CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter is divided into two sub-chapters, which is Existentialism as Philosophical

Movement and Edward Albee’s Existentialist Stand. The first sub-chapter begins with

information about the history of Existentialism. It serves as background to a discussion of how

Albee relates to this philosophical system.

A. Existentialism as Philosophical Movement

Existentialism is a philosophical movement that developed in the middle of the 20th

century as a revolt against rationality. It rejects the idea that the universe offers any clues about

how humanity should live and focuses on individual existence, freedom and choice.

The very themes of existentialism are themes of life itself: anxiety, the experience of

death, the conflict between the false and genuine self, the faceless man of the masses and the

experience of the death of God.

The major existentialists are Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger,

Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. They can be put into two categories. The first one is the pure

philosopher like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Heidegger, and the second one is the literary figures

of existentialism like Camus and Sartre. It is crucial to comprehend their existential stand in

order to understand how existentialism developed as a philosophical movement.

Of the five influential figures, “Sartre is the clearest and most systematic. Consequently,

detailed illustrations of existentialist themes are more often drawn from the works of Sartre”

(Olson, 1962, p.viii). Therefore, this thesis bases its arguments on Sartre, whom Albee is most

influenced while referring to other philosophers too.

1. Søren Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard is widely regarded as the Father of Existentialism. Most of his works are

reaction against Hegelian philosophy and the state of the church in Europe at the time.

Kierkegaard dislikes Hegelianism for its concept of an objective science of the human spirit

that obscure the nature of Christianity. He claims that existence cannot be described

objectively. He believes truth can only be found through subjectivity. According to him, only

through individual, unique understanding of things shall the truth be found. The uncertainty

of Christianity and one’s relation to it is the highest truth.

“Faith does not result straightforward scholarly deliberation, nor does it come

directly; on the contrary, in this objectivity one loses that infinite, personal,

impassioned interestedness, which is the condition of faith.” (Kierkegaard,

2009, p.67)

However, proposing a different approach such as that causes the birth of “absolute

paradox” (Roubiczek, 1965, p.9) in European minds at the time whose trust in an absolute

reason has remained as the major element of their way of thinking.

“Climacus (Kierkegaard) believes that at the foundation of all thinking is the

idea that the human can understand and transcend something outside of (his)

rationality. This inherent belief allows humans to forget the reality that some

things, like God and Christianity, cannot be explained or understood by human

thought. However, every human still believes they can comprehend it. The

paradox is something that the mind cannot grasp and understanding that the

mind cannot grasp it is a relevant step in understanding Kierkegaard’s

philosophy on religion.” (Andersen, 2005)

In Kierkegaard’s opinion, trusting logic and reasons alone prevent man from really

understanding God and keep them away from really grasping the faith of Christianity. For

him, it is the time for people to start abandoning logic and to take a leap of faith into the

unknown.

“Without risk there is no faith, and the greater the risk the greater the faith; the

more objective security the less inwardness (for inwardness is precisely

subjectivity), and the less objective security the more profound the possible

inwardness.” (Kaufmann, 1956, p. 117)

Kierkegaard also alters the idea of self. “The self is essentially intangible and must be

understood in terms of possibilities, dread and decisions” (Kaufmann, 1956, p.17). For

Kierkegaard, the word ‘existence’ houses all this subjectivity and authenticity in itself.

2. Friedrich Nietzsche

The most well-known characteristics of Nietzsche’s philosophy are probably his

opposition to the existing philosophical systems and an easily noticeable dissatisfaction with

the traditional philosophy because he considers it to be superficial and detached from life.

‘Will to Power’ is possibly the key concept to Nietzsche’s philosophy. According to

Nietzsche, ‘will to power’ is the soul of the world and it is spread among individual human.

Each man is a center of the ‘will to power’ and his existence can be represented as the will to

manage the whole universe.

Even though Nietzsche’s philosophy has some similarities to Kierkegaard, the big

difference is that for Kierkegaard, existence emerge as a philosophical problem in the

struggle to think of the paradoxical presence of God, while for Nietzsche, it emerges from

and in the reflection of his frequent statement that ‘God is dead’.

“God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we

comfort ourselves, the murders of all murderers? What was holiest and

mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our

knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean

ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to

invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves

not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” (Nietzsche, 2001, p.120)

The statement above, unfortunately, is misinterpreted many times as merely an

atheistic declaration, even when it is actually a man’s declaration of his loss of faith.

“Nietzsche recognizes that Christianity has lost its hold over the majority of

the Europeans, especially over the majority of intellectuals… For, as European

civilization had been based on the Christian concept of God, the disappearance

of faith must necessarily leave a void at the very heart of our civilization;

instead of God there is nothing…” (Roubiczek, 1965, p.39)

Nietzsche contemplates on reason why this sense of nothingness is filled with danger.

He indicates that the constantly growing sense of nothingness will destroy man by discarding

more and more values, beliefs, convictions and concepts. Consequently, “In the end, we are

confronted by nothingness as the core of our existence” (Ibid, p.39).

Unlike many philosophers at the times who believe that every problems can be

explained rationally, “…Nietzsche remains aware that, despite all the problems which may

be solved, the fact of existence still represents an insoluble mystery” (Roubiczek, 1965,

p.54). The main reason why Nietzsche can state that is that he knows that, as well as the

disappearance of the Christian concept of God, most other philosophical thoughts have also

lost their meaning.

Nietzsche tries to re-evaluate all thoughts used by human in terms of immanence. It is

because Nietzsche’s principal concern is to be able to find a way to take the measure of

human life in the modern world. Nietzsche arrives at Kierkegaard’s idea that the

autonomous, self-willed individual will be vanished once he rebuffs his subjectivity.

3. Martin Heidegger

Besides Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, another significant central figure of the

existentialist movement is Martin Heidegger. Heidegger tries to justify the absoluteness of

existentialism, the exclusion of essence and objectivity, and the attempt to make the

subjective method all-inclusive by trying to break down the barriers between the objective

and the subjective in different ways than Nietzsche.

In Being and Time, Heidegger states that in order to understand being, man must first

understand “Dasein”. Dasein is a German word which means “being there”. Heidegger uses

the expression to refer to the human kind of being, the form of being who is aware of and

must confront issues such as existence, mortality and the paradox of living in relations with

other humans, even while being ultimately alone (Heidegger, 2001, p. 67-76).

Heidegger’s main interest is in describing existence. He points out that men are what

men can become. Therefore, to Heidegger, becoming is a process towards the future, which

subordinates the past and the present.

Heidegger also invents many new words, “which he himself considers as his main

merit” (Roubiczek, 1965, p.130). Two of his inventions are the words which he uses to

distinguish two ways of existence: the unauthentic for the inferior and the authentic for the

superior. For him, unauthentic existence is an uncritical participation in the world, while

authentic existence involves an analysis and thought of self.

Authentic existence is a conscious return to oneself, which is dissolving into

nothingness. In Heidegger’s existentialism, nothingness surprisingly does not have a negative

charge since “by destroying that which exists, the actually existing things, it produces a

clearing through the wood of these things and in this clearing, existence can lay bare

essentially and reveal itself” (Roubiczek, 1965, p.131). Heidegger states:

“My questioning of the nothing, which arises from the questioning concerning

the truth of be-ing, has nothing at all in common with all of that. The nothing is

neither something negative nor is it a “goal”; rather it is essential enquivering

of be-ing itself and therefore is more-being than any beings.” (Heidegger,

1999, p.187-188)

The result is that existence provides man with an ultimate insight with the help of

nothingness. It is clear that Heidegger affirms that human existence cannot have a

relationship with being unless it remains in the midst of nothingness (Heidegger, 1993, p.93-

110). This sense of nothingness brings ultimate insight together with anguish, which

Heidegger goes into detail to define in his book Basic Writings: from Being and Time (1927)

to the Task of Thinking (1964).

Heidegger searches for “a particular mood that would disclose something essential

about man’s existence as a whole” (Heidegger, 1993, p.90). Eventually, “…he (man) found it

in an anxiety…a malaise at once less identifiable and more oppressive (Ibid.). Heidegger

adds, “In anxiety I realize that I have been ‘thrown’ into the world and… In anxiety, Dasein

finds itself face to face with the nothing of the possible impossibility of its own existence”

(Ibid, p.90).

4. Albert Camus

It is a question whether or not Camus should be considered as an existentialist or an

absurdist. Camus himself does not like to be labeled. The reason why people seem to

consider Camus as one of the existentialist is because of his famous essay, The Myth of

Sisyphus, which depicts a vivid picture about the absurdity of human existence from the

useless labor of Sisyphus. This essay is accepted by many people as the source of inspiration

for many existentialists.

Sisyphus is condemned by gods to roll a rock up to the top of a mountain, only to

have it roll back down again. It displays an absurd hero with a meaningless existence and

monotonous everyday life without any purpose. For this reason, the situation of Sisyphus

implies that even though people are dissatisfied with the world they live in, they feel isolated

and helpless to change it. Camus uses the Theatre of Absurd to describe the situation of

humankind seeking meaning in a universe which does not provide it.

NICK: You’re all crazy; nuts.

MARTHA [affects a brogue]: Awww, ‘tis the refuge we take when the

unreality of the world weights too heavy on our tiny heads. [Normal voice

again] Relax; sink into it; you’re no better than anyone else. (Albee, 1966,

p.111)

Similarly, the dialogue from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf above emphasizes the

burdensome and the absurdity of everyday life. It shows how everyone is the same as

Sisyphus in the end, living in a futile world of pointlessness with many rocks to roll up only

to watch it falling down again.

Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre were friends whom World War II brought

together. They share the same ideas and beliefs. Both of them claim that the universe is

cruelly apart from reason and that there is no God. In this absurd universe without a divinity,

freedom results in a basic despair. Being one of the playwrights of the absurd theatre, Camus

has his own views on it. For Camus, the absurd is not the synonym for the ridiculous, but it is

the true state of existence. He accepts that life is absurd and the absence of universal absolute

logic reigns it.

As seen is the example from Camus’ works, existentialism is not only a philosophy,

but also a literary tendency which displays a devaluation of theories that seek to disguise the

disorderliness of actual human life. Existentialism highlights the subjective realities of

individual existence, choice and freedom.

5. Jean-Paul Sartre

Sartre’s existentialism is the main theory used in this thesis even though the

viewpoints of the other existentialists mentioned above are also referred to. That is because

Albee’s philosophical stand can mostly be found in Sartrean existentialism.

Sartre’s writings set tone for intellectual life and the foundations for the existentialist

view significantly in the decade immediately after the Second World War. In addition to

making existentialism accessible to the people all around the world through his stories,

novels and plays, Sartre also creates great deal of non-literary works in philosophy.

Sartre seeks to describe and analyze the relationships between different modes of

Being. Sartre portrays three modes of being, being-in-itself that is self-subsistent being,

being-for-itself which is conscious being, and being-for-others. For example, a person’s

being-for-others is how he appears to other people. Everyone this person meets makes up

their own minds about him and he has limited control over their opinions. Of course, how he

is perceived by others is influenced by what he does and others’ opinions of him influence

his behavior. For instance, in the simplest sense, if a person gets a reputation for lying, then

no one will believe him even when he tells the truth. Reciprocally, if people think he is a liar

even when he is not, he might be tempted to become one.

Gregory McCulloch states that Sartre thinks that modes of being are strongly

interdependent and adds,

“Being-for-others requires being-for-itself, being-for-itself is ‘founded’ on a

relationship to being-in-itself, and being-in-itself in turn has at least some of its

experienced characteristics in virtue of this relationship.” (McCulloch, 1996,

p.4)

Since in all this interdependency the focus abides in the nature of consciousness, it is

necessary to dwell on Sartre’s view on consciousness. To begin with, Sartre’s inquiry into

consciousness has been regarded as the modern man’s existential plight and it is frequently

asked, “how consciousness could be made (as) an object of philosophical inquiry” (Ellis,

1988, p.2). Then, consciousness is condemned for just being an “absurd hope of endowing

being with necessity and thereby saving man from contingency” (Ellis, 1988, p.8). Despite

this, Sartre argues that consciousness cannot be studied in isolation; the only way to study it

is in and through its relation to the object of which it is conscious. Ellis states that, “Sartre

calls the being of which consciousness is conscious ‘being-in-itself” (Ellis, 1988, p.13).

Thus, for Sartre, all consciousness is consciousness of something and that is because the

things which we think about, see, imagine and hear are intentional objects.

In Being and Nothingness, Sartre describes how human’s consciousness undergoes a

radical transformation due to the recognition of the existence of other conscious beings

besides himself. Awareness of the gaze of another person marks a fundamental change in our

consciousness, leading to intentional consciousness which is aware of other conscious

beings. Sartre also describes consciousness of things as a kind of nausea produced by the

recognition of the contingency of their existence and the realization of the situation that this

results in is Absurdity.

The reason for this unsettled feeling according to Golomb is:

“One of Sartre’s main ontological contentions is that nothing can be, or have,

both sorts of being at once: nothing can be ‘being-for-and-in-itself’. This is the

impossible sort of being to which our consciousness unremittingly aspires. We

are condemned to be free because from the moment we exist, we are, and

cannot escape being makers of choice.” (Golomb, 1995, p.150)

The possibility of interpreting one’s existence is worth mentioning since it holds great

importance in Satre’s philosophy. In Existentialism and Humanism, Sartre states:

“…man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and

defines himself afterwards…He will not be anything until later, and then he

will be what he makes of himself.” (Sartre, 2007, p.22)

Consequently, human will then end up attributing the responsibility to himself

because “…man is responsible for what he is” (Ibid, p.23).

However, according to Sartre, there are not a lot of people who are courageous

enough to take the risk of attaining being-in-themselves, or authenticating their existence.

“Not many are capable thus of authenticating their existence: the great majority

reassure themselves by thinking as little as possible of their approaching

deaths.” (Sartre, 2007, p.14-15)

Furthermore, for Sartre, the choice of action is also a choice of oneself, even though

in choosing oneself, one does not choose to exist as existence is given and one has to exist in

order to choose. This means that choice is necessary to exist as man determines his existence.

For Sartre, “what we choose is always better” (Sartre, 2007, p.23). Therefore, to exist in

order to choose precedes to choose as to exist. However, for man choice is to confront his

existence, owing to the fact that there might be no reason for choosing whatever one does

since the choice remains unjustified and groundless in a godless universe. This is the

perpetual human reality and unbearable pain of existence, which is expressed best in Albee’s

plays.

Another important concept in the Sartrean existentialism is ‘self-deception’ or ‘bad

faith’. To act in self-deception is to turn away from authentic choosing of oneself and to act

according a stereotype or a role formed by society. Sartre’s most famous example in Being

and Nothingness is the one about a waiter:

“Let us consider this waiter in the café. His movement is quick and forward, a

little too precise, a little too rapid. He comes towards the patrons with a step a

little too quick… his voice, his eyes express an interest a little too solicitous for

the order of the customer…he gives himself to the quickness and pitiless

rapidity of things…the waiter in the café plays with his condition in order to

realize it.” (Sartre, 1992, p.81)

The waiter in Sartre’s example moves in a precise manner of a café waiter. It means

that the waiter is identifying himself with his role as a waiter.

However, for Sartre, authenticity is not a notable visible action; rather, it stems from

the basic project of self-choice. He claims that to behave authentically just for the sake of

authenticity or being an authentic person is not authenticity at all. He expresses this in his

work, Notebooks for an Ethics: “if you seek authenticity for authenticity’s sake, you are no

longer authentic” (Sartre, 1992, p.6). According to Sartre, it is understood that to want

authenticity for its own sake is the same with wanting to be defined in the mode of being,

which is impossible, being-for-itself-in-itself.

“Thus, the essential structure of sincerity does not differ from that of bad

faith…Total, constant sincerity as a constant effort to adhere to oneself is by

nature a constant effort to dissociate oneself from oneself…” (Sartre, 1992,

p.68)

When such is the case, Lavine, the writer of the book From Socrates to Sartre: The

Philosophic Quest says:

“What then is Existentialism? There exists now a widely accepted definition of

existentialism. It is that existentialism is the philosophic standpoint which

gives priority to existence over essence. What is meant by this is that

existentialism gives priority in significance to existence, in the sense of my

existence as a conscious subject, rather than to any essence which may be

assigned to me, any definition of me, any explanation of me by science or

philosophy or religion or politics. Existentialism affirms the ultimate

significance, the primacy of my existence as this flickering point of

consciousness of myself and of objects of which I am aware, my existence as

this conscious being against all efforts to define me, to reduce me to a Platonic

essence, or to a Cartesian mental substance, or to a Hegelian carrier of the

spirit of my culture, or to a scientific neurological mechanism, or to a social

security number. Whereas classical and modern rationalism have regarded

rational essences or self-evident ideas as having primacy over individual

existence. Whereas rationalism claims that the individual existence can be

comprehended by the concept or essence by any conceptual system.” (Lavine,

1984, p.328)

B. Edward Albee’s Existentialist Stand

Edward Albee (1928- ) is one of the significant playwrights of the 20th

century American

drama. Born in Washington, Albee was adopted by a wealthy couple. His father, Reed Albee,

was the owner of a vaudeville circuit; which is one of the reasons why Albee’s tendency towards

drama started.

Albee was raised in luxury, yet he did not have a happy childhood, finding his strong-

minded and rigid step-mother suffocating. He became a problem child and was expelled from

various schools. Instead of becoming a member of the wealthy social group, Albee chose to

leave home and find his way by himself at an early age. Being an adopted child, some questions,

like who he was, where he came from, and who was his biological parents were, always troubled

him.

Albee’s works are influenced by the existentialism movement and the absurdist drama.

He transferred this influence into the American domestic drama and produced his unique style.

He is considered as the successor of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill,

who perfected domestic drama. Still, Albee’s name is also listed among Eugene Ionesco, Harold

Pinter and Samuel Beckett, who wrote in the vein of Absurd Drama, as his distinguished style

develops.

Albee is depicted as “a deeply serious, highly erudite figure, very much a member of the

literary establishment…a writer of many faces, many mood” (Bottoms, 2005, p.1). His plays,

which are usually set in domestic settings, are a form of critics to the society. They present an

attack on the cruelty, complacency and hollowness of the American society.

In The Theatre of Absurd, Eugene Ionesco defines the term ‘absurd’ as follows: “Absurd

is that which is devoid of purpose…cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental

roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless” (as cited in Esslin, 1968,

p.23). It becomes popular especially in the European countries after the second World Wars

because people lost their faith in religion, in the conventional establishments, and they also lost

their hopes for the future. However, this situation was not the same with America because “In the

United States, there has been no corresponding loss of meaning and purpose. The American

dream of the good life… (was) still very strong.” (Esslin, 1968, p. 301). As a result, there are not

so many absurd plays in America.

Albee chooses to use the form of the absurd drama in his own American way. His works

are mostly derived from Sartre’s philosophical views. McCarthy writes that “Albee’s concern for

the theatre derives from his concern for the society” (as cited in Küçük, 2008, p.3). It should be

noted that Albee is a social critic at first, which is why he does not explore Sartre’s concerns in a

more metaphysical sense.

The most notable characteristic in most of Albee’s plays is how most of his characters

have several identity problems. Sartre discusses temporality for the being-for-itself. According to

him, while being free with various possibilities to make himself, man still cannot escape his past.

He is shaped by his past and is also responsible for his past. The being-for-itself is always bound

to change. He can never stay what he is and this conflict creates identity problems for the

individual. As they suffer from being human beings, they would like to escape their

consciousness and “evasion of consciousness is seen as the normal state” (Innes, 1992, p. 439).

The lapse of memory, uncertainty about the motives for what they say or do and the fragmented

backgrounds can be included among these problems.

Some of Albee’s characters in his plays always have self-awareness; they question

themselves and they try to find an answer to these questions. They are being-for-itself to a

certain point. They generally hesitate and prefer to escape responsibilities and consciousness at

the moment of a crisis or recognition. Some other characters wish to live in the mode of being-

in-itself. However, most of Albee’s characters are being-for-others. They decide, act or live

regarding what the others will expect from or demand of them. They cannot decide whether they

are the one who they become or the one that is defined by others. Albee’s characters experience

inner and outer pressures, which make their sense of identity blurred. Consciousness is a great

pain for most of them. They are in a vain attempt to evade this pain. Albee’s characters may

yearn for madness, even death as they are not satisfied with themselves or with their lives.

Albee also mocks the people who think that they have to belong to a group in order to

receive a fixed identity. Albee is aware that while playing the role of being somebody, for

example a good husband, can be one of the constituents of one’s identity, it still cannot be

equated with his selfhood. Moreover, Albee believes that not only inner conflicts, but also outer

forces prevent an individual’s building a whole selfhood. The social conventions, the norms and

the rules all represent limits and obstacles for an individual to become who he wants to be.

Albee’s literary output is filled with the absurd and tragic emptiness of human condition.

His play is haunted by an absence of meaning at the center. His characters are born into an

irrational world. They live out their lives waiting for an explanation that never comes and even

the existence of this explanation might only be a product of their imagination. For Albee, there is

no meaning or explanation; there is only nothingness. Within this context, human relationships in

his plays are reduced to cruelty, hope, frustration and disillusionment revolving around the

repetitive themes of birth death and human emotion like anxiety and despair.

“What we see in these absurdist dramatist is a presentation of existence in a

purely chaos-as-randomness phase of human and natural dynamics generalizing

from their momentary—and sometimes extended—sightings of randomness that

all existence is random…(The absurdist writers) have concentrated on a world

dominated by a chaos of actual randomness…According to them, chaos is non-

rational, incoherent, and incomprehensible randomness, and so are their visions

of the world.” (Demastes, 2005, p. 56)

Existentialism emerged as a reaction against the traditional philosophies of the time.

Likewise, Albee’s plays are the antithesis to the mainstream drama at the time because his plays

reject realistic settings, characters, situations and conventional flow of logic. Instead, it offers

meaninglessness, isolation and the breakdown of language.

The mainstream realistic drama, which Albee reacts to, shows life as it is or as it should

be. It is the reproduction of life, in particular, as it appears to the eye and ear. It is usually

entertaining, filled with ordinary men in ordinary situations. The setting is realistic. The

characterization of a realistic play is more important than the plot structure, which is linear and

chronological. Further, the dialogue comes closer to what human senses perceive. However,

Albee appears as a figure committing himself to the representations of a reactionary drama,

which contributes to reflecting the playwright’s view of the human condition.

“Although ‘absurdists’ were never really a coherent movement, their plays did share

a rejection of realistic settings, characters and situations, along with conventional

logic, and offered instead portrayals of meaninglessness, isolation and the breakdown

of language.” (Chambers, 1987, p.76)