The Sandbox by Edward Albee
             The story in The Sandbox by Edward Albee, unfolds in an interesting, atypical way. It begins with Daddy and Mommy walking onto a mostly bare stage that has only a sandbox and a young man in the corner who is stretching. Next Grandma enters, babbling like a small baby. She is placed in the sandbox by Mommy and she begins to speak incoherently. A musician is called onstage to play a clarinet. In between these scenes, Mommy and Daddy discuss her state and talk about her as if she is not there. They begin to really ignore her and in between she converses with the young man doing calisthenics in the corner. He eventually takes her away to death.
             The large sandbox in the middle is meant to symbolize a coffin and its permanent nature of keeping someone inside. Grandma's babbling and incapacitated state is meant to show the innocent incapable state of the newborn and the elderly alike. The musician plays a song throughout; a song that Mommy and Daddy often hush. The young man in the corner stretches and talks to the old woman. He symbolizes death, as is proven by his words in his conversations with the old woman. He says things that allude to his purpose with her. Mommy and Daddy ignore her, as many people do when they don't want to deal with their elderly parents or young children. In the end, when the young man takes Grandma away from Mommy and Daddy, there is unspoken death. They had taken for granted everything she meant to them. They had spent their time and money on themselves, denying her everything she needed and wanted. So she stayed in the sandbox. The sandbox never again opened, and they never saw her again. So she sat, like a small child, covering her self in sand; in essence, digging her own grave. The music, symbolizing her life, ends.
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