Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Albee, Edward (Vol. 11) - Robbie Odom Moses

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ROBBIE ODOM MOSES

All Over confronts, as the title suggests, the endemic trait of all living organisms. Death, the great leveler to a poet like William Cullen Bryant, is, for Albee, man's final confrontation with life. In the play, death is tantamount to a metaphysical conceit, with the death of the body being but one thematic strain. The famous man, whose dying is both a public event for the press and the crowd awaiting word of his demise, and a private ritual for the circle of intimates assembled for the vigil, is the instrument through which Albee explores some issues attendant to dying and death. The age at which a person becomes aware of death is an idea examined that is important to the development of psychological maturity. Knowing her husband as a thorough man with almost as much knowledge about law as Best Friend, Wife forces the lawyer into a deeper meaning of death when she dismisses fifteen, "the age we all become philosophers," as the age when he...

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1. Introduction
2. Richard Schechner
3. Alan Schneider
4. John Simon
5. John Simon
6. Robbie Odom Moses
7. Thomas P. Adler
8. Joan S. Fleckenstein
9. Copyright