Popular representations of the family on American television in the 1950s and early 60s depicted masculine men who put on suits and went to work to support the family, attractive but conservative young housewives who cooked, cleaned, and raised approximately two happy, well-fed children, who sometimes got into wholesome scrapes but loved their parents. This vision models a family unit that sustains the structures of capitalism, consumerism, and whiteness. However, the culturally popularized vision of the sanitized nuclear family is a fiction that sets the standards for the public display of family and purposefully obscures domestic struggle and disputes. George and Martha presumably perform differently in public than they do at home. By inviting Honey and Nick into the privacy of their home, George and Martha are inviting them to witness the private dysfunction of their marriage.

The play suggests that that the idealized nuclear family is imaginary. Those who seem to outwardly conform to its structure are simply better at concealing their secrets. George and Martha are plagued by the disappointments of their life together and the ways that they have failed to rise to the expected standards of the nuclear family.