Talk:Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

8th Grade

I'm afraid to say that the whole of this article, commentary, and subsequent additions, including most of those on this discussion page are of a level suitable to an 8th grade student. This is not uncommon within Wikipedia. There are plenty of thoughtful and knowledgeable books, guides and cribs to Albee's play, to which it would be better to refer.

Dec 2006 and before commentary

This article deserves to be re-written; much of it appears to have been written by a person or persons who have only seen the movie once, and have not read the play. There is a serious lack of understanding contained in the article regarding the origin and meaning of the title and its reference to Virginia Woolf. It also contained factual errors regarding the text of the original play. There is very little discussion of the underlying dynamics of the play, mainly the issue of whether or not Martha and George actually had a son. Anyone who has seriously reviewed the play should realize that Martha and George "created" a fictional son. It would also be useful to analyze the effect this game had on their relationship. Additionally, there ought to be a discussion of why Martha, at the end of the play (upon being asked by her husband "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?") replies "I am, George." ~~[[User:jlmurrel]~~] December 17, 2006

Note to WikiProject Broadway participants: Article needs information about the current Broadway production, and previous broadway productions. EvilPhoenix July 2, 2005 05:44 (UTC)

Wasn't this a book before it became a movie? -- April

Well it was a play by Edward Albee. Thanks, I forget things like that.

Should the film and play sections be separated into two different entries? -Markt3, 8/11/05

If the film section expands significantly, perhaps, but there's not really enough info to warrant a split right now. Dysprosia 09:48, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

"Plot summary" section

The Plot Summary section is just awful. It's meandering and unclear, and reads like someone who's mumbling to himself or herself. Can we do something about it? Moncrief 02:47, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Like what? Could you perhaps be more descriptive? Dysprosia 04:56, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Though the incorporation of important, respective lines is nice, I agree that the summary is unclear. Perhaps a more concise summary with emphasis on the crucial actions; then sections on themes, symbolism, brief character analysis, etc. -- Perrin

tone of Plot Summary

All of the critical analysis needs to be removed as well, per No Original Research. --Rajah (talk) 02:52, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

About the title

I think a couple of lines on why the play has been named "Who's Afraid of Virginai Woolf?" would be in order and make the description complete. --Gurubrahma 17:51, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I know that the phrase "who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" was written in marker ink on the south west wall of the Figaro Café [corner of Bleeker and MacDougal Streets, NYC long before there was a play]I know because I saw it. I thought this was common knowledge. TRIKER (talk) 18:43, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I personally believe that the summary of the three 'games' has been written excellently. He does not speak as if rambling to him/herself but as if talking to someone that has a good understanding of the play or has at least viewed the production. I am studying the play as part of my A Level English Literature course and i must admit i found it extremely beneficial. Thanks

Internal consistency regarding meaning of the title

This article needs to find some internal consistency regarding the meaning of the title. One paragraph declares that it's a meaningless pun. Then, two paragraphs later, the article contradicts itself and declares that it's not a meaningless pun. The way the author of the second paragraph chose italicize the world "that" even suggests that he or she realized they were contradicting the previous statement in this article.

I've never seen the play and only have seen the movie once, many years ago. So I don't feel at all qualified to offer a determination regarding which interpretation is correct. But the article absolutely should not "argue with itself" like that.

If there is a consensus within the literary community on the point, then that is what this article should reflect. If there is not such a consensus, then both points of view should be reflected in the article, but neither should be stated as if it's an undisputed fact. It should be something more along the lines of "Certain critics say this about the title . . . Others interpret it as that . . ."

As I said, I'm not in any position personally to determine which of those two approaches should be adopted, but it would be nice if someone more familiar with the literary world's critical analyses of this play would make that determination and re-write the article accordingly (preferably providing citations, of course). Mwelch 20:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oscar Levant, The Unimportance of Being Oscar, Pocket Books 1969 (reprint of G.P. Putnam 1968), p. 6 says that the title originated as graffiti. Which means that Albee himself may not have had one specific meaning in mind. - Jmabel | Talk 01:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. With that lead from you, I also found an inteview with Albee discussing that graffiti origin of the title. I'm going to update this article now. Mwelch 02:17, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

re: trivia

Is it at all relevant to the universe that some little band made a song that makes passing reference to the title? Do fans of William Blake stalk the biblical section pointing out every last place where he made reference to the topic at hand? Is the page on JFK's assassination filled with a list of every TV show that has an episode whose characters remember the event? Can we get some perspective, here?

2006 edition claims

I have tagged this as original research. Unless somebody comes up with citations backing it up, I will be deleting it next week. Jeffpw 06:26, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The Latin in the play seems to be from a funeral mass but it is not the Deas Irae (at least not as it is transcribed in the wikipedia) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.129.59.196 (talk) 10:47, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Bipolar disorder / manic depression

There's a paragraph of the article that goes on and on about bipolar disorder (a.k.a. manic depression), and how the characters of the play seem to exhibit that disorder (in some sort of condensed or atypical form). It explicitly mentions this diagnosis at least five times – so much that I found it becoming annoying. That discussion starts with the bald unsourced assertion that "Both Martha and George exhibit signs of bipolar disorder" – so I checked the references to see how much emphasis the sources actually put on this diagnosis. Guess what? I looked up all four sources mentioned in that part of the article and found that none of the sources that talk about the play mention the bipolar diagnosis, and the one that talks about bipolar disorder doesn't mention the play. I'm afraid we have some sort of WP:Original research injected into the article here. —BarrelProof (talk) 10:14, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree with BarrelProof. . . although I think the bipolar reference is spot on, the cited sources need to support that analysis. I'm afraid that this section looks like it needs to be deleted entirely or cut down to just a sentence or two. zuky79 (talk) 06:02, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Seconded, I agree that it's OR and should be deleted entirely. Vonbontee (talk) 03:18, 7 December 2014 (UTC)