Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf: Act 1 Summary & Analysis

The play opens in the dark, and a crash is heard at the front door, followed by Martha’s laughter. Martha enters through the front door, George following behind her. Martha begins to curse, and George tries to silence her, reminding her that it’s two o’clock in the morning. She continues to provoke him, reciting a Bette Davis line—“What a dump”—and asking him what movie it’s from. He doesn’t remember but she persists on asking him the name of the Bette Davis movie. George suggests that the movie is Chicago, which Martha sharply rejects.

Martha goes on to describe the movie, but George pleads that he’s tired from her father’s “Saturday night orgy.” Martha nags him for doing nothing but sitting around and talking; George accuses her of going around and “braying” at everybody.

Martha orders George to make her a drink and informs him that they have guests coming over, but can’t remember their guests’ names. She describes that the male guest is from the math department, and that his wife is mousey. She explains that she’s invited them over because her father wants George and Martha to be nice to them.

George and Martha continue to bicker—George accuses her of springing things on him like this, and Martha accuses George of sulking. She begins to sing, “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? Virginia Woolf, Virginia Woolf…,” and asks George if he didn’t think that was funny. He responds that he thought it was alright, and Martha tells him that he makes her puke.

They continue on in this vein, Martha calling George a “simp” and “phrasemaker”, and George comparing Martha to a cocker spaniel when she chews her ice cubes. George reminds Martha that he’s six years younger than her; she retorts that he’s balding. She asks him to kiss her but he denies her request out of fear of growing too sexually excited before their guests come over. Martha asks, in a childish voice, for another drink.

The front doorbell interrupts their antagonistic banter, George very reluctantly goes to answer it as he provokes Martha. At the very moment that he opens up the door, she yells at him, “Fuck you!,” such that their guests, Nick and Honey, hear it. Nick appears uncomfortable and proposes that he and his wife shouldn’t have come. George and Martha brush off their concern and invite them to come in and throw their stuff down anywhere. Honey giggles a little, and George mocks her.

Nick notices an abstract painting and inquires about the artist. George begins to explain that it was made by a Greek man that Martha attacked one night, when Honey interrupts him, uncomfortable with the story. Nick starts off saying, “It’s got a…” and George pre-emptively mocks the pretentious language that people use to talk about art, and offers that Nick was going to say something about the painting’s “quiet intensity.”

George prepares drinks for the crew—brandy for Honey, bourbon for Nick, and (jokingly) rubbing alcohol for Martha. George recounts that when he was first dating Martha, she would order the “damnedest” things, like brandy Alexanders and flaming punch bowls. Martha facetiously praises George for his “Dylan Thomas-y quality,” and George accuses her of being vulgar.

Martha again begins singing “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” and this time Honey joins in. They begin to discuss the night’s party, and Honey praises Martha’s father as marvelous. George tries to condition Honey’s compliment, but Nick insists that he has found the parties very helpful in getting introduced to the college. George confides to Nick that there are easier things in the world than being married to the daughter of your university’s president. Martha retorts that it should rather be an extraordinary opportunity. Martha and Honey excuse themselves to go to the restroom. George tells Nick that he’s heard he’s in the math department, but Nick corrects him that he’s not, and then George continues to interrogate him about what motivated him to become a teacher.

Nick finally snaps back at George, tired of his antics. Nick explains that he doesn’t like to become involved in other people’s affairs, and is uncomfortable around George and Martha’s marital disputes. George comforts him by saying he’ll get over that squeamishness, because the college is so small and the “faculty sport” is “musical beds.”

When George asks, Nick informs him that he is twenty-seven years old, and George responds that he himself is forty-something, and then expresses his pride in not having a paunch. He asks Nick how much he weighs, and then how much is wife weighs. Nick does not respond.

After the second time that George insists that Nick is in Math, Nick corrects him that he is in the Biology department. It suddenly occurs to George that Nick is the professor who is working, in genetic biology, to make “everyone the same, rearranging the chromozones.” Nick tries to correct George’s mistaken notions about his work in genetics, but George continues to express his misgivings. George tells Nick that he used to run the History Department during the war, and then remarks to Nick that his wife doesn’t really have any hips. George asks Nick if he has any kids. Nick says no, then asks George the same question, to which George responds, “that’s for me to know and you to find out.”

George asks if Nick is going to be happy in New Carthage, given that the college isn’t MIT or Oxford. He tells Nick that Martha’s father expects his staff to grow old at the college. George calls to his wife. Honey tells the men that Martha is changing her dress, and then tells George that she’s just heard about his son who is turning twenty-one the next day. George seems surprised and upset by the news that Martha has told Honey about him.

George lets Honey and Nick know that Martha is according them an honor by changing her dress, and characterizes her as the “right ball” of her father. Nick requests that George not use such language around his wife. Martha enters looking more comfortable and more voluptuous. Martha praises Nick for his remarkable accomplishment, which she has just learned about, of having completed his Master’s degree at the age of nineteen. George is impressed, and expresses some jealousy.

Martha insults George, calling him an “old bog” in the History Department, but George coolly ignores her comments. Martha inquires if Nick used to play football, and he answers that he did but that he was more skilled at boxing, and was intercollegiate state light heavyweight champion. Martha congratulates him on his still “pretty good body.” George chastises Martha for being obscene.

Martha encourages George to tell their guests about a boxing match they once had together, but he insists that she tell it instead. Martha explains that her father had become enthusiastic about the idea of exercise during the war and had invited George over to box with him, and Martha joined and put on some gloves herself and snuck up behind George and round housed him right in the jaw.

George comes from behind Martha and aims a short-barreled shotgun at her head. Honey screams when George pulls the trigger, to the blossoming of a Chinese parasol from the gun’s barrel. They all laugh out of great relief.

Martha asks her husband for a kiss and he dismisses her but she insists and then places his hand on her breast. Nick retreats to the bathroom. Martha and George argue about whether Nick is in the biology or math department, and Honey shyly tells them it’s the former. Martha reasons that Biology is better for Nick, because it’s less “abstruse”; George corrects her, “abstract,” but she insists that she meant what she said. When Nick returns, Martha recommences a conversation about Nick’s experimentation in genetic biology. George explains that Nick is working on a system that could alter chromosomes, so as to make a race of men “superb and sublime.” Martha and Honey are impressed and excited, but George tries to get them to understand that everyone will be the same, and that millions of sperm tubes will have to be cut.

Nick tries to cut George off, displeased with his lecture, but George continues his harangue about the consequences of the chromosomal adjustments—loss of liberty, loss of music and painting, et cetera. Nick proudly asserts that he is going to be the wave of the future.

Honey changes the subject by asking when George and Martha’s son is coming home. Martha says never mind, and George makes Martha answer for both of them, given that she was the one to “bring him up.” She yells that she doesn’t want to talk about it. George and Martha continue to bicker and become antagonistic with one another. Martha claims that George’s problem about their son is that he’s not sure it’s his own kid, and George becomes very serious and then insists that Martha is lying and that he is absolutely sure of his “chromosomological partnership” in the creation of their son.

Martha and George dispute the color of their son’s eyes. George adds that Martha’s father has tiny red eyes and is, in other ways as well, like a white mouse. He leaves to get some more alcohol. Martha begins to explain to Honey and Nick why her husband so hates her father, and details her adolescent life: she had gotten married at her academy to the man who mowed the lawn, but soon after left school and retired to the college with her father. Her father, she says, had anticipated grooming someone to take over after he retired from the presidency.

Martha is just beginning to describe George’s entrance onto the college scene, when George returns to the parlor. Martha narrates that she fell for George when he came into the History department, and that their relationship was practical, too. George tries to stop her from talking about the business side of their courtship. Martha continues on in spite of his resistance: George was expected to take over the History Dept. and then the college, but then Martha’s dad watched for a couple of years and began to doubt George’s capacity for aggressiveness and power.

George breaks a bottle against the portable bar and nearly cries, but Martha does not relent, and tells George she hopes the bottle was empty because he wouldn’t want to waste good liquor on an Associate Professor’s salary. She criticizes him as “somebody without the guts to make anybody proud of him.” George loudly sings “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” and then Honey joins in before announcing that she’s going to be sick and running offstage. Nick and Martha run after Honey, leaving George alone on the stage.