In Edward Albee's The American Dream, a parallel society is present in our society's stead. In this society, desire for power, materialism and selfishness are emphasized. This causes Grandma to leave and kill the problem.
Power is emphasized by characters like Mommy. She is the dominant figure in the household, compared to the stereotypical male-lead American household. This is because she forces Daddy to get a sex change so she can assert her dominance. She wants more and more power causing Grandma, who represents the old world ideals of pulling oneself up by their own bootstraps, to leave hire the Young Man to kill Mommy and Daddy. Mommy tries to control Grandma, but this causes Grandma to hide her belongings and eventually leave.
Materialism forces Grandma to leave and kill Mommy and Daddy. Mommy and her desire for more goods is present from birth. Grandma talks about how Mommy only cared about the outside of the way Grandma packed her lunches. She would not even open her lunch because it would ruin its shape. She did not look deeper. This is why she cannot find Grandma's stuff when she hides it. Grandma leaves because of this materialism.
Lastly, selfishness causes Grandma to leave. No one in the family cares for each other. Daddy is a puppet of Mommy, and Mommy takes everything that she can. She taunts the characters like Daddy, and cannot even be bothered to remember Ms. Barker's name. Grandma does not jive well with this and gets the Young Man to kill Mommy and Daddy so she does not have to deal with it anymore.
Desire for power, materialism and selfishness cause Grandma to leave the society created by the likes of Mommy and Daddy. The American Dream's society is so unlike the old one, that Grandma leaves, and purges the household.
Nick,
ReplyDeleteGreat job! Not very many people chose to use The American Dream in their posts so kudos to you! Way to step outta the box!
You might want to include the prompt at the beginning of the post to make it a bit easier for the reader, but its not a big deal.
I think you did a great job with the essay. You remained consistent to your thesis throughout the entire thing. However I think you should try to include more of the plot as a whole in the essay. It seemed like that was something that the essay graders were looking for in the documents that we had to read for the first open prompt posts.
Hey Nick,
ReplyDeleteWow you went really far back. I didn’t even know that the ap exam went back to 1970. Also like Abby said you should add the prompt to the beginning. I think you should add something about the overall meaning of the play and incorporate the theme that we all came up with in class into it somehow. Also you talk about how materialism forces Grandma to leave and I don’t really agree with that. I may be wrong but you have Grandma paying the young man to kill Mommy and Daddy as one of your main things but that never actually happens. It’s something that came up outside of the play so I don’t know if you can actually use that. Maybe as a little add in for support but not as a main point. Overall I think you’re off to a good start.
Hey Son,
ReplyDeleteI like way you think ;).
Wow really though, 1970. That's like your dad's pro futbol days isn't it?
I have to agree with Melissa a little bit about throwing a theme in there somewhere... You did a good job sticking to your thesis, like Abby said. You were also true to your comments on others' essays and were appropriately concise. Attaboy