Book Club Guide

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

by Edward Albee · 1962 · Classics

Key themes

Love as warfare — the couple who can only exist in conflict
Illusion and reality: the story George and Martha tell themselves
The younger couple as mirror and victim

About this book

George and Martha, a middle-aged academic couple, invite a younger couple — Nick and Honey — back after a party and spend the night performing a savage ritual of mutual destruction. Albee's play is one of the great American domestic dramas: a study in love as warfare, illusion as survival, and what couples do to each other in the name of intimacy.

Premiered on Broadway in 1962, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? won the Tony Award and was denied the Pulitzer Prize for drama — reportedly because the advisory board found it too obscene. The Pulitzer board overruled them and gave no drama prize that year.

Discussion questions

The play is about one long night of mutual destruction. How does Albee sustain this across four acts — and does the violence remain dramatically effective throughout?
George and Martha's imaginary son is the play's central secret. What does this shared delusion represent — and what does its eventual 'death' accomplish?
Nick and Honey are ostensibly normal. How does Albee use them — as contrast, as revelation, or as participants in the same game they're watching?
The play was scandalous on Broadway for its language and its portrayal of marriage. What do you think it was saying about marriage and the middle class in 1962 — and does it still say this now?
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is often studied alongside A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman as defining American drama. What specifically do these plays share — and where does each go that the others cannot?