Edward Albee - play - 1961 - p. 131     

A satire of the eponymous notion, Edward Albee’s one-act play depicts a family made up of a domineering mother, a meek father, and a wry, incisive grandmother. Grandmother visits with a community member named Mrs. Barker, from whom Mommy and Daddy adopted a child whom they mutilated as punishment for its misdoings to the point of death. A Young Man shows up and turns out to be the twin of the adopted child--but has suffered vicariously from the mutilations and is left a shell. The play takes a deeply cynical attitude to marriage, child-rearing, and the myth of the idyllic American family.

Key elements: marriage