martha because she is the daughter of the university director and he looks forward to rise in the Biology Department.
            3. Honey is portraited as a character who is not very intelligent. That's why she does not realises that Nick and Martha are flirting each other.
            4. George rejects Martha´s sexual advances because the relationship is devastated. They had been together for a long time and Martha is very insistant, as a consequence, George is tired.
            5. Martha says in the play that she has a would be infidelities. Probably as she been unfaithful to George with Nicky, she done with many others.

1. George and Martha
   1. George and Martha's dissatisfaction with each other is clearly reflected by the way and the amount of time they spend fighting. During those fight it's when the reader sees their deepest and harshest feelings from one another.
      1. Martha is also dissatisfied with herself.
         1. The fact that she doesn't have a baby torments her so much that she managed to create an imaginary child in order to fullfill her feeling of emptyness
         2. Martha is probably unhappy because she knows George really did love her and even though all these years have gone by, she was never able to love him back.
2. Nick and Honey
   1. Nick is unhappy due to the fact that honey's hysterical pregnancy has "tied" him to a relationship from which he doesn't seem to like being a part of.
   2. Nick is also dissatisfied with his current job. The fact that George hasn't been promoted in his whole life makes him believe the same will happen to him, and he'll end up as unhappy and depressed as George now is.
3. Can dissatisfaction be a good thing?
   1. Not during the play, but when people use it as a tool in order to be motivated and improve, it can be helpful.

Attachments:

• Themes SND and WAoVW

1. The characters begin the play drinking until dawn
   1. Alcoholism is a form of illusion as it is used as a way to avoid the uncomfortable truths of their lives.
      1. Martha and George have a complicate relationship where Martha is an alcoholic and her husband accompany her drinking some alcohol.
         1. In the play it exists a parallelism between George and Nick as they are both social drinkers whilst their couples depends on alcohol to escape from obligations.
         2. George at the beggining of the play, play a submissive role in preparing Martha's drinks as he is tired of listening to his wife screams, but later in the play, this changes as George is the one who has the power.
      2. Martha's life depends on alcohol as she uses it to hide from the reality
2. The choice of beverage from each characters relfects their personality.
   1. George and Nick social drinkers, that is why they drink Bourbon.
   2. Martha drinks Gin, a powerful beverage, she get drunk because she is afraid of reality and use it as a way to keep calm
   3. Honey, naive character, drink Brandy only to get herself drunk.

1. Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf is a reflection of the USA in the 60's
   1. people had no dreams, nothing to hope for. War could have started at any moment. So happines, dreams and hope were all devastated
2. tensions of the Cold War are represented by the battles in the relationships of the play
   1. George and Martha don't represent the concept of the typical American family in which everyone is happy and it seems as there are no problems. they show what is under the Surface, behind the image of the American family.
   2. there are two sides clearly visible in the couples. Nick and Honey represent the future while George and Martha represent the past and are in their own "war".
      1. Nick and Honey show the new ideals (communism for example) representing a threat to the ones that America supported.
3. the play shows topics such as the death of the american dream and fears of a nuclear holocaust