George's story - the boy in the bar - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) Discussion

[–] Doom 15 years ago

Yes, George was telling his 'own' story. Those events happened to him.

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Wait a minute... who am I here?

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[–] Edward_de_Vere 15 years ago

Yes, George was telling his 'own' story. Those events happened to him.

While the story is at least in part autobiographical, most of the events are symbolic rather than literally true. For example, he says that after accidentally killing his father in a car crash, the boy was put away in an asylum and never spoke another word.

Clearly, George was not in an asylum nor was he catatonic. However, he felt that his life at the university was like a prison or an asylum, and that he's lived with repressed emotions for so many years that it was as though we were silent.

Similarly, I suspect that the story about the boy killing his father was also symbolic. George probably had a troubled relationship with his parents. Perhaps he wasn't on speaking terms with them, so by making up the story about their deaths, he was saying that they were dead to him. Remember when Nick asked him about the trip he took to Greece with his parents "Was that before or after you killed them?"

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[–] nycruise-1 15 years ago

Well wait - as the night progresses we find out that George in fact tried to have a novel published that incorporated that same plot. The cracks appear in the car on the way to the bar, when Martha makes some comment about "You used to drink 'bergon'" - and George reacts with "Shut up Martha!" and then she turns to Nick and says "Oooooh? Did he tell you about that?"

Then later in the bar, Martha goes off and explains that while George wanted to publish the novel, her father (president of the University) refused to allow the book to be published because it was sub-par, thus demonstrating how George had failed to gain the sort of recognition needed to succeed in an academic institution - at the hands of his father-in-law no less.

George himself seems to admit that the story is his failed novel attempt at literary fame when he goes into the "Get the Guest" sequence and relates the story of a college athletic hero and his "mouse who is a wifey little thing": he starts off by saying "Martha told you about my first novel - but did she tell you about my SECOND novel?"

Of course, George might have truly wished that he had killed his parents - or maybe he really did? He doesn't seem like he's THAT KIND of crazy - but maybe...
"Don't call me 'honey', mac."
"Don't call me 'mac'... HONEY!"

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] Edward_de_Vere 15 years ago

Of course, George might have truly wished that he had killed his parents - or maybe he really did? He doesn't seem like he's THAT KIND of crazy - but maybe..

We have no reason to think that the story about killing his parents is any more real than the story about the "son" he had with Martha. In both cases, George created a fantasy as an outlet for his emotions, and as a means of coping with an unsatisfactory family life.

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[–] Doom 15 years ago

Clearly, George was not in an asylum nor was he catatonic.

I've just always assumed his 'asylum' was his marriage to Martha...

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Wait a minute... who am I here?

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[–] Edward_de_Vere 15 years ago

I've just always assumed his 'asylum' was his marriage to Martha...

It also probably referred to his career at the university. He talked about the boy not saying a word since being institutionalized - a reference to how stifled he felt his life and career was at the college (thanks in part to his father in law telling him that he'd lose his job if he published his novel).

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[–] Kpocc 14 years ago

Incorrect.

Outside the bar after the round of Get the Guests, Martha says, "Before I'm through with you, you'll wish you'd died in that automobile."

And the asylum is his marriage to Martha. Since he never achieved tenure, if he hadn't chained himself to her, he could have left at anytime and gotten a job elsewhere. It was her father that kept him in his subservient status.

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[–] SherlockVonEinstein 14 years ago

not necessarily.

george killing his father in a car-crash could have been a game, very much like george and martha having a son was.

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[–] SlackerInc (1103) 3 years ago

He’s an associate professor, which means he does have tenure.

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[–] LuvvieHowell 11 years ago

Aha! This is a perfect example of why I adore this movie....there is so much to TALK ABOUT!

My opinion: I think George WAS in a car wreck and that his father did indeed die. He's a very troubled man, and it isn't all because he is married to a woman who essentially treats him like a doormat.

As far as George relating to Nick that the boy "never uttered a word." I remain confused. George is VERY talkative, and he doesn't hold back a thing. He reveals to Nick personal events about his life, he makes intimate remarks about Honey, and he certainly has NO problem dressing-down Martha.

He expresses himself very well. In the first scene, he says he doesn't want guests, asks why Martha is drinking so much, and as the movie progresses, reveals even more about himself. George is certainly NOT silent....about anything.

I can buy that he feels trapped in his marriage; that it feels like his home is a mad-house, but the "the boy never uttered another world" remains a mystery to me.

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[–] Edward_de_Vere 10 years ago

I can buy that he feels trapped in his marriage; that it feels like his home is a mad-house, but the "the boy never uttered another world" remains a mystery to me.

According to Martha, her father (President of the University) forbade George from publishing his novel, and in doing so perhaps frustrated his ambitions to be a writer. Perhaps more generally, working at an academic dead-end job at what's probably a second-tier university while being bullied by both his wife and father-in-law stifled whatever individuality George ever had. That's what he was referring to by "never uttered another word," in my opinion.

I guess the issue of whether George really did kill his father in a car wreck is left ambiguous, we hear him talk about going on vacation with his parents (i.e. "was that before or after you killed them?") afterwards, so I assumed that the death of his father and mother were more of a metaphor for estrangement and alienation from them. It's not something to be taken literally, any more than the boy's silence was meant to be taken literally.

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[–] pp312 9 years ago

Here's my take, even if I am a bit late. There's no reason to suppose the story about George as a boy killing his mother and father is anything but literally true. It's referred to as such all the way through ("...you'll wish you'd died in that automobile" etc). As for George saying the boy never afterwards uttered another word, he's obviously referring to the boy he was before these tragedies, who also in effect 'died in that automobile' and never spoke again, and has since been living in a madhouse. It's lost youth and innocence, for which they both pine in different ways. Thus Martha's speech about her son, which is a kind of paean to the perfect child '...with hair like fleece'---very similar to the way George describes the pure, innocent boy drinking 'bergin'. She's yearning for the thing that dies in all of us, which only a few even notice, let alone regret; the more pure thing we were as children and teenagers and can never get back.

Virginia Woolf isn't the only play/film to feature this kind of yearning. It's in most good plays, most notable perhaps "Come Back Little Sheba". George and Martha have lost themselves, lost their bloom in every possible way (notice George referring to Martha as "Pretty Miss") and to compensate they create a fantasy world of being the parents of a perfect child who in effect embodies all purity and innocence, all that they've lost. But their whole world isn't fantasy, as Martha makes clear when revealing the content of George's novel. Even as he's trying to strangle her she screams out, "It happened!" And if it didn't, why would he be so desperate to silence her?

(Incidentally, here in Australia we actually have a case of a guy who killed both his mother and father in separate "accidents", actually running over the father in his car. He hasn't been charged with anything yet).

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[–] Edward_de_Vere 9 years ago

Here's my take, even if I am a bit late. There's no reason to suppose the story about George as a boy killing his mother and father is anything but literally true. It's referred to as such all the way through ("...you'll wish you'd died in that automobile" etc)

Martha's statement could have just as well have meant that "you'll wish you'd died in your [fictional automobile accident]".

Since George and Martha go so far as to treat a non-existent child as though he were real, there's no reason to suppose that any other supposedly "autobiographical" information they provide is any more trustworthy. Furthermore, if George really were responsible for the (allegedly) accidental deaths of both parents, it would have been sufficiently notorious that everyone, including the university president, would have known about his past from the get-go, in which case George wouldn't have been hired at the school for fear of controversy.

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[–] ovpower 13 years ago

Truth or illusion, George, Truth or illusion?

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[–] mcmiller53 9 years ago

This movie comes up in my world occasionally and as I get older it becomes more clear to me.

After having been around situations such as these where the level of alcohol-fueled hostility reaches a point of mania there's only one plausible explanation that fits for me.

George's story about the boy in the bar is actually true. He took his son to a bar to celebrate his 16th birthday as well as getting his learner's permit. A reckless thing to do. While having fun and not getting the reality of the danger he was putting his son in, he lets his probably drunken son drive home and his son is killed and George 'survives' physically. That is why his son/the boy "never utters another word" and both of his son's parents are, essentially, dead inside.

It's the story on the swing that is the pivotal point, for me. George states that it was "the happiest day of my life". And so it was, in retrospect because it was a bubble of time before the horror of his, self-perceived, murder of his own son following such laughter and potential.

George tries to come to terms with this by writing a novel that is, as he states, quite true but because of the never-ending resentment of his wife and his father-in-law, it is denied to him and George is left in a position of eternal guilt and punishment at their hands. Martha drowns her sorrow and hatred of George for many years bringing us to this point, on the anniversary not only of their dead son's birthday but his death as well and all the vitriol is charged by the entrance of a young couple who resemble them to a frightening degree.

My .02 anyway.

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[–] JPLogan54 9 years ago

I always thought at the swing George was telling the story in the way he could bare to tell it. But not with his son driving but with George driving, getting in a wreck and killing his son. But when he tells it, he tells it with him as the boy who gets his father killed.

The two stories (he as Bergen Boy and the perhaps real, perhaps imaginary son) are conflated. I always thought they might be the same story.

It's kind of like his reality and his illusion he's built to protect himself from the reality are merging in this moment of vulnerability.
I still can't convince myself one way or another if the the son was made up or real.

In the world where I think the son was real, I imagine both George and Martha in the car with their son, George driving drunk, getting in an accident where they both live but their son dies. This is the trigger for both the illusions they build to protect themselves and the disgust they have for each other.

There is some dialogue early in the film about Martha's teeth when she's chewing ice cubes.
“You’ll crack your big teeth”
“Well they’re MY big teeth”
“Some of them, some of them”
“Well I’ve got more teeth then you have”
“Two more”
I always imagined they both might have lost teeth in the accident. That is perhaps a stretch but....it's odd dialogue.

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[–] mcmiller53 9 years ago

Interesting insights! This movie demands attention and why I admire it so much.

My belief that their son was driving and died in a crash is still bolstered by the fact that it was his 16th birthday, just got his learner's permit and so a celebration would be in order. But, more than that the word "bergin" for bourbon that is told by George and a trigger word from Martha in the car leads me down the path that their son had been drinking, George had been reckless in not getting that (perhaps the son was drinking from other people's drinks-unknown) but it's a signal that the kid had been drinking.

If all of this is true, and I do believe it is, then there is no purpose in relating this info unless the son needs to be shown as drunk or incapacitated so he must have been the driver. Otherwise, why bring that up?

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[–] pp312 9 years ago

Wow, we're into some freaky stuff here. Now we're hearing that some minor banter about ice cubes actually reveals the whole plot. Er...no.

Guys, the son isn't real. That's why when Martha talks about his blue eyes George says something like "Blue...green...grey..". And what about the stuff about her breaking into the bathroom to wash him in the tub when he's 16? It's a construct. They couldn't have a child, as Nick says at the end "You couldn't...?" and George says "We couldn't...". No son. Zilch, zero.

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[–] CoriSCapnSkip (2332) 8 years ago

Wow, this sounds like "The Turn of the Screw" with interpretations being so vital viewers practically each watch a different movie!

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