2011 HSC Paper 2 Module A Advanced: Comparative Study of Texts and Contexts
Elective 2: Texts in Time
In what ways does a comparative study accentuate the distinctive contexts of Who’s Afraid of Virginia
Woolf? and A Room of One’s Own?
Sample response: Drama and non-fiction
Prescribed texts:
A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf, 1928
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Edward Albee, 1962
Establishing the thesis of the
response: that the different
contexts affect the ways that
common content is explored and
presented
At first glance, Virginia Woolf’s 1928 critical essay, A Room of One’s
Own and Edward Albee’s 1962 play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,
have nothing in common but a name. They do, however, share a
number of features. They are both concerned with exposing deepseated problems, they both examine relationships between men and
women, they both comment on academia and the role of education and
they both do these things in an entertaining, ironic and often humorous
way. By comparing the content and style of each text, we can see how
the different contexts result in differences in approach.
The purpose of the play
Both texts want to “shatter the shell of false reality”, Artaud’s
description of the Theatre of Cruelty style that Albee adopts in his play.
The false reality that Albee wants to expose is the myth of the American
Dream, with its complacent materialism and lack of genuine
communication and feeling. Post-World War II comfort and affluence
Establishes the context of the play mask the underlying unhappiness and loss of deeper purpose that Albee
equated with a “national moral decline”. He uses a Cold War analogy to
and links it to stylistic features
show Americans in a figurative war with themselves and each other,
primarily through the tempestuous and hurtful relationship of Martha
and George, but also through the tension between George and Nick,
named after Nikita Khrushchev, and the way that Martha and George
frequently attack their guests. The action of the play moves through a
series of major and minor skirmishes, to finish with a sense of detente
and perhaps some future peace after the ‘exorcism’ of the child.
Connects both texts through
content, but differentiates them
through context
How Woolf’s context influences
her stylistic approach
Dominant women are depicted
differently in each text, because of
different contexts and social
expectations
Woolf’s purpose is also to expose a harsh reality underlying superficial
social complacency. By 1928, English women had made some
significant advances in the struggle for genuine equality with men,
particularly in being able to earn and retain their own incomes and to
vote. They were also gradually gaining access to education, but these
things were limited by class and wealth. Woolf digs beneath the veneer
of progress to show how unequal women’s rights still were and how far
beyond the reach of all but a very few women. However, as a woman,
she cannot be overtly critical, as this will create hostility in men, who
are the ones who have the power to change the situation. She must help
her reader arrive at the obvious conclusion through a subtle, fictitious
exploration of appearance and reality, in the guise of a reasoned,
argumentative essay, the traditional province of the male intellectual.
Strong women are a feature of both texts, but the contexts mean that
their strengths are depicted in very different ways. Woolf’s narrator, the
fictional Mary Beaton, must be more clever than her male reader, to be
his intellectual match while leading him obliquely to the right
conclusion, so that he does not feel that he has been dictated to by a
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woman. For Woolf, the problem of female dependence is dire, but she
fears that her solution of £500 and a room with a lock will be
considered so extreme that she must couch the whole text in fictional
terms. She presents anecdotes about fictional and real women, in
college, in the theatre, in the library and as writers, compares them with
men’s experiences in the same situations and feigns surprise that the
outcomes should be so different for each gender. Logically, things
should not be like this, she suggests.
The role of conflict in the play
How ideas are presented in A
Room of One’s Own
Discussion of how Woolf uses
irony to emphasise the reality of a
situation
A different context requires a
different approach
After World War II, Western women generally enjoyed greater personal
freedom than before the war. Martha’s behaviour would not have been
possible in 1928 in England. Her open defiance of George and her
constant reminders that he owes his teaching position to her father
stand in stark contrast to Woolf’s careful reasoning and veiled
criticisms. In the war between men and women, Martha is fighting
openly and asserting her equal right to engage. This is an important
point for Albee, who contends that the conflict, though terrible, means
that they are at least communicating with each other and leaves open
the possibility for some hope and genuine connection in the end. He
prefers her honest open hostility to Honey’s manipulations that trap
Nick into marriage.
Both texts use humour and irony to emphasise ideas and entertain their
audiences. Woolf’s humour is understated and heavily ironic, as befits
her educated English readership. Early in the essay, she drolly outlines
the differences in status of men and women. Male importance is overemphasised by making proper nouns out of common ones: “He was a
Beadle; I was a woman ... only the Fellows and Scholars are allowed
here.” She humorously points out her lowly status as a woman by
falsely elevating the men. Throughout the essay, she uses this false
humility to point out the gap between appearance (she is undeserving
because she is a woman) and reality (she is a very clever woman
mounting an incisive argument against entrenched discrimination).
Woolf’s use of evidence in her essay is often heavily ironic, as well as
entertaining. She presents without commentary the inane and offensive
statements of important academics and allows the stupidity of their
remarks to speak for itself. Thus, she leaves us to assess for ourselves
the credibility of statements such as Oscar Browning’s comment that
the “best woman was intellectually the inferior of the worst man” or Mr
Greg’s assertion that “the essentials of a woman’s being ... are that they
are supported by and they minister to men.” We are invited by her
silence to evaluate the gap between what has been said and the reality
of the situation.
Writing for an American theatre audience thirty years later, Albee’s use
of humour and irony is much more direct. The dialogue in the play
reflects the battle of the sexes and aspects of the American belief in
individualism and supremacy of the self, with George and Martha in
particular showing scant regard for others and for the conventions of
polite conversation. The exchanges between them are often as funny as
they are vicious and are designed to shock the audience into recognising
some of the problems, especially their dissatisfaction with themselves
and each other, and their unhappiness in being caught in the struggle to
live up to the “American dream”. The fast-paced dialogue and the way
the characters take and switch sides, seemingly on a whim, contribute
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to the sense of chaos swirling below the surface. George frequently
draws attention to the underlying pathos and emptiness of their
circumstances. “Good. Better. Best. Bested.” is not just an amusing play
on words, but a wry and poignant comment on the futility of conflict
and struggle, which are bound to end in defeat. The humour in the
dialogue ranges from good-natured teasing, such as when George
“joshes” Nick about the abstract painting, to George’s self-mockery as
an ABMAPHID, to the savage irony of the characters tearing into each
other while continuing to maintain the veneers of hosts and guests.
Conclusion confirms that the
different contexts result in
differences of style
The careful style and language of Virginia Woolf’s essay contrast
markedly with the raw emotion of the fast-paced dialogue in Albee’s
play. Their different styles reflect the differences in their contexts, but
both texts nevertheless have much in common, especially in their
examination of the relationships between men and women and their
underlying inequities.
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