Open Prompt VI Revised: March 6th--The First Scene of the American Dream (the Sequel)

1972. In retrospect, the reader often discovers that the first chapter of a novel or the opening scene of a drama introduces some of the major themes of the work. Write an essay about the opening scene of a drama or the first chapter of a novel in which you explain how it functions in this way.

The first scene of a great literary work traditionally provides a "road map" of the plot and introduces many key themes of the work .  The American Dream, by Edward Albee, uses parallel symbolism to hint at the plot of the play, and the problems Albee sees with our society.  From the moment the curtain rises, the reader is alerted to the tensions in the all American family and the consumer ideals of modern society—all the problems that Albee wants to address. 

                Even before a single word is spoken, the reader is introduced to a prevalent issue in the work: Mommy and Daddy’s bad relationship.  Albee gives few stage directions, but when he does give them, they are meant to serve and very important and significant purpose.  The stage that the audience sees as The American Dream begins is the means through which Albee introduces the problematic American household.  In the stage directions, Albee indicated that there are to be two chairs, facing opposite one another at an angle, so that they do not directly confront one another, but instead halfway face the audience, with a two-person couch between them.  Mommy and Daddy are to be seated in these chairs.  The fact that Mommy and Daddy are not seated comfortably together in the “love seat” alerts the audience to the fact that theirs is a relationship which is clearly rocky or even lacking love altogether.  The result achieved by their opposing positions shows the audience that they are in fact on opposing sides, perhaps even locked in a two-person argument, while the angling toward the audience both foreshadows the audience’s later connection with the characters through Grandma, and hints toward the passive-aggressive nature of their relationship.  Albee introduces perhaps the most obvious issue of the play in the first scene, and so begins to make his argument: something is wrong here; something is wrong with the American family.

                Once the characters do begin speaking, another major theme of the play is introduced: the impending arrival of “them”; that is, the corporate entity that is Mrs. Barker.  Mommy opens her disjointed conversation with “I don’t know what can be keeping them.”  Initially, the reader does not realize that “them” is in fact Mrs. Barker, but in hindsight, she is the expected visitor. Toward the end of the play, it is apparent that Ms. Barker represents big business and corporations, and this is hinted at in the early part of the play through the use of the third person plural.  Her arrival is not just alluded to in this first scene, but openly discussed.  This is also the second thing the reader notices, and in this way Albee sets up a chronological summary through his first scene: first, the problem relationship, second, the arrival of Mrs. Barker.

The third major subject of the play is foreshadowed later on in the conversation between Mommy and Daddy, when Mommy begins to tell Daddy of her consumer woes.  She tells him, in great detail, that she bought a beige hat, but then the chairman of her woman’s club (a figure of power and wealth) told her it was wheat, and so she took it back to the store, and got another hat back, exactly the same color as the one before.  Bizarrely, Mommy seems to realize that it was the same exact hat, but the satisfaction of her outing seems to come from throwing a fit and getting what she wanted.  This story introduces several themes which are on Albee’s radar throughout the play: consumerism, the American way of pandering to those rich and powerful to “climb the social ladder”, and the childishness of Mommy and Daddy through the childish language Mommy uses when telling the story.  However, the most important function this story serves is to essentially summarize Mommy and Daddy’s lives.  They bought a baby, the twin of the Young Man, symbolized by the beige hat Mommy first purchased.  They were then unsatisfied with him, and so through Mrs. Barker (who is the chairman of the woman’s club) got another child.  This child was the Young Man, the spitting image of the child before, just like the second hat was exactly the same as the first one.  In this simple hat story, Albee outlines for the reader the entire plot of the play and also shows the problematic society in which people treat everything, including their family, as a shallow consumer item, through the parallels between the hats and the children.

                Mommy’s story about her customer dissatisfaction both introduces major themes of consumerism and shallowness prevalent throughout the play, and takes the reader (or viewer) through the entire plot.  By introducing Mommy and Daddy’s flawed relationship first, through the cold and opposing set, Albee sets a chronological summary of his play and its arguments in motion.  He shows the reader that in the beginning of the work, Mommy and Daddy will have a bad relationship, in the middle Mrs. Barker will arrive, and in the end, they will get a new hat and a new baby, and be temporarily satisfied.  In this microcosm, the reader can clearly see that Mrs. Barker (big business) is the enabler of the vicious cycle.  Through showing the reader that the hats, and in turn the first child and the Young Man, were the same, Albee hints to the reader that at the end of the play, the “satisfaction” will not last.  Because the characters have only been temporarily fooled, and because the “hat” is exactly the same, Albee shows the reader that the consumer and materialistic society in the play, and the society in real life which Albee intends it to comment on, is a problematic one which will never end with happiness.