생명과 죽음의 연극

A Play of Life and Death: Edward Albee's Three Tall Women

The close relationship between life and death has been scrutinized by leading scholars. George Bataille intertwined death with erotism arguing both of them are plethora and violence. Sigmund Freud, in his investigation of libidinal drives, concluded that the life drive, Eros, and the death drive, Thanatos, are inseparable. Edward Albee dramatized the issues of death and violence in his early plays. From the late 1960s to the 1980s, he continued to examine the matter of death along with those of marriage life and sexuality. His incessant investigation of the topics prepared him to write Three Tall Women in 1991, which faces them in a bold and constructive way with an imagery language. The two-act play realistically portrays the characters in the first act and expressionistically presents them in the second act. The main character, A, who is dying, goes through the stages of dying suggested by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and eventually reaches the stage of acceptance and understanding. While undergoing the stages of dying, A and the other two characters talk of their erotic experiences in the past. To them, death plays the role of offering a chance to gain deeper insight on life. In the end, the play presents us harmony between and wisdom about death and life.