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Example research essay topic: Detroit Gale Research Death Of A Salesman - 2,285 words

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There is something magical and sometimes overpowering to the majority of mankind: It is the thing that allows people to live in mansions with helipads as well as underground society forced to live in the many tunnels and passageways under New York City and to beg for their meals. Although this is definitely the extreme that I have described. It is sometimes indescribably cruel and other times very gracious. This thing that I write about is the American system. In Arthur Millers moving and powerful play, Death of a Salesman, Miller uses many character to contrast the difference between success and failure within the system. Willy is the dreamy salesman whose imagination is much larger than his sales ability, while Linda is Willys wife who stands by her husband even in his absence of realism.

Biff and Happy are the two blind mice who follows in there fathers fallacy of life, while Ben is the only member of the Loan family with that special something needed to achieve. Charlie and his son Benard, on the other hand, enjoy better success in life compared to the Loman's. The play romanticizes the rural-agrarian dream but does not make it genuinely available to Willy. Miller seems to use this dream merely to give himself an opportunity for sentimentality. The play is ambiguous in its attitude toward the business-success dream, but does not certainly condemn it. It is legitimate to ask where Miller is going.

And the answer is that he has written a confused play because he has been unwilling or unable to commit himself to a firm position with respect to American culture. Miller prepares us for stock response-relief in escape to the West and the farm; firm satisfaction in the condemnation of the tawdry business ethic. 1 and then denies us the fulfillment of our expectations. The play makes, finally, no judgment on America, although Miller seems always on the verge of one, of telling us that America is a nightmare, a cause of and a home for tragedy. But Willy is not a tragic hero; he is a foolish and ineffectual man for whom we feel pity. We cannot equate his failure with Americas (Eisinger. 0 p. 174. Indeed, there is a lot of room for failure as well as great success in America.

The system is not the one to blame. Willy can only blame himself for not becoming what he wanted to be. The next character, Willy Loman's wife Linda, is not part of the solution but rather part of the problem with this dysfunctional family and their inability to see things for what they really are. Louis Gordon is in agreement stating, Linda, as the eternal wife and mother, the fixed point of affection both given and received, the woman who suffers and endures, is in many ways, the earth mother who embodies the plays ultimate moral value, love.

But in the beautiful, ironic complexity of her creation, she is also Willys and their sons destroyer. In her love Linda has accepted Willys Greatness and his dream, but while in her admiration for Willy her love is powerful and moving, in her admiration for his dreams, it is lethal. She encourages Willys dream, yet she will not let him leave her for the New Continent, the only realm where the dream can be fulfilled. She want to reconcile father and son, but she attempts this in the context of Willys false values. She cannot allow her sons to achieve that selfhood that involves denial of these values (Gordon p. 316). Linda is also caught up in Willys lies and therefore does nothing but help fuel the fire in the inferno of their dreams and ambitions.

She lets this whole masquerade continue right in front of her instead of doing something to stop their out of control lies. Also, Biff the oldest son, continues to search for his purpose in life. Due mainly to all the hot air Willy always feeds him, Biff continues to stumble in his fight for life. Biff has never had the ability to hold down a job very long due to his inability to take orders and do his time in the trenches before becoming a success at a particular job. Richard J. Foster states, Biff, who in the play as an amplification or reflection of Willys problems, has been nurtured on Willys dreams, too.

But he has been forced to see the truth. And it is the truth-his fathers cheap philandering-in its impact on a nature already weakened by a diet of illusion that in turn paralyzes him. Biff and Willy are two version of the idealist, or dealer may be a better work, paralyzed by reality: Biff by the effects of disillusionment, Willy by the effects of the illusions themselves. This is how they sum themselves up at the end of the play, just before Willys suicide: Pop! Biff cries, Im a dime a dozen, and so are you! I am not a dime a dozen!

Willy answers in rage. I am Willy Loan, and you are Biff Loan! And the tragedy-if it is tragedy-is that they are both right (Foster p. 316). In addition, Happy, the youngest son, never realizes his fathers fallacy of be well liked and you shall never want. Happy tried to make it in the city with a similar sales career like his father. He also lives a lie in the fact he claims to have a certain position with his company when in reality he is in the lower bracket of the company.

Happy is not able to see himself for what he is, unlike his brother, who finally has an epiphany of who he is and what he stands for. Inge's work reveals the deep passion seething beneath the surface of ordinary lives. In agreement, Lois Gordon remarks, Hap, less favored by nature and his father, perhaps as Willy was in comparison with Ben, has escaped the closeness with his father that destroys Biff in social terms. Thus worshipping his father from afar, Hap has never fully come to realize that phony part of his father and his fathers dreams.

He does have longings to be outdoors and to get away from the crippling fifty-weeks-of-work-a-year routine, but because he has never seen his fathers feet of clay, he has more fully than Biff accepted his fathers dreams. He is not a social rebel, and he will carry on with the life of a salesman, and, one suspects, go on to the death of a salesman. He will violate the boss wife out of some lonely desperation, as Willy sought support and solace in his Boston woman. He will also prove his manliness with fast cars and fancy talk, but again like Willy, he will never really believe in his own manliness in any mature way.

Just as Willy is called a kid throughout, and referred to as the diminutive Willy be everyone except Benn. Happy has been trapped by the infantile American Playboy magazine vision of the male (Gordon p. 324). In contrast, Ben has become extremely successful in life compared to his brother Willy. Ben is the only member of the Loan family to achieve greatness. He is the example of the true entrepreneur in every sense, Never fight fair with a stranger was Bens wisdom and his faith-When I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich!

Although, this information was never enough for a blueprint for Willy to follow, Willy always sought his brother Bens advice to reach the pot of gold under the rainbow. Likewise, Charlie is also Willys opposite in many ways in the play. Charlie stands for different beliefs and ends up quite successful. Charlie tries to help Willy as well However, Willy will not listen to Charlies advice. For instance, Charlie warned Willy not to let his kids steal from a nearby construction site and that the night watchman would eventually catch them.

Willy said, I got a couple of fearless characters, and Charlie said, The jails are full of fearless characters. Charlie is always being the voice of reason but Willy is too stubborn to listen to him. R. H. Gardner states, Willys refusal, from the standpoint of dramatic significance, seems less a product of his insanity than of his lifelong feeling of competition with Charlie. Acceptance would have been tantamount to admitting that Charlies philosophy had proved to be the right one, and Willy simply isnt big enough a man to make such an admission (Gardner p. 320).

In other words, you can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink. Charlie tries to lead Willy to the fountain of knowledge but Willy refuses to take in this precious liquid. Furthermore, there is the anemic Bernard-at least that is what Willy calls him. Bernard I Charlies son, and Biff and Happy's schoolmate. R.

H. Gardner states, A physically unattractive, spectacles-wearing lad, Bernard's chief claim to fame rests upon the fact that he is the boy who furnishes Biff, the school hero, with the right answers at exam time. In exchange for this privilege, Biff lets Bernard carry his shoulder pads into the locker room at game time and, in other small ways, bask in the glory-which is all the glory Bernard can aspire to, since, as Biff explains to his tickled father, Bernard is not well liked. It is, therefore, interesting to note that not well liked though he may be, Bernard, through persistent application of his native intelligence, grows up to be an eminent lawyer who, the day Biff and Willy are finally forced to face the unpleasant fats of their lives, embarks for Washington to plead a case before the Supreme Court. That Mr. Miller chose to contrast Willys and Biffs failures with an obvious example of how one can succeed in this country makes it difficult to interpret the play as an attack upon the American system, either as constituted or as popularly imagined.

Bernard is, in fact, living proof of the systems effectiveness, an affirmation of the proposition that persistent application of ones talents, small though they may be, pays off. And this, after all, is the substance of the American Dream (Gardner p. 320). In conclusion, there are many forms of failure as well as success that are spawned by our American system. The Loman's are all an example of what life is like if you continually live in a dream world and never train yourself for anything. Ben is the exception in the Loan family. He is the only one of them to turn our successful.

However, Charlie and his son Bernard were able to achieve greatness and to make the system work for them. In the end, the decision to make it in this American system is, ironically, up to the individual. Works Cited Eisinger, Chester E. Focus on Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman': The Wrong Dreams, in American Dreams, American Nightmares, (1970 rpt In clc. Detroit: Gale Research. 1976 vol. 6: 331 Foster, Richard J. (Confusion and Tragedy: The Failure of Millers Salesman (1959) rpt in clc. Detroit: Gale Research. 1983 vol. 26: 316 Gardner, R.

H. (Tragedy of the Lowest Man, in his Splintered Stage: (1965) rpt in clc. Detroit: Gale Research. 1983 vol. 2 l 6: 320 Gordon, Lois Death of a Salesman: An Appreciation, in the Forties: 1969) rpt in clc. Detroit: Gale Research. 1983 vol. 26: 323 Themes/Purpose/Ideas The main theme in Death of a Salesman is illusion versus reality. Willy has lived his entire life in a world of illusions. These illusions include Willys belief that being well-liked is the key to success, as well as the literal illusions that Willy has of his past. Originally, Biff shared Willys illusions of success and greatness, but by the end of the play he has become completely disillusioned.

Once Biff comes to fully understand his place in life, he says to Willy, Im a dime a dozen, and so are you. Willy, however, has lived too long in his dreams and cannot understand what Biff is trying to say. If Willy had to face reality, he would then be forced to examine the affair he had in Boston, his philosophy, and all of his illusions. Instead, he prefers to live in the past.

And now Biff, who is trying to confront the truth about himself, finds that he is completely unable to communicate with his father. Another theme of Death of a Salesman is the old order of agrarian pride and nobility versus the new order of industrialization. In the beginning of the play, Willy foreshadows this theme by criticizing the changes brought about by industrialization. The street is lined with cars.

Theres not a breath of fresh air in the neighborhood. It is this conflict between the old and new orders that brings about Willys downfall. Willys father, a pioneer inventor, represents the traditional values and way of life that Willy was brought up on. So does Dave Single man, the eight-four year old salesman that inspired Willy to go into the sales industry. Howard, the young boss of Willys company, represents the impersonal and ruthless nature of capitalistic enterprise.

When Willy goes in to ask Howard if he can be transferred to a job in New York, Howard refuses to help him even though Willy has been working for the company for several decades and was good friends with his father. When Willy asks why he cannot be reassigned, Howard replies, its a business, kid, and everybody's gotta pull his own weight, thus demonstrating Howards cold indifference to Willys situation.


Free research essays on topics related to: richard j, death of a salesman, dime a dozen, detroit gale research, arthur millers

Research essay sample on Detroit Gale Research Death Of A Salesman

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