onyshlar
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<i>Me, Myself & I</i> - 2:41PM on 8/17/2010
Decoding Edward Albee’s Me, Myself & I
Look again at the title! It hints at a code.
As in a good poem, or a good work of literature, so much of the story is in the title itself! The "I" is highlighted. Identity. Personality. We have the split "I", split into three, the three versions of one, of one "I".
The title itself refers to a 1937 song "Me, Myself and I", made popular by Billie Holiday, and which continues to be performed by many other singers until quite recently. In the lyrics there are references to three part of "I" being in love with one person "Me, myself and I/ are all in love with you" and about having "just one point of view." Therefore, one keeps searching in the play for three persons/personalities loving one person. We are also warned of a possible broken heart.
There is another association that the song hints at: it is the singers own story, that of a child, whose mother left her at a young age. Nevertheless, the misfit, the abandoned child, did manage to make it big! Makes one think of similarities with the author himself.
The Visual Plot
Mother and Doctor are in bed. She in a nightgown, he in a suit, with a hat resting on the headboard. The Doctor delivered the Mothers twins 28 years ago and then stayed with her, because her husband left her right after the children were born. The Doctor is neither the husband, nor the father, nor the head of the household; he is treated only as a guest there, ready to leave when the moment comes – the street clothes on the ready.
The twins are identical boys. The Mother wanted to continue the symmetry of their looks by choosing similar names, whether read to the right or to the left: One twin’s name is spelled OTTO stressed, and the other twins name is written as "otto" in lower case, to be pronounced gently. This palindrome becomes a game for some characters, a way of life for others. No one can tell the twins apart. When one of them comes in to see their mother, she asks: “You are not the one who loves me?” She knows that only one of them does. To this the son replies: “You never tell me who I am.” The issue of identity is at the core of the story, as in so many Albee plays.
As in that song, the topic of loving is repeated several times. When the Father left the family, he told his wife that he loved her beyond reason. The Mother is concerned that while only one twin loves her, otto also has a girlfriend Maureen, who loves him. The situation with the girlfriend an intruder into the daily lives of the family is a catalyst leading to a turning point for all the events. The mother tries to discourage Maureen, telling her: “I love both my sons and will do whatever necessary to protect both.”
OTTO reacts to the love affair in his own way: he tries to erase his brothers existence in terms of his identity and even his masculinity – by sleeping with Maureen, who thinks that he is her otto. The center of OTTO’s plan at punishing his twin for acting independently is the negation of his brother’s existence. However, otto does not accept this maneuver and keeps defending his rights by means of logic: “you can see me and touch me, therefore I am,” paraphrasing Sartre’s claim that we exist in the eyes of the one facing us.
OTTO wants to crush his brother into nothingness by inventing a new, virtual, brother otto, who is OTTO’s reflection in the mirror. A substitution of reality is good enough for him. He creates a new brother or mate for himself, a brother who will not act independently and arrange his own affairs independently. The real otto is hurt and painfully reminds OTTO of the good old days, when “we were ourselves and each other.” However, it does not affect his OTTO, who, obviously, did not have full control over otto. Maureen, whose presence precipitated the whole situation, has a better argument to support her chosen one: she loves otto, therefore he exists. Facing such a logical argument and thus a defeat, OTTO is now free to follow his own dream: to go to China and become a Chinese a comment on the present spreading of global immigration?. This threat draws our attention to China itself.
Whether from the very title of the play, or from the presence of the two brothers – the stress on twins is pretty obvious. When we consider images of a pair representing a whole, whether in folklore or Jung, they also bring associations of issues of a harsher or more aggressive side of one, and a gentler of the other part of the pair. Such a connotation leads one further to consider the stress on the dual nature of the two brothers, the eternal symbol of duality, and possibly of opposites. In the I-Ching the Book of Change or Book of Wisdom, interpreted by Confucius, Tao and others, the famous pair yang and yin comes to mind in particular, because of the very manner in which the names of the brothers are written: yin is ”written” as a broken line - -, while yang is a solid line __. Yang is sunny, strong, masculine, wants to be in control so much like OTTO. Yin is passive/yielding so much like otto, feminine, dark, and cloudy. Both make up a whole and complete a circle of two interlocking parts.
Twins also often represent a striving of two symbols occasionally opponents, as a good one and an evil or wicked one, forming a perfect balance, or “symmetry” that the Mother cared about so much. Typically, in the play, the twins are very much concerned about who was born first and therefore has more "rights"; the Mother keeps this information from her sons and even claims that they were born in parallel, thus adding more “symmetry.”
As to the paternity of twins, we may look at another culture that is brought into the play. In some Greek myths there is a belief that the father was often a god. This is a point to consider. Actually, the first obvious hint about the Olympian element comes at the very end of Albee’s play, when the father Man arrives in a chariot drawn by black panthers. Just like Dionysus in Greek myths. Dionysus, the wanderer, was also a symbol of regeneration, a start of a new life. As a baby, he was nursed by panthers; as an adult, he was depicted with a chariot drawn by them.
In the play, the family keeps mentioning a belief that the father will come back in a carriage. And so, a chariot arrives with a sign “Happy Ending.” The father comes back with a load of huge emeralds each the size of a basketball filling up the whole chariot. In Greek mythology emeralds are symbols of unconditional love while in Egypt – they symbolize eternal youth – quite an advantage for an eternal wanderer!. A gift of these “unconditional” baubles was to buy a future with no nagging from his wife whom he deserted for 28 years! However, the Mother cannot restrain herself she wants her husband to see how she suffered during that period of separation, she does nag, and so the father takes his unconditional interests elsewhere. As Zeus did so often. As most Greek gods did. So despite the legendary promise about the father’s return after all, he did return, there is no happy ending—just a sign with those words, a promise. There is only a homecoming. But its not exactly the classical return of the hero!
The gods who lived on Olympus represented real people – so there is something quite comprehensible, even if not quite realistic in the story. The author gave the play a lively rhythm in its very action as well as in the verbal duels. Since it has so many unsuspected hidden codes waiting to be deciphered, the audience is bound to enjoy it like a game. After all, so many of Albees plays have elements of playfulness, of games even in the titles of the plays. In a way, this is what Albee is doing in Me, Myself, and I, too--– providing us with a riddle to play with, enjoy, and decode.
I saw it at its world premiere in Princeton, NJ in 2008 -- and hope to enjoy it again.
Larissa O.
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