-Characters commit sexual acts or threaten
them as way of gaining power over each other
-These attemps at true intimacy are short lived
-Sex is a tool for battle
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Dissatisfaction Theme
George and Martha
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.
Martha is also dissatisfied
with herself.
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
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.
Nick and Honey
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.
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.
Can dissatisfaction
be a good thing?
Not during the play, but when people
use it as a tool in order to be
motivated and improve, it can be
helpful.
Alcoholism is a form of illusion as it is used as a
way to avoid the uncomfortable truths of their lives.
Martha and George have a complicate relationship where Martha is
an alcoholic and her husband accompany her drinking some alcohol.
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.
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.
Martha's life depends on alcohol as she
uses it to hide from the reality
The choice of beverage from each characters
relfects their personality.
George and Nick social
drinkers, that is why
they drink Bourbon.
Martha drinks Gin, a
powerful beverage, she
get drunk because she is
afraid of reality and use it
as a way to keep calm
Honey, naive character, drink
Brandy only to get herself drunk.