Anger seems to be the answer

                             Are you Jimmy or Alison?

There is a strong feeling that people have shared for several years and even the greatest authors have expressed it in the most incredible pieces of their work, believe it or not, it refers to Anger. An expression of hatred against British and American culture, captured in the playwright “Look back in anger” (1956) by John Osborne and in “Howl” (1955) by Allen Ginsberg since we live in a world full of injustice and alienation because of our social class, our gender, our sexuality, our religion and countless reasons that make no sense.

Being mad at the world is one answer for those authors who criticized and express the disillusionment and frustration in the 1950’s, showing hysteria that comes from postponed dreams that are gone because of the mood of life in the postwar world. However, it seems that many things have not changed since then. We still fight to be accepted into today’s society. Considering the world is all wrong, should we express anger to make ourselves feel better? 

"Look back in Anger" (1959 Film) Directed by Tony Richardson

“Look back in anger” (Osborne, 1956) exploded a rejection of mainstream life, the play is strongly influenced by Osborne’s personal life, who was part of young and angry intellectuals, the “Angry young men” popular movement, characterized for feeling disenchantment, disappointed, confused and mostly angry across the nation, describing the social isolation, monotony; mediocrity and injustice, concepts that are encapsulated in Jimmy Porter’s figure, a working class and well-educated man.

Jimmy represents the anger itself against society; his first encounter was the loss of his father at an early age, enough reason to understand part of his frustration. Furthermore, his educational background does not fulfill his anticipations and causes Jimmy’s rage.

Moreover, Jimmy aggressively attacks everything he observes as lifeless, particularly his wife, Alison who belongs to the upper class. He considers that she has failed him in her inability to love and support him, why is he so upset with his wife? Basically, Alison represents the silence of the world, Jimmy hates her for not reacting to anything as if she was dead inside; “[...] Well, she can talk, can’t she? You can talk, can’t you? You can express an opinion […]” (Look back in anger, pp. 2)

Curiously, she cannot live with him, but at the same time she cannot live without him. This clearly exhibits how people are constantly surrounded by things that we do not need to feel a little of satisfaction. I include myself since we end up in a vicious circle, showing our vulnerability for trying to belong to the material world that we constantly criticize.

Nevertheless, everyone could be a squirrel or a bear in life, as Alison and Jimmy. It symbolizes the escape from socially and emotionally violent differences, but looking for one’s another’s constant support.

The same idea is developed in “Howl” (Ginsberg, 1955), people are naturally used to being content with what is sufficient for them yet not about what they really want:  “[...] to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejecting yet confession out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head [...].” (pp. 20)

That’s why Jimmy makes a mockery of human behavior, when people do not react about what is happening in the world, we prefer to ignore reality, but that does not avoid feeling mad at the toxic atmosphere: “[…]Let's pretend that we're human beings, and that we're actually alive. Just for a while. What do you say? Let's pretend we're human […]” (Osborne, 1956, pp. 5).  He ironizes about inhibited people, they hide what they feel, saying that everything is a nightmare, we are trapped under the weight of our contradictions and actions, as well as in the lines of Ginsberg’s poem: “[...] dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon […]” (Howl,  pp. 19)

Besides, human beings are stucked in their thoughts, channeling their energy in times that do not exist any longer, dreaming and jumping between time and space, making us feel angry for things we do not have as well as Alison vivaciously said to his father: “[...] you’re hurt because everything is changed. Jimmy is hurt because everything is the same. And neither of you can face it [...]” That’s what impedes Jimmy or any person to move forward optimistically, he is frustrated because of having missed opportunities to take action to do something good for him and the world, it all becomes stagnant in his mind,  “[...] nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination […]” (Howl, pp. 19).

By and large, the play incorporates realism through natural conversations, including silences and non-verbal situations. It also shocks for its setting, a domestic scene, known as Kitchen sink drama, pictured by Alison ironing while the men read the newspapers, and considers working people as main characters.

It is incredible how the richness of language is used from funny, kind, intelligent to sarcastic, abusive, and violent.  

Why its connection to Ginsberg’s poem? “Howl” (1955) mainly represents a protest as a cry for all abuse, inhibition and domination of a nightmare world. Ginsberg states that writing should come from your mind, how you speak to address to your muse, using the same frankness because that’s what you are, it is pure, honest language.

 Ginsberg advocates important concepts, which are directly related to Osborne’s play. Firstly, hypocrisy of Modern society full of inequality in the most dominant institutions such as Government and Universities.

And secondly, what he calls Moloch, representing the destruction of all good things for the sake of profit since people sacrifices their lives to a set of false values.

All in all, anger sometimes could be a good thing, particularly when people want to fight against what they consider not fair, “[...] shock of mercy where the real war is here […].” (Howl, pp. 26). We need to shock the world and be provocative with our thoughts seeing that anger is nothing more than an outward expression of our hidden feelings. But is it correct to damage other people to fulfill our lives? 

References

Epstein, R., & Friedman, J. (Directors). (2010). Howl [Motion picture]. United States.

Ginsberg, A. (1956). Howl. San Francisco: city Light Books.

Osborne, J. (1956). Look back in anger. New York: criterion Books.

Thanks society, we are all PHONIES!!

According to the Cambridge Dictionary “phony” means to be a person who falsely pretends to be something. Sadly, Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of J.D Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, could be named a phony, who do not fear to lie every time he wants to do it. However, he despises all people that have a phony, fraudulent, fake attitude, which is of course really cynical.

                Nonetheless, if he lies, it is because he desires to leave a place or to avoid someone. And it is in those actions that he regularly demonstrates his despair for loneliness and self-isolation. For instance, in the begging of the book, when he tells his teacher, Mr. Spencer, that he had to pick up his equipment at the gym to leave the place as faster as he can.

                Throughout the whole narration, the protagonist shows bitterness and a sense of not belonging to this society or world. What is more, Holden is most of the time complaining about the stupidity of the world, the little sense of humanity that people have, so he is regularly self-protecting himself by isolating himself from the world. In fact, in many cases, Holden repudiates people’s personalities. For example, he criticizes a lot his roommate Stradlater, which from the point of view of the protagonist is a “sexy bastard”, which according to Caulfield is like saying that his roommate is full of superficialities, pretensions, and emptiness.

                So far, you may be thinking that this Caulfield is just another guy that has a superiority complex, or autism, and that is trying to show his originality by despising other people. Well, at least while I was reading, that was my perspective of his personality. After reading more, I realized that what he was living when he was sixteen-year-old, it is just what most of us is living nowadays at University. I am referring to this inner fight about what is our passion, about what is adulthood.

                Today, people tend to believe that if you are original and a kind of hater, you are cool and superior. Maybe they are just trying to survive to the transition between childhood and adulthood. Or more than surviving, they are avoiding maturity with their attitude.

                For Caulfield, the adulthood is full of “phoniness”, as he compares it in the book, implicitly, with falling down of a cliff, which of course is a traumatic event. Maybe that is why he is always covering himself with isolation, as for not growing up, because it could be that society is which makes you grow up and transforms you into a person full of “phoniness”. Maybe he is just terrified by the idea of change and disappearance due to the death of his younger brother Allie.

                If society is which would probably convert you into a phony person, according to Holden, it comes to my mind Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who among different professions was a philosopher as well. That outstanding man claimed that “man born good, but society corrupts him”. At the end of the video is attached a video about this perspective, but only the beginning is accurate with this topic. The philosopher mentioned stated that men born free and pure, just as Holden wanted to be forever.

                If the philosopher was right, Caulfield is doing well by preventing himself of entering to adulthood and also to society. This society that is a system that only works for the minority. This society that is unfair. Maybe more than the society, it is the economic model that the elite has built for us which is making people sick and full of “phoniness”. Anyway, there is lack of humanity, there is superficiality, there is stupidity, but we could remedy this by what Holden shows us at the end of the book when he is staring at his younger sister while she is playing in the carousel and reaching out of the ring. He shows himself as a person that is willing to maintain the innocence, even though he knows that out there “phoniness” is still trying to win, searching for moments where humanity is aroused and also attempting to not let all the bad of society to win.

                Finally, at the very end, Holden looks happy or at least he looks convinced about his younger sister’s innocence and intelligence, which let him being in peace.

                Do you think that society has corrupted you so far? Do you still feel that your attitude towards the world is the best? Or are you just going to sit in there to judge everybody, doing anything, and still being a PHONY????

"What a dump!"... They're discontent.

George and Martha:
sad, sad, sad...

The shocking story behind Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee breaks every convention, allowing us to see the behavior of the perfect American couple at home: George and Martha, showing their true colors to each other and to their particular guests Nick and Honey, who are new in town.

George and Martha can be interpreted as a protest against the postwar stereotypes about the perfect family in the USA. Albee intents to raise awareness of the fact that not all families are composed by a happily married couple with kids. There’s not always a great job involved, and there’s not always love involved, or at least, not the accepted kind of love. This one is twisted, it’s toxic, suffocating, and it characterizes this couple as exaggeratedly cruel individuals; they are mean to each other and to the ones around them. There is also no filter when alcohol is in the picture, and alcohol is present in huge amounts throughout the whole play.

Nick and Honey are shown as the perfect couple in contrast to George and Martha; they are young, educated, and feel completely uncomfortable around their hosts. They cannot understand why they treat each other like that, how destructive George and Martha’s relationship turned out to be, for society makes them believe that these kind of marriages do not exist. And so, to break the ice between these couples, drinking becomes the main and most repeated activity in this indoor party.

Nonetheless, the ironic spin in the play is the fact that Nick and Honey are as twisted as George and Martha. Dirty secrets are exposed as the story goes on – with, of course, the help of uncountable drinks –, such as the reasons why both men married their wives: because of money (and pregnancy in the case of Nick – which Honey intentionally interrupted later). Their wives provided the vast majority of money in the house, something that was completely rare back in the last century.

The most interesting thing about the play is the way in which Albee constructs these fictional characters George and Martha as role players in their fictional lives. With this, the fact that everybody pretends to be someone they’re not is emphasized; people are phonies for they try to fit in the society requirements by playing fake roles, to look “normal”. And the truth is that nobody is. 

George and Martha are so discontent with their lives that they play with fiction to create a false and temporary sense of happiness. The invention of their "little sonny-Jim" is a great example of this: secretly, George and Martha pretend they have a 21-year-old son to fill a gap in their miserable lives. But once Martha mentions the existence of this boy to Honey, things get out of control, and the most monstrous game takes place. It’s not funny anymore but serious and dangerous because they are now exposed; this kid becomes the subject of the talk, and so the show must go on…

Personal thoughts...

Throughout the reading, one may think that Albee tried to create Nick and Honey so we, the audience, would feel related to them. And, indeed, we could say that, somehow, we are Nick and Honey: we are the newcomers at the beginning of the reading, who are completely shocked by the ways in which Martha and George welcome us. And because we were not raised like that, because we follow all the conventions and society rules, we criticize George and Martha’s ways; we feel disgusted by their words and feelings. But as we go further in our reading, we realize that this is not as weird as we thought at the beginning. This kind of people actually exists; in fact, perfect people don’t exist. And, as Nick and Honey begin to show their flaws, we start reflecting about our own flaws, about how twisted we may be, and how we pretend not to be. And, just like I asked myself about how different Nick and Honey were from George and Martha at the end of the play, I wonder now: how different are we from George and Martha? How much do we hide from others? How many roles have we played to fit in? And how many more will we play?... Sad, sad, sad.

The Beat Generation...

Howl by Allan Ginsberg is a poem which, very much like Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?, aims to raise consciousness about how this capitalist postwar society – which he refers to as Moloch – has negatively forced us to distance us from ourselves, to become the individuals the government needs in order to make this “rat race” work. In a more social sense (rather than political), we could relate this to the anger Martha constantly expresses because George couldn’t get to be the one in charge of the History department as they had planned, and the fact that Nick is more likely to achieve the management of the Biology department kills George. Likewise Nick married her pregnant girlfriend Honey because that is what he was supposed to do; it wasn’t because of love but for moral issues and money.

“Moloch the heavy judger of men” leads us to live in fear, endeavoring to fit in; and our free will is as fictitious as George and Martha’s kid. So NO, we are not the twisted ones here...

Relationships Made in Hell

Relationships Made in Hell

Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf is a very interesting play written by Edward Albee, in which many relevant and strange situations happen. These are truly real life issues that occur to everyone. Moreover, it is a play that shows as a “game” something that is actually a reality that may happen to us in our everyday lives. Even though many interesting scenes can be argue, in this post I will focus my writing to one situation in particular which is the well known “toxic couple” presented in the play by George and Martha.

Both characters make the play arousing to be viewed or read. However, is it interesting when you appear to be like George (if you are a man), or being like Martha (in the case if you reader are a woman)? It is clearly not because as you will see it is unhealthy to live like they did. But it happens a lot. It is very common to see couples behave like they do, and maybe you have experienced it too.

They are immersed into a nightmare, surrounded by constant fights between each other, insulting, making jokes that might be very harmful, etc. These are clearly not fun or innocent games. On the contrary, it can be vicious and are stormy moments that do not go anywhere or anywhere good. Alcohol and drinking is another essential aspect that surround their way of living, and it badly contributes to the cruelty and the unhealthy treatment that both have.

Martha bullies George by constantly reminding him about his lack of academic studies and professional as well as personal achievements. She does not care about ridiculing him in front of other people. They both function by insulting themselves verbally mostly. Nevertheless, there is a scene in which Martha crosses the line and George let her know that by acting very violently. In fact, in “Walpurgis Nacht”, George grabs Martha by the throat and chokes her because she was laughing at his failed attempts as a novelist.  Nick prevented this to end badly.

 

However, what caught my attention the most is that even though George almost kills Martha, she did not appear to be surprised by his reaction. She might have thought that it was totally a normal behavior. And it is not!

How couldn’t they notice that their relationship wasn’t healthy? How could they live with each other like that? Why didn’t they separate? Did they really like living their lives insulting themselves and making fun of each other?  

This post is created in order for you to reflect and think about yourselves: am I living this situation? Is something similar happening to me? Or most common have you thought about having lived this situation in your life. Maybe it has already happen to you, and you got through it, or maybe you’re still living it. What a nightmare, isn’t it?

This is more an advice than an informative post. That is for the reason that I know that you can be going through a similar situation or know someone who is living it. Because it is very common to occur! It is reality. The play shows an awful reality. Therefore, it is important that you know how to stop it to continue happening.

So you need to notice that it is not a healthy relationship even though you feel love for the person. There are other ways of being happy, and this is not the way. It is worthless to be in a relationship if it matches to the one presented in the play by Martha and George.

This stormy and vicious situation can happen not only in love relationships, but also in friendships. So take into consideration the following video and analyze if you really are going through this, and get the courage to fight it and leave it, so that you can go on and finally be happy. But it is important to remember that not every relationship is as it is said “it’s not all a bed of roses”, everyone has its good and bad moments, but there is the point. Bad moments shouldn’t be the most recurrent in our lives, but the good ones. If your life is mostly based on bad moments you need to do something before it is too late. In fact, the best way to live with someone you love is by finding the balance.  

Follow the tips given in this video and free yourself from this turbulent relationships:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPwck0EQkgs

I hope you liked it and that it helps you!

Thank you for reading :) 

"Unveil the unseen"

America: The land of the free?

The video commercial illustrates a “perfect” American family in the ‘60s:  the father, the mother, their children and friends. The message is clear: “Everything seems right when Coca Cola is on the dinner table. Coca Cola brings happiness to our lives. Coca Cola is American. And so are we.”

It is acknowledged that America changed completely after WWll. America became a country, recognized worldwide by its capitalistic system, which provided products to the American families that would secure happiness in life, just as Coke. People aimed to be as equal as possible, maintaining “order” in different aspects of life, such as work and family.

Nonetheless, many people knew that perfection was not real. Commercials and advertisements always simplified things, but it turns out that the concept of family and society, had its flaws, contrary to what propaganda showed to people.

In the 60’s, activists, play writers and poets started to change the paradigm of society, by demonstrating in their different art forms, that life is far more complex.

Who's afraid of the big bad Woolf..

Edward Albee, the creator of “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf”, stated in his play the topic of family.

In the play exists a game of appearances versus. reality, which alludes to how people show themselves to others and how they really behave when nobody’s watching. This play sees the real drama in “family” and basically reveals against the preconceived idea of it. 

In the play, there are moments in which problems between Martha and George, the “not so perfect” couple, are made explicit. There is a game of verbal aggression between them.

In this scene, Martha tries to humiliate George by telling the younger couple, Nick and Honey, how she met George and how she pictured her life with him.

First it can be acknowledged that she had high expectations about her marriage with her husband.  

“Martha: (…) first, he’d take over the History Department, and then, when Daddy retired, he’d take over the college (…) that’s the way it was supposed to be.

(To George, who is at the portable bar with his back to her.) You getting angry, baby? Huhh? (Now back). (…) And Daddy seemed to think it was a pretty good idea (…).Until he watched for a couple of years! (To George, again). You getting angrier? (…) and started thinking maybe it wasn’t such a

good idea after all…that maybe Georgie boy didn’t have the stuff…that he didn’t have it in him!

Then, the desperation of George slowly starts to go up:

George: Stop it, Martha.

Martha: (…) You see, George didn’t have much…push…he wasn’t particularly…aggressive. (Albee, p.167).

After his moment, George can’t take the pressure anymore and breaks a bottle against the bar in the house. This is a clear situation of desperation, based on the passive-aggressive talking of Martha that makes him feel humiliated.

It is possible to say that this has nothing to do with the image of an American family that is illustrated in the video. Families were firstly not all composed the same way. Not all families had children and not all families were happy. The video shows an illusion of an ideal family in the 1960’s and in the family of Martha and George, the only thing that in the end hold both together, was the illusion of their imaginary child.

That could explain the end of the play, which is about George telling Martha that their son died. In the end, “killing” the son, is also killing the only illusion that the couple had, the only reason that kept them together:

“Martha: (…) I hold on…but I’ve wanted to…so often… oh, George, you’ve pushed it…there was no need…(…) you didn’t’ have to push it over the Edge. You didn’t have to…kill him.” (Albee, P.200).

The american Beat

Speaking of this supposed postwar perfection in America, in those times emerged a wave of revolution against the American ideal. “The beat generation” appeared, composed of young people who wrote about an America that was not perfect, but broken and fake.

The beat movement thought that the more equal and standardized we are, the more alienate individuals we become and our identity start to get lost. One of the Beatniks was Allen Ginsberg; he wrote the poem “Howl”, which was published in 1956.  

In the first part of this poem, Ginsberg criticizes America, claiming that people have lost sight of what America really is about. The aim of the author is not only announcing what America is, but “howl” it. The first part of the poem is the most crowded section, partly due to the stream of consciousness. In it can be found images of sex, violence, addiction and other visual descriptions that make the first part feel desperate:

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix” (Ginsberg, p.10).

“With dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls, incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind”. (Ginsberg, p.11-12).

This part becomes overwhelming, because it is too much sensation and information. The first part of “Howl” starts by showing a reality. It seems like the speaker is actually watching America; but he’s watching the America nobody wants to see, contrary to the “Coca Cola version” that is streamed in commercials, just as the one above.

References:

Albee, E. (1962). Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?  

Allen Ginsberg. (2006). Howl. Spain: Anagrama.

"Vintage 1961 Coca Cola Commercial". Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr1LTcAMIVg

The Museum: Frozen and Infinite Scenes

When we go to a museum, we find ourselves in a place where time does not pass by, in fact, it is a place in which time is preciously preserved, and scenarios hardly ever vary, a place in which we can lose ourselves and we can get trapped in endless time. There is no movement, no changes, no track of time, and that caused a major impact in The Catcher in The Rye’s protagonist Holden, who felt the desire of staying in a specific moment of life he treasured the most; youth. But isn’t it ironic that a place that explains and exposes evolution can hold Holden to the fear of change?

Growing up and changing is inevitable, but that is something hard to face for many people who are scared of dealing with the fact that life is a process, a series of stages and adjustments that nobody can escape.  For Holden, the fear of facing his coming up transition to adulthood, and the modifications and uncertainties that this process brought with it, made him want to stay in the good old days of adolescence, in which he was certainly comfortable.

When Holden mentions The Museum of Natural History we can clearly tell that it is one of the moments in which he expresses his concern and reluctance towards changing.

“The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole” 

In this quote, it is obvious that Holden is captivated by the immobility and stillness of the things at the museum, and the way in which no matter how many time you go to that place, the scenes are always the same and there is no fluctuation nor movement in any scene or object, no action at all.

What he appreciates the most about going to the museum is that it is one of the only things in his life that did not change, the place looked always the same and that represents what he yearns the most, the longevity of a moment, the freeze scenario that would be eternally treasured as something steady in his life, the one thing that would remain as he remembers, because unlike things at the museum, everything else changes and evolves.

“I kept thinking about old Phoebe going to that museum on Saturdays the way I used to. I thought how she’d see the same stuff I used to see, and how she’d be different every time she saw it”

Holden thinks about the fact that everything eventually changes and he thinks about posterity, when Phoebe is older and eventually she would visit the museum, and the only things that would remain the same are the exhibits at the museum, but neither him nor Phoebe would be the same anymore, they will be different, and there is no way of changing that. At the end the only aspect that does not change is the fact that people and circumstances change.

In the moment in which Holden thinks about how phoebe will be different every time she visits the museum, he is already aware of the fact that there is an inevitability in his life, the one that causes him nostalgia, the fact that things will never be the same, that people change, age, and move on from one stage in life to the next one.

It was important analyze the symbolic use of The Museum of Natural History, because it is one of the symbols used in the book that makes us comprehend the fear Holden has toward the future, but at the same time it is a place that makes him realize the inevitability.

We can tell that a museum is in fact a place in which changes are exposed; the evolution of men and Earth through time in frozen scenes; however, they still show growth, progress and transformation. This is an interesting point, because as we read the book we notice that Holden assumes the inevitable with the help of ideas that came up when he thought about things like what happened when he visited the museum, but he never realizes that the museum itself represents changes, and one of its objectives is for people to see and understand progress and evolution.

References

• Salinger, J. D., Mitchell, E. M., & Jacobi, L. (1951). The Catcher in the Rye.

You're the worst

You're the worst

The play Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee showed us a toxic couple composed by George and Martha. This couple - during the whole play- was surrounded by alcohol, games and a song which reminded them of the party they had attended earlier that night. The song did also intend (under Martha’s plans) to carry the spirit of the party to George’s and Martha’s house - not succeeding, though.  

The play was mostly centered on the concept of selfishness, which could be related to Martha’s sterility and also, to the way the couple interacted - since none of them seemed to make an effort to emotionally connect with the other one. The only connection, which by the way was a quite strong one, was the connection of the game between Martha and George, as they played games with their guests Honey and Nick, whom did not seem to understand what was going on.

In 2014 was the premiere of an American comedy series created by Stephen Falk, called You’re the Worst. This series is centered on Jimmy and Gretchen who are a lethal couple, just as Martha and George. Jimmy, is a writer and Gretchen is a L.A. PR executive. This two characters met at a wedding, and they immediately felt sexually attracted to each other. 

The series shows the anecdotes of this two particular characters, who like to have fun by making cruel comments about other people’s lives. The series also shows how Jimmy and Gretchen deal with their problems as a couple, since the two of them are very stubborn and self-interested.

In the second season of You’re the worst Gretchen admits to suffer of depression, and Jimmy, who actually cares about her (but doesn’t want to admit it) tries to cheer her up, by inviting her to do things that he knows that she likes, for example: making fun of hipsters in fancy restaurants. As times goes on, Gretchen’s depression gets stronger and Jimmy keeps trying to “fix her”. In Albee’s play, Martha is the one that wants to “change” or “fix” George. She wants him to be what he used to be, as she is deeply disappointed of the man he has become.

  

I think that Gretchen and Jimmy are the Martha and George of the 21^st century, since the relationship (or the attempt of relationship) that Gretchen and Jimmy have, is highly similar to Martha and George’s one. The couple of the series are drunk all day, and moreover, they are a sarcastic couple that make jokes about things that people usually don’t laugh at. Jimmy and Gretchen are very similar, and completely different at the same time. 

The both of them have a dark sense of humor and they don’t mince any words. Nonetheless, Jimmy has OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) whereas Gretchen is messy, this can be reflected in the places they live (before Gretchen moves into Jimmy’s) as Jimmy’s apartment is very tidy and Gretchen’s place is a chaos.

Gretchen and Jimmy, live with Edgar Quintero who is an Iraq War veteran that suffers PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder). He is in charge of doing the house chores for both of them (Gretchen & Jimmy), and he’s often receiving offensive comments (jokes) from Jimmy. However, Edgar doesn’t seem to notice that, and that’s the reason why he and Jimmy continue to be good friends.

On the other hand, Lindsay Jillian is Gretchen’s best friend who is married to a nerd that has money to pay for her debts. Lindsay is not a “victim” from Gretchen’s comments, but an accomplice. It’s is an unusual character as she is really witty and naïve at the same time.

As mentioned before, George and Martha played games with Honey & Nick, who were a younger and unexperienced couple that were married under Honey’s father decision. By the time they married, Honey expected a baby from Nick. Later on, she loses the baby, but they remained married anyway.  

The couples described above, Lindsay & Edgar plus Nick & Honey are extremely similar. Even when Lindsay and Edgar don’t have an intimate relationship, they share the same characteristics that the couple in the play, since the two of them (the two couples) are part of the toxic main characters’ sick game. 

When the relationship of this two individuals (George & Martha or Jimmy & Gretchen) is analyzed, it isn’t hard to figure out that they are not good for each other. The reader/watcher, somehow knows that the play/series cannot end well, yet, we, as readers/watchers, keep reading/watching to see what happens. This situation might be related to our daily lives, where is highly plausible that we meet at least one couple – in a party, or wherever – that is toxic. This “toxicity” is what makes it interesting, as we can see them fighting and shouting each other in the bar and minutes later, see them kissing in the lady’s bathroom. Those types of situations (i.e. watching the couple’s fight) are the ones that reveal us that we are, in one way or another, part of their game.