DEATH-WATCH – A JUXTAPOSITION OF LIVING AND DYING: A STUDY OF THE PLAY THE LADY FROM DUBUQUE BY EDWARD ALBEE

Abstract

The The Lady from Dubuque is also based on the idea of death-watch – a juxtaposition of living and dying. This play is inspired by Elizabeth Kubler Ross’s On Death and Dying (1969) and this is why the title character in Albee’s play is named Elizabeth. Ross’s book presents a case study of a woman named Mrs. W who is dying and wants to be left alone to die in peace. Along with this, Mrs. W’s husband is unable to accept this final reality i.e., his wife’s death and his approaching loneliness. So, his wife is angry with him for “not facing it and for so desperately clinging on to something that she was willing and ready to give up” (Ross 116). In Albee’s The Lady from Dubuque, just like On Death and Dying, Jo is in the final days of her illness, and her husband Sam is unable to face the fact that his wife is dying. Albee agrees with Ross’s idea that, “It (death) is as if the pain had gone, the struggle is over, and there comes a time for the final rest ‘before the long journey’” (113). This is what Jo, the dying person, believes and feels; but Sam’s escapism proves a hurdle in her smooth process of dying.