Power Games: Multiple Masculinities and Affective Improvisation in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Abstract This article explores the power contest between multiple masculinities in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? . It focuses especially on how the superior position of hegemonic masculinity is disrupted by nonconformists through gender performance and affective improvisation. In postwar America, a hegemonic masculinity was constructed around men’s roles as authoritative breadwinners and fathers in suburban homes. Albee interrogates this paternalistic masculinity by staging a dark parody of a white middle-class family comprising a strong wife, a weak husband, and an illusionary son. This article analyzes the power games between George’s bookish masculinity, Martha’s female masculinity, and Nick’s ideal masculinity from an affective perspective. It argues that although ideal masculinity may gain ascendancy through affective tactics like public shaming, the power hierarchy is never fixed. Gender nonconformists have the potential to subvert this hierarchy by resorting to the motivating force of queer fury, the disruptive force of gender performance, and the subjugating force of fear induction and psychological subversion. By staging the performative nature of gender, the struggles of nonconformists, and the dynamics of power relations in theater, Albee invites the audience to physically experience, cognitively understand and actively challenge the illusions of gender conformity and power stability.