Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman is a play by Arthur Miller. He began his career as a playwright at the University of Michigan. DoS is considered one of the first true American tragedies. The setting of the play is Brooklyn, New York.

Willy Loman: The Patriarch of the Loman family. Being crushed by his expectations.

Linda Loman: Wife of Willy. Loves him, but doesn’t help him.

Biff Loman: Son. Carries a lot of Willy’s expectations on his shoulders.

Happy Loman: Son. Mostly overlooked by his parents.

Ben Loman: His brother. Got rich in Alaska. Dead now.

Willy returns home from a grueling work excursion, and begins to talk about his disappointment in Biff for not making anything of himself yet. Later Willy falls into a daydream, envisioning Biff’s football days and remembering his promise to own his own business one day. It is also revealed that they aren’t doing that well financially. Willy begins to struggle with thoughts of his mistress, and her pesky stockings.

Biff and Happy then discuss their father with Willy. Biff tells his mother than that Willy is a fake, but doesn’t elaborate, and gets scolded.  Willy then unsuccessfully attempts to have his job relocated, and his failure is extremely frustrating. Willy then analyzes why Biff was such a “failure”. Biff and Willy leave their father at a restaurant to chase loose women.  In a flashback, Biff discovers Willy’s infidelity.

Willy then has a conversation with Ben, stating Biff will do well with that 20,000 in insurance money. Willy then commits vehicular suicide.  At the funeral, Linda says “ We’re free…”.

Arthur Miller’s style is very honest. Nothing is masked from the reader, which is beneficial when a book has social aims. The tone of the book overall is a very depressing one. Most people can identify with the unending pressure that is eroding Willy. My favorite symbol in the book is the stockings. The stockings represent the shame Willy deals with due to his sexual tryst with his mistress and its effects on Biff.

Quotes:

“We’re free”- Linda Loman

Linda’s quote at the end of the novel is Miller’s way of pointing out that the cycle is continuing. Her life was ruined by the pressure of the American dream, but she refuses to recognize it. This combined with Happy deciding to continue in his father’s footsteps demonstrates that the events of DoS are likely to repeat.

“He’s liked, but not very well liked”- Willy Loman

Whenever Willy says that it reaffirms one of Willy’s fundamental beliefs about the American dream, that also happen to be false. Willy values personal charisma over hard work, and that leads to all the failure to meet expectations.

Theme:

The materialistic, shallow version of the American dream is responsible for degrading society.

Miller repeatedly establishes that Willy’s ideals are skewed. Willy places far too much emphasis on charisma, and not nearly enough on work ethic. This is pointed about in the book by Miller when Bernard becomes very successful. Its reinforced by the fact that Biff skated through school and is now struggling. Willy’s cheating also points to a flaw in his character, he can never really claim to love his children if he is caught by his eldest son in the act and makes the son carry that burden, rather than just telling the truth to his wife. The use of seeds as a symbol also reinforces the theme. Willy languishes at the fact that he can’t make them grow, he can’t put food on the table through hardwork.

The American Dream

The American Dream is a play written by Edward Albee. It is satirical, targeting the current American condition and highlighting the “substitution of artificial values for real values in our society”.

 There is no specific setting, but it can be reasonably inferred that the play takes place in New York, or some other large city.

Mommy: The dominant force in the play. She undermines both Daddy and Grandma, and is pleased to welcome Young Man into her life.

Daddy: The subservient husband. He lacks the ability to satisfy Mommy, but has the cash flow to keep her around.

Mrs Barker: A woman very similar to Mommy. She informs the family of the circumstances involving their adopted kid. Flirts with daddy.

Grandma: Omniscient. Critical of Mommy, Daddy, and Young Man. Understands the damaging effects of the value system present in the play.

Young Man: The twin of the baby Daddy and Mommy adopted. A hollow shell of a man.

The play starts with Mommy and Daddy arguing about how they struggle to get satisfaction. Mommy recounts her trip to the store earlier in the day. She bought a hat, but after a run in with the local Women’s club chairwoman, decided it was unsatisfactory, and returned to hassle everyone until she got the hat she wanted, and thus satisfaction. A strange story about lunches is told, than Grandma establishes that Mommy is a gold digger. Mrs. Barker arrives, with the purpose of the visit unclear. Then Grandma explains that Mommy and Daddy adopted a child from her twenty years prior and proceeded to mutilate it, because they never got the satisfaction they sought from it. Shortly after Young Man shows up at the door. He explains to Grandma that he lost both of his parents and all emotion. Grandma believes him a suitable solution to Daddy and Mommy’s problems and introduces them. Mommy agrees and there is much rejoicing, yet during the festivities Grandma disappears.  She reappear, this time communicating directly with the audience.  She wishes them a good night.

The author creates a feeling of uneasiness with the muted emotion his characters express, with an eerily robotic tone. They lament about their problems, yet they express no real emotion in doing so. It almost seems as if they want to struggle with the same things everyone else does, but can’t find any real emotion to do it right. The Hat in the story is a symbol for consumerism, she buys it because Mrs. Barker says she should have that one, although really it was no different than the one she had initially picked out. The detailed language describing the mutilation of the baby is the closest Albee got to symbolism, he doesn’t use it much. He did it to stress the harmful effects societies current values have.

“What a masculine Daddy! Isn’t he a masculine Daddy?”

This quote helps outline the dynamic between Mommy and Daddy. It puts Daddy in a more childlike role, Mommy certainly wears the pants in the relationship. She also is very condescending to Daddy, something that would have been wholly unacceptable during that time period. This was meant to appall readers and was Albee’s way to draw attention to the evils he saw in women who were materialistically motivated and possibly the whole feminist movement.

“When you get old, you can’t talk because people snap at you.”

This is Grandma bemoaning the fact that her values are being ignored. What she stands for is what Albee advocates for the American Dream. He sees these real values being rejected in favor of hipper, shallower replacements. Mommy certainly snaps at Grandma plenty.

Theme: The values created by a materialistic society are replacing real ones and causing great harm to the “American Dream”.

                The hardest concrete evidence I have to support my theme statement is when Grandma, who understands the situation and is a proponent of older values, presents the Young Man as the American Dream. This is condemning the current state of things because he is a man who lacks emotion of any sort and is willing to do anything for money.  The use of Grandma at the end to wish everyone goodnight, a technique called breaking the fourth wall used by the author, reinforces this plays role as a cautionary tale.

Blog Revision

1973. An effective literary work does not merely stop or cease; it concludes. In the view of some critics, a work that does not provide the pleasure of significant closure has terminated with an artistic fault. A satisfactory ending is not, however, always conclusive in every sense; significant closure may require the reader to abide with or adjust to ambiguity and uncertainty. In an essay, discuss the ending of a novel or play of acknowledged literary merit. Explain precisely how and why the ending appropriately or inappropriately concludes the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.

      The end of a literary work is often the most critical component of the piece, where the author attempts to leave their mark and crystallize their ideas in the mind of the reader. Its hard to imagine Romeo and Juliet without the fate of the star crossed lovers being realized or Harry Potter with a Voldemort still living. In the American Dream the author, Edward Albee, uses the ending to further the readers understanding of his message: the replacement of the old American Dream with a less substantive, more glamorous, new one. 

     Albee's play uses few characters, each representing very broad things. Grandma, the physically unappealing elder that she is, represents traditional american values and is said to be of "pioneer stock." She is constantly at odds with Mommy, who represents the new breed of Americans who value aesthetics over function. Grandma is the oldest and wisest character in the novel, turns out to be somewhat omniscient. This is confirmed in the last lines of the play, in which she directly addresses the audience to inform them that the play was indeed "a comedy", and they shouldn't go any further because the characters had clearly reached satisfaction. However, its clear that Grandma knows they haven't and she was making quite a strong point. Albee's use of this ending  makes Grandma's true function clear, Albee's puppet master. She alone shares the authors viewpoint and is by far the wittiest character. She is constantly manipulating the other characters, guiding to them to their places and making their shortcomings obvious. In the beginning of the novel Grandma is someone to be pitied, but at the end she reveals some shred of dignity, something the other characters lack. Albee made this all apparent with his ending.

      Albee's purpose for this piece was to make the public aware of what he saw as a shift from traditional values to newer ones that devalued genuine emotion and emphasized material wealth. He shows us the build up to the arrival of Young Man, the character who represents the new American Dream, and the immediate sense of "satisfaction" achieved by Mommy and Daddy, but fails to show us the aftermath. This was intentional, he leaves the audience to ponder the ramifications of a superficial society. This is appropriate for the play, which is very absurd, because nothing is clear in the play until all the loose ends are tied in the conclusion. Albee makes the point that hindsight is twenty twenty, and if the fate of his messed up family is to be avoided, the Grandmas of the world need to recognize the problem before they are disregarded. 

     The ending to The American Dream by Edward Albee was highly appropriate because it shed new light on the mechanisms of the play and implores the audience to imagine the consequences of the abandonment of traditional values and challenges them to do something about it.

   

Blog Revision

1970. Choose a character from a novel or play of recognized literary merit and write an essay in which you (a) briefly describe the standards of the fictional society in which the character exists and (b) show how the character is affected by and responds to those standards. In your essay do not merely summarize the plot.

     Often times the place a person comes from plays a significant role throughout their life. The life of Dunstan Ramsay in Robertson Davies' The Fifth Business is no exception.His upbringing in the small Canadian village of Deptford and its conservative society greatly influences his thoughts on religion and is a large part of his development into the "Fifth Business" from which the novel gets its name.
     Deptford is a town divided by religion. The main character is a Presbyterian of hardy Scottish stock. His mother and father are both hardworking and honest, yet set in their ways. The people of Deptford look after their own, the Catholics tend the Catholics and  Baptists mind  Baptists, and the town is rife for gossip. Every little event is heavily scrutinized by the townsfolk, and everyone who doesn't conform to the towns narrow standards are lambasted. Dunny saw his idol, Mrs. Dempster, become "an exile from a world that saw things her way" when the people didn't understand her. Davies uses excellent imagery to describe Dempster's condition throughout the novel that shows the effect exile has had on her physical and mental condition.Even Mrs. Dempter's husband, Amasa, can't look past his fervent religiosity and ends up permanently damaging his beloved wife. The curious ways of the town of Deptford help explain Dunstan's development.
     Dunstan's experiences in Deptford lead him to develop a very personal faith. He manages to respect the faith of even the most despicable of human beings, including the man that convinced Mrs. Dempster to sleep with him, forever soiling her social standing and causing her to lose her mind. He also learns that letting people define how you believe is unwise, and his pursuit of hagiology, or the study of saints, a highly eccentric move for a protestant. Davies makes excellent use of detail when describing Dunstan's pursuit of saints, it helps the reader become familiar with a very unusual topic and adds dimension to Dunstan's character. Some of the saintliness he studies then rubs off on him, causing him to care very much about the people around him. His humanistic approach to faith is formed by the things he witnessed in his hometown.
     Dunstan's faith pushes him too be a very benevolent man, open to helping all those in need, contrary to the society in which he left in Deptford. He often actively sought to fix, such as the case of Mrs. Dempster, never leaving her side until her death in an insane asylum, although he didn't owe her nearly as much. He just thought it decent of him to look after her. However he often overlooked the needs of himself for others, and the major turning point in his life comes when he realizes that he was "fifth business" told to him by an atrociously ugly women named Liesl, who seems to represent the ugly truth. "Fifth business" is a clever metaphor used by Davies, relating Dunstan's life to that of a play, with the character being played by Dunstan being of very minor importance, in the play only to assist in someone else's problem. Dunstan realizes that in order to find some sense of fulfillment, he must become a self advocate.
   Dunny's experiences in his hometown set the tone for his feelings on religion and the development of his character later in the novel. His societal norms have a decidedly negative effect on his childhood, and he spends the rest of his life attempting to understand faith and step out of the shadow of Deptford.

Blog Revision

1987. Some novels and plays seem to advocate changes in social or political attitudes or in traditions. Choose such a novel or play and note briefly the particular attitudes or traditions that the author apparently wishes to modify. Then analyze the techniques the author uses to influence the reader's or audience's views. Avoid plot summary.

     Literature is a powerful tool that often has significant effects on those who read it. Uncle Tom's Cabin split a country into two parts. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle was written specifically to create political change. Sinclair, who had extensive knowledge of the Chicago meat packing industry, put his main character, Jurgis, and his family through a variety of trials designed to illustrate the evils of capitalism. He relies on intense imagery in an attempt to show people the effect the capitalist system was having on the working class and the american public as a whole. His language is very clear and easy to read, as well as his intentions being straight forward. He only hopes that, ending the book with a socialist manifest of sorts, the common man will understand and initiate the change he hopes to see.

     The author of the novel is deeply opposed to the american capitalist system. He saw the working class being exploited by the beef barons in Chicago's stockyards during his time there. With his novel, he intended to be the catalyst for a socialist revolution he saw as inevitable. More equitable distribution of wealth was his main goal, and while he never achieved that goal, his book did have a significant impact on the american awareness of the worker's plight and the horrific conditions in which their food was produced.

     Sinclair uses graphic imagery to sway his audience throughout the novel. In order to bring about the change he needed to convince his audience, and the best way to do that was through gruesome depictions of his characters living and working conditions. His descriptions of the sights and sounds of Jurgis' situation were many, whole human bodies being incorporated into lard and rats crawled among the meat that was destine for the public's plate. Worse yet were the horrors that visited the Jurgis Rudkus' family, including a mother's death during child birth, a child drowning in a street, and even a young boy being eaten alive by rats. Sinclair effectively uses details and imagery of horrific scenes to sway the public's opinion and motivate change.

     Throughout the novel Sinclair's language remains simplistic. It makes sense when you consider his goals. He sought to inspire socialist change, and in the people in favor of that would most likely in the lower to middle class and likely not highly educated. So in order to effectively reach out to them, keep in mind that the novel was published in 1905, he needed to be as clear and straight forward as possible. There was relatively little ambiguity, Jurgis was a good man being destroyed by the environment he lived in, an environment created by capitalists, who were, beyond a shadow of a doubt, evil.The single mindedness of his purpose and the simplicity of his language help him to accomplish his goals.

      Upton Sinclair sought a more equitable America. In writing The Jungle he used intense imagery and clear language that showed his intentions to purvey a message to the american public. Sinclair is quoted as saying " I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." Nonetheless, Sinclair used language effectively enough to have a long lasting effect on the common people.

     

DIDLS

DIDLS is an acronym for the tools authors use to create the effects which in turn create meaning. They are the building blocks for the ideas that are associated with all the books we love. They are analogous to the separate pieces of a chair, that when combined, are capable of "supporting" meaning.

Diction:Word choice. Too say something was broken is completely differently than saying it was shattered. Individual words carry a lot of weight and invoke different ideas. There denotations( dictionary meanings) often clash with their connotations(informal definition) and authors can exploit this. 

Imagery: Language that evokes the senses and allows the reader to craft a picture in their mind. It is one of the easier techniques to recognize. Often contains important symbols.

Detail: Detail accounts for the bulk of the work. Its used to add a little flavor. Without any detail writing would be very point a to point b, without very many interesting stops in between. Authors use it to point out things particularly important to the, so its worth paying attention to.

Language: Its the manner in which words are expressed. Its related to diction but has to do with the whole piece. Regional dialects are often used by author's in order to draw upon certain associations, a New York  accent elicits different reactions than a southern one.

Syntax: The structure of sentences. Important words and phrases are often placed in the end of sentences. Inversion is a play on syntax that author's frequently use to add emphasis.

Blog Revision

The nature of humanity is intimately explored in the bible. Fickle human minds are always being tempted, and only the truest of us pass God's litmus test. In William Golding's Lord of the Flies his character Simon is allegorical to Jesus Christ. His actions, especially in comparison to the other children, make his presence obvious and figures greatly into Golding's world view. Golding, who wrote the book during a time of war, believes humans are acting savagely, and without regard to each other. Simon is an altruistic being who the author is using to model proper human behavior.

     Simon is by far the most benevolent of the boys stranded upon Golding's unnamed island. He is often helping the "littluns" by finding for them "fruit they could not reach, pulled off from the choicest from up in the foliage, passed them back down to the endless, outstretched hands". This is strikingly similar to Jesus when he multiplies fish and loaves of bread for his multitudes of hungry followers. While Simon is acting with the concerns of the meek in mind, Golding's other characters are focused purely on themselves. They disregard the greater good and focus on pleasure, neglecting to do things that would improve their situation. Characters like Jack, the leader of the most primordial of the boys, highlight Simon's pure heart with their reckless behavior that endangers others and focuses on unholy activities, like the slaughter of the island's pigs(an animal considered filthy in the old testament) or the actions that lead Simon's death. Simon also enjoys wandering into the wilderness, a trait he shares with Jesus. On one of his solo forays into the depths the island, he encounters the Lord of The Flies, or the pig head that has been stabbed and displayed by Simon's peers. He has a delusional conversation with this head, whose English name translates to Beezlebub, which often means Satan. The LOTF taunts him, but is unable to steer him from his path. At one point, he also bashes his head against his tree, causing it to bleed, which could be a reference to the crown of thorns.

     Simon's death in the story has the most significance. He is accidentally killed by the boys while they performed their tribal dance, believed to be the very beast that he came to explain. While wandering the island alone, he happened on the body of a dead airmen, parachute and all. This is immediately explained the physical side of the "beast" that inhabited the island, however, Simon never got the opportunity to explain the truth. However, the real beast, the dark side of human nature, was also conquered by Simon and the example he set. His actions serves as a blueprint for the boys, and the adult world(that the island is a microcosm of), to rescue themselves from this much more dangerous beast that is human nature. The most important element Simon incorporates is hope. With his death, there is hope that individuals will recognize his message and seek to reform society in a more positive way.

     Simon in the LOTF served as a Christ figure, who's action were exceptionally benevolent and closely mirrored that of Christ. Golding utilized him too explore the darker side of human nature, but right along with his death comes the hope that society will see its faults and search for a way to better itself.