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ALTHOUGH ADOPTED CHILDREN EXHIBIT A VARIETY OF PERSONALITY structures, certain conscious and unconscious preoccupations, strivings, and conflicts appear in them with great frequency. This is not surprising, since the fact of adoption calls forth a limited number of parental responses and consequent reactions from the children. Thus, although the approved style of dealing with adoption has changed from time to time, each method necessarily involves complications. I do not wish to imply that all adopted children encounter the same difficulties, or that the difficulties, when they exist, are crippling. Being adopted, however, does influence personality development, and if the child becomes an artist, the resultant fantasies may reveal themselves in his creative products. Moreover, the adopted child's wishes and defenses may serve as the wellspring of his artistic activity.
In this paper I intend to show the role which the adoption theme plays in some works by Edward Albee, who was in fact adopted at the age of two weeks. In Tiny Alice(1965), this theme appears in disguised form. The play's main character, Julian, acts as if he were an adopted child caught up in the confusions and cravings typical