Summary of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”
Forty-six-year-old George, Ph. D., a teacher at a college in New England, and his wife Martha (six years older than her husband) return home late at night after receiving the father of Martha, the rector of the same college. Already on the threshold they begin to conduct a habitual squabble between themselves, which has been continuously lasting for many years.
Over the years, Marta and George have learned to torment pretty much each other, everyone knows the vulnerabilities of the other and “beats without a miss.” The husband did not live up to Martha’s expectations: she and her father had once hoped that George would become the dean of the historical faculty, and later the father’s successor, that is, the rector. Actually, Martha chose her husband-with an eye, first to attach him to the first hierarchical step, and then sculpt in the image and likeness of his father-in-law and, over time, solemnly elevate him to the highest pre-teaching rank. But George
George and Martha are outstanding people, brilliantly speak a word, and their verbal duel is an inexhaustible source of caustic wit, brilliant paradoxes and aphorisms. After another squeak, Martha announces to her husband what awaits the guests, – the father asked to “prigolubit” the younger generation of the college.
Soon there are also guests – biology instructor Nick, a pragmatic and cold young man, with his wife Hani, an ordinary-looking thin man. Next to the courageous George and Martha, this couple looks somewhat frozen: the young couple clearly do not know the situation.
However, Martha, who left Khani for a short while, manages not only to dress up in her best evening dress, but also to inform the young woman that George and he have a son who will turn twenty-one tomorrow. George is furious. A new series of mutual injections and open insults begins. Drunk Hani from all this becomes bad, and Martha drags her into the bathroom.
Left alone with Nick, George elects that new target for attacks, drawing prospects for Nick’s promotion in the service and prophetically stating that he can achieve a lot, fawning at the professors and lying in bed with their wives. Nick does not deny that such a thing occurred to him. He does not really understand what is happening in this house, what are really the relations between the spouses, and then he laughs at the witticisms of George, then he is ready to fight him on fists. In a moment of frankness, Nick says that he married Hani without love, just because he thought she was pregnant. And the pregnancy was imaginary, hysterical – the stomach was quickly opal. But there are other reasons, George suggests. Probably money? Nick does not deny: Hani’s father led a certain sect, and after his death, the fortune he acquired on the feelings of believers turned out to be quite impressive.
While drunk Hani is resting on the tiled bathroom floor, Martha takes Nick to her bedroom. Although before that George portrayed complete indifference to the intrigue, but now in fury hurls a book, which he held in his hand before, it touches the door bells, and they strike one another with a desperate rattling. The ringing wakes up Hani, and the one who has not yet fully recovered from the faintness appears in the living room. “Who called?” she asks, George announces to her that they have brought a telegram about their death with Martha’s son. He did not speak to Marthe yet – she does not know anything.
This news makes an impression even on everything indifferent Hani, in her eyes drunk tears come out.
George solemnly smiles: he prepared the next move: Marte – mat…
It was almost dawn. Martha is in the living room. She struggles to overcome her disgust with intimacy with Nick (“in a few senses you, frankly speaking,
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shines “) with a sad sadness says Martha about their relationship with George, Nick says no, but – in space:.” George and Martha – sad, sad, sad… It can make me happy, and I do not want happiness and all “I’m waiting for happiness.” Even Nick, with his blunt straightforwardness, understands that not everything is so simple in this home war, apparently, once these two were connected by a feeling much more sublime than they had with Hani.
Appeared George clowns, fools around, teases Martha, hiding with all her strength that her infidelity hurts him. And then he offers to play the game “Grow up a child,” inviting guests to listen to how they brought up their son with Marta. Not expecting a dirty trick, Marta loses vigilance and, joining George, remembers which son was a healthy butuz, what he had beautiful toys, etc. And then suddenly George strikes a crushing blow, announcing the death of his son. “You have no right,” cried Martha, “he is our common child.” “Well, then,” retorts George, “I took him and killed him.” Before Nick finally comes to know that a monstrous and brutal game is led by new acquaintances. These two have invented a child, in fact, there is not and never was. Martha blurted out their secret, and George avenged, putting an end to their long-standing game. The long party was over. Nick and Hani finally leave. The quiet Marta is sitting motionless in the armchair.
George with unexpected warmth asks if she should pour her something to drink. And for the first time Martha refuses alcohol.
For a long time, the fiction about his son helped Martha and George to spend their lives together, to fill the emptiness of their existence. The decisive act of George knocked out the habitual soil from under his feet. The illusion is smashed to smithereens, and they will inevitably have to deal with reality. Now they are simply a childless couple, without ideals and high aspirations, they went in the past to a deal with their own conscience and then piled up deception for deception. But now they have a chance to see themselves as they are, to be horrified and, perhaps, to try to start all over again. In fact, unlike Hani and Nick, they are still hot, full of emotional forces people. “It will be better,” George says confidently. In fact, why should they “be afraid of Virginia Woolf”? But no, chilly wrapped, Martha sadly says: “I’m afraid… George… I’m afraid.”
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