Summer reading-- Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf??

Question

ok if anyone can help me...!

Describe George, Martha, Nick and Honey and how their names are ironic/symbolic.

How do these characters remain tied to parental figures?

THANK YOU!

Answer 1

Wow - they sure gave you light fun summer reading.  George and Martha are the Father and Mother of the faculty as the Washingtons were of their country.  Nick and Honey are mostly spectators, but do have a grisly story of their own, don't look for Nick to be a father any time in the near future.  Martha is fixated on on her father the university president and they both know that George married her to gain influence from her father.  These are unhappy pathetic people, can you imagine what Edward Albee's college days were like???

What a Dump

   -Albee

Answer 2

George and Martha are the names of the 1st US presidents. They represent an classic marriage on the outside. However, inside the marriage is obviously binded together with the illusion of their 'son'. Nick and Honey are more modern, young names. Honey is representive of her seemingly sweet nature.

George and martha remain tied to parental figures because MArtha's father was the reason they were married. Additionally, George's troubled childhood brought by his parents leave him scared.  

Answer 3

George & Martha were fairly standard societal names of the times, though they exhibit fairly non-standard societal behavior. Most society folk whom have secret lives akin to these two characters will do anything to preserve the facade of elite 'normalcy'. George and Martha rather breakdown in an unnerving set of events in front of their guests, with Nick and Honey apparently too fascinated by their hosts' behavior to walk out and leave. (I sure would have...) Their reparte is not all that witty, considering George is constantly referring to other things with which he is vestly familiar, i.e. the fistful o' snapdragons as flowers of the dead and reciting sections of the Dies Irae. It appeared to me that he usues these things as a stand-in for actual conversation. In addition, his spoiled, high-strung wife really does not do the realm of married women any credit.

Nick and Honey's names are kind of ironic as Honey is more of a lush than sweet, and Nick, while his name suggests a poignant sharpness, is actually rather dull and seems almost behind the others for half the play.

The tie to parenthood is really one-sided as Nick and Honey have been pregnant, but George and Martha do not; the latter couple merely makes up a son as a sort of dark game, then 'kills' him off in a brandy-soaked tirade of pretend/not pretend fighting. It is hinted that Nick and Honey married only as a result of the pregnancy.

No happy ending here.