摘 要

爱德华·阿尔比的作品《谁害怕弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫？》讲述了两对年龄不同的夫妇活在自己的幻想中，最后晚会散场，幻想破灭，而没有幻想的现实是可怕的。 本文分析了仪式的写作如何在这部作品中成为一种独特的方式，并有益于传达对爱德华·阿尔比戏剧的主题关注。在《谁害怕弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫？》中，仪式充当了文化表现的一种新方式，一种新的表征方式和后现代戏剧的新构造。对仪式的研究可以帮助读者更好地理解这部作品的审美价值以及爱德华·阿尔比的艺术魅力。

关键词：爱德华·阿尔比；《谁害怕弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫？》；仪式

Contents

1. Introduction ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------1

2. Demonstration -------------------------------------------------------------------------------2

2.1 Rituals as a new way of cultural expression --------------------------------------------2

2.1.1 Two major rituals: Walpurgisnacht and Exorcism -----------------------------------3

2.1.2 Rituals as a bridge connecting elite culture and popular culture -------------------4

2.1.3 Rituals as a bridge connecting scientific culture and spiritual culture ------------4

2.2 Rituals as a new way of characterization -----------------------------------------------6

2.2.1 George as the host in the ritual ---------------------------------------------------------6

2.2.2 Characters’ double roles in rituals: both the host and the participator -------------6

2.3 Rituals as a new way of drama construct ------------------------------------------------7

2.3.1 Boundary blurring between troupers and audience ----------------------------------7

2.3.2 Rituals performance as the motif in the plot development --------------------------8

3. Conclusion -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------9

Works Cited -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------10

Bibliography ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------11

Rituals Writings in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

1. Introduction

Edward Albee is an American playwright (1928-2016) born in Washington (one said to be born in Virginia). Two weeks after birth, the rich adopted, raising grandfather has a number of theaters. Albee usually came into contact with celebrities in his childhood. At an early age he began to show interest in literary creation, writing poems at the age of 12, and writing scripts. He spent one year at Trinity College, playing the plays of Maxwell Anderson, so familiar with the other side of the celebrity. 1958 Albee wrote Zoo Story, it was sent to many New York theater but was not accepted, and later premiered in Berlin in September 1959, performed at the Broadway Theater of Broadway in 1960, this Drama made him famous, but it also attracted a lot of criticism. In 1962, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? made him a great success, won the New York Drama Critic Award, and was named the best play of the season.

In recent years, there are more and more researches on Edward Albee by domestic and foreign scholars, and the emphasis is on exposing the absurdity reflected in Albee’s works and reflecting the characteristics of the American dream. Indeed, Albee is deeply influenced by the European theater of absurd drama, as illustrated by his The American Dream and The Zoo Story(1961). Through the script, Albee shows that people are lonely, and contacting with others is difficult, and dangerous, people want to meet their own ideals can only live in fantasy, with fantasy masturbation . Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? embodies this theme. The playwrights George and Martha lacked a child in their family life, so they imagined having a son who was studying outside and using it as a reality to masturbate. In a party, Nick and his wife also fantasize about masturbation: his wife Honey pretended to be pregnant, intoxicated with the illusion, the final party ended their dreams in shame.The illusion burst. The reality is terrible without the illusion. Albee’s scripts are often unstructured and the characters are unidentified. It seems monologue, everyone said his own words.

Domestic and foreign scholars have gradually deepened their research on who is afraid of Virginia Woolf, but most of them focus on the social criticism theme reflected in their content or from the biblical image, such as Zhao Liangliang’s The Trilogy of the Broken America Dream in Edward Albee’s Works. All interpret the works through social and religious studies (Zou, 112), mainly analyzing the Absurdism and attacking the American Dream in Albee’s Works through Drama. In the last two years, researchers began to study Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? from other aspects to discover one of its major characteristics - the postmodern ritual nature and analyze it from a new angle. For example, Jing Kangning drew audiences in ritual performance in the postmodern rituals in Virginia Woolf, introducing audiences into theaters through unique ways of narration, and created a sacred atmosphere in order to purify the spirit. A careful and profound study inspired me. However, there are still few studies in this direction.