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ANIKÓ LUKÁCS
GEORGE (Throws one at her) SNAP! No, actually, it doesn’t. Either way ... I’ve
had it. [...] (Throws another at her) SNAP! [...]
MARTHA (A little afraid) Truth or illusion, George. Doesn’t it matter to you...
at all?
GEORGE (Without throwing anything) SNAP! (Silence) You got your answer,
baby?
MARTHA (Sadly) Got it.”
The difference between truth and illusion can be compared — even if only
symbolically — to the physical experience of the flowers hitting Martha’s body,
and its opposite, the understanding of which turns Martha’s frightened ques¬
tion into a grim answer. George is already aware of the full screenplay of the
last game, while Martha still merely suspects the nature of the trials before her.
Following George’s announcement: “Now; we got one more game to play.
And it’s called bringing up baby.”°* — the humiliated Nick leaves the room and,
following the orders of George, starts looking for Honey to have all partici¬
pants involved in the grand climax of the final game. Martha’s behavior is very
telling: sensing the possibility of the total collapse of the previous structure
(of which she is a substantial part), and beyond the humiliation of Hump the
Hostess, she decides to change her tone: “I don’t like what’s going to happen.
[...] (Pleading) No more games. [...] (Almost in tears) No, George; no. [...] No,
George; please. [...] No, George. [...] No more games ... please. [...] Ugly games
... ugly. [...] (Tenderly; moves to touch him) Please George, no more games; I...”°’
George, however, has made his decision: rejecting Martha’s pleading and ten¬
derness, he clenches her hair, shoves her head back, and hits her repeatedly.
In the third act, George, as part of a large and dramatic exorcism, in spite of
Martha's begging, commits his ritual child murder. As Allan Lewis notes, the
goal of the exorcism is to abolish everything that is falsehood and fraudulent;
an act of ultimate desperation aimed at destroying illusions behind which the
truth cannot be seen.** George appears to be the executor of this, by eliminat¬
ing the most substantial life of their life: Jimmy, the illusion of the “American
Dream”.
CONCLUSION - THE END OF THE JOURNEY
While George destroys the symbol of their self-deception and ultimately
eliminates the preliminal structure, this is also an arrival at the ultimate
55 Albee: Ibid., 203-205.
56 Tbid., 205.
57 Ibid., 206-208.
58 Lewis: Ibid.
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