Person’s Surroundings Are the Main Influence in Shaping Their Values, Beliefs and Perspectives

Person’s surroundings are the main influence in shaping their values, beliefs and perspectives. However, despite the rapidly modernising world, a comparison of both Virginia Woolfs A Room of Ones Own and Edward Albee Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf clearly shows the notion of change in surroundings and perspectives but explores the continuation of values. Despite their differing respective societal contexts of 1929 and 1962, Woolf and Albee discuss similar themes of history, Fertility and truth and convey them using different language forms, features, structures and characters.

Elaine Showalter discussed in her essay the ‘need to see women novelists in relation to the backdrop of their time’. Woolf’s work was published as Marie Stopes established the London Clinic for Contraception in 1921, its principles rejecting societal values of the time. As the author ‘was noble by birth and by marriage, she was childless; she wrote poetry’. The repetition of ‘she’ and syllabic cadence emphasise and acknowledge that Woolf supports Marie Stopes introduction of birth control and acknowledges that women who lack physical fertility are given the time and space to be intellectually fertile and creative.
‘Edward Albee in another time in another place seems grounded in the ordinary’ quote listening essay, however unlike Woolf, Albee believes that America is ‘sterile’ due to moral and spiritual failure. Whose afraid of Virginia Woolf set in 1962 reacts against idyllic values embedded in an American 1950’s confirmative society. The sterility of George and Martha’s world is epitomized through dramatic stage directions [‘like a barroom brawl’] conveying an element of Theatre of Cruelty absurdity exemplifying the frustration of unfulfilled lives ‘attached to only the material things’ Rachael Bowlby. Albee evaluates the eradication of conservative principles through his metaphoric breakdown of the American dream. As Martha calls George ‘a FLOP! A great...big…fat...FLOP!’ the... [continues]

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