In the play WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, we are presented with a searing display of a couple who are deeply wounded by their inability to conceive a child. To lull their pain and surmount their PERCEIVED failure as a married couple, they conceive a ghost child, a phantom son who becomes a very real presence in their lives. What at first may have developed as a coping mechanism, soon becomes a crutch and then a weapon in their crumbling relationship.

All parents have aspirations and dreams for their child and so do Martha and George have expectations for their own child. They project their desire and it takes shape in their only son, Sunny-Jim. Their disappointment leads them to use the child against each other, both secretly blaming the other for the fact that their son is not 'real'. To reveal the fabricated nature of their child is to lay bare their own feelings of shame about their infertility.

GEORGE You broke our rule baby. You mentioned him… You mentioned him to someone else. 1

This scenario can be familiar to some adoptive parents who either harbour resentment towards their partner or suffer shame because they feel their adoptive child is not 'real': meaning real as in their own flesh and blood. In Martha and George's case, their child is not flesh at all and exists only in their imagination.

There is an unconscious mourning period when a couple learns of their infertility as they must deal with some very significant losses: the loss of the image of one's self or partner as 'biologically intact' — able to conceive a child — the loss of the status of continuing a generation, a blood line, and the loss of the hoped-for biological child, a child who physically carries one's genes and symbolically holds one's dreams. 2

“Fantasies regarding their imagined biological child often remained hidden until they are exposed by a discrepancy between the real adopted child and the imagined biological child.” 3

The adopted American playwright, Edward Albee, uses these fantasies as the focal point of the play: the “son” of George and Martha is gradually revealed to be a fantasy — a fantasy who has himself wondered if he was adopted. 4

The fantasy who in turns fantasizes reveals the complex social situation of the adoptive family. Both parties must mourn over the loss of their fantasy relationships [adoptive parents mourn over their lost biological child and the adoptee mourns her/his lost biological parents] before their own relationship can grow in a healthy manner. 5

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1 WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, Edward Albee, Atheneum Publishers Inc., New York, 1962 (Act 3, p. 236)

2 ADOPTION FROM THE INSIDE OUT: A PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE, Paul M.Brinich in Psychology of Adoption, Edited by David. M. Brodzinky & Marshall D. Schechter, Oxford University Press: New York, 1990 (p. 46)

3 Ibid.

4 Id, (p.47)

5 Id, (p.47)

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