Sandbox by Edward Albee

• Loneliness is an unpleasant emotional state characterized by a sense of lack of companionship, relationships, and shared experiences.
• The play titled "The Sandbox" by Edward Albee is the focus of this lesson.
• The author of "The Sandbox" is Edward Albee, who was adopted two weeks after birth in 1928 by a wealthy couple in Westchester County, New York, and named after his adoptive grandfather, part owner of the Keith-Albee string of movie-and-vaudeville theaters.
• Edward Albee's early schooling was frequently interrupted by family vacations, and he attended a variety of private schools.
• Edward Albee was dismissed from Trinity College (Connecticut) after three semesters, and went to Greenwich Village, against his foster parents' wishes, determined to write.
• Mood is the overall feeling or atmosphere of a text, showing the readers' feeling while reading the text, and is how the author wants the reader to feel after reading their works.
• The author is the source of creative works, especially one who composes a book, article, poem, play, or other literary work intended for publication.
• For about ten years, Edward Albee tried poetry and fiction while working at various odd jobs to supplement a weekly allowance from a trust fund established by his grandmother.
• The background is the key, which alters from brightest day to deepest night.
• The Young Man, doing calisthenics, is alone on stage to the rear of the sandbox, and to one side, and continues until quite at the very end of the play.
• The stage is bare, with only two simple chairs set side by side, facing the audience, near the footlights, far stage right, a chair facing stage right with a music stand before it, and a large child’s sandbox with a toy pail and shovel, raked and elevated stage center.
• The names in this play are empty affection and point up the pre-senility and vacuity of their characters.
• Mommy and Daddy enter from stage left, Mommy first, and carry Grandma, who is borne in by their hands under her armpits, is quite rigid, her legs are drawn up, her feet do not touch the ground, and her expression is that of puzzlement and fear.
• Mommy and Daddy dump Grandma in the sandbox, and Mommy says, "Well, what are you waiting for, Daddy? The sandbox!"
• Edward Albee's first play, "Zoo Story" (1959), and the completion of a second, "The American Dream" (1961), interrupted his work on "The Sandbox" (1962), a play he later declared his favorite among his plays, which then numbered about ten including "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf".
• The characters in "The Sandbox" are: The Young Man, 25, a good-looking, well-built boy in a bathing suit; Mommy, 55, a well-dressed, imposing woman; Daddy, 60, a small man; gray, thin; Grandma, 86, a tiny, wizened woman with bright eyes; and The Musician, no particular age, but young would be nice.
• When, in the course of the play, Mommy and Daddy call each other by these names, there should be no suggestion of regionalism.
• Expository writing style is a subject-oriented style where the focus of the writer is to tell the readers about a specific subject or topic and in the end the author leaves out his own opinion about that topic.
• Narrative writing style is a type of writing where the writer narrates a story, it includes short stories, novels, novellas, biographies, and poetry.
• There are four basic literary styles used in writing: expository, descriptive, persuasive, and narrative.
• Tone words include accusatory, bitter, critical, earnest, intimate, matter of fact, optimistic, sincere, solemn.
• Persuasive writing style is a category of writing in which the writer tries to give reasons and justification to make the readers believe his point of view, the persuasive style aims to persuade and convince the readers.
• The author’s purpose is his/her reason for writing, there are three main purposes for writing: to entertain, inform and persuade.
• Descriptive writing style focuses on describing an event, a character or a place in detail, sometimes, descriptive writing style is poetic in nature, where the author specifies an event, an object or a thing rather than merely giving information about an event that has happened.
• Tone is achieved through word choice (diction), sentence construction, and word order (syntax), and by what the viewpoint character focuses on.
• An author’s purpose is reflected in the way he writes about a topic.
• The author’s technique in which an individual author uses in his writing varies from author to author and depends upon one’s syntax, word choice, and tone.
• Tone is the attitude of the narrator or viewpoint character toward story events and other characters.
• The text is a dialogue between a grandmother, a mother, a father, and a young man.
• GRANDMA bangs the toy shovel against the pail for a seventh time.
• The text describes a young man who is an actor.
• MOMMY tells GRANDMA to be quiet and wait.
• The text is about a young man who is an actor.
• MOMMY tells GRANDMA to be quiet and wait again.
• The text discusses the raising of a child by a grandmother, a mother, and a father.
• MOMMY and DADDY are shown sitting in chairs, stage - right, waiting for a fifth time.
• The text describes a young man who
• GRANDMA looks at them, looks at the MUSICIAN, looks at the sandbox, throws down the shovel.
• MOMMY and DADDY are shown sitting in chairs, stage - right, waiting for a third time.
• MOMMY tells GRANDMA to be quiet and wait for a third time.