“We Complete Each Other in the Nastiest, Ugliest Way Possible”: The Incorporation of Flawed Marriage in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Great Gatsby, and Gone Girl Matt Rosenthal 11th Grade

Marriage will always have its share of imperfections, subtle and explicit, but the espoused in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl suffer from a bundle of particularly damaging marital complications. While their imperfection as couples arise in similar manifestations, the effects their dysfunctionalities and desires for dominance bring upon the surrounding world are the differentiating factors. From simplistic cheating on one spouse to the promised demolishment of the other, each text exemplifies a set of matrimonial struggles and identifies the consequences of each. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Great Gatsby, and Gone Girl illustrate the theme of how imperfect marriage results in a discontented atmosphere and a struggle for superiority, which develops into a series of devastating repercussions that affect not only the couple, but also the characters they are involved with.

The imperfectness of Martha and George’s relationship in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? stems from a combination of marital dissatisfaction and a desire for supremacy from both partners. The bickering between these two characters ensues from the beginning of the very...