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Arthur Miller, winner of many literary and dramatic awards, is an incredibly influential force in American drama. His plays deal with issues common to every society. He makes the audience face fault, weakness, and ignorance; subjects we would typical hide from. At the same time he emphasizes strength, human spirit, and familial love.
Alice Griffin believes that Millers plays are important internationally (xii). He belongs to an international theater rather than a regional theater (Heilman 170). His plays are staged and studied by students to understand American life in Russia, P and, Iceland, Brazil, Italy, France, Germany, Czech Republic, and China to name a few (Griffin xi). Millers works thrived in England.
The University of East Angelia named its center the Arthur Miller Centre (Griffin 1). They can relate to the sense f identity, honor, recognition, and familial love (Griffin Preface). In a production in Beijing, Miller explained to a Chinese actor playing Biff the sons feelings of guilt and " painfully requited" love for his father, the actor understood as it is v y Chinese (Month 79). The phenomenon of Death of a Salesman has been the same all over the world.
Audiences all have a sense of their life story of their father, uncle, or brother (Griffin 35). In real life Miller had an Uncle Manny who had two sons ho were in competition with Miller and his brother. Manny ended his own life because he failed at business. Millers personal history is demonstrated in his sensitive and passionate writing in Death of a Salesman (Griffin 41). The Crucible (1952) was originally intended to be called Those Familiar Spirits, referring to a spirit that a witch presumably sends out to torment her victims.
However, the well area at the bottom of a blast furnace is known as the crucible, it is whe the molten steels collects being entirely broken down due to immense heat. Miller thought that this was a precise metaphor for what happened in Salem. Crucible also means a harsh trial or examination. John Proctors integrity was surely investigated.
He chose to die instead of confessing to being evil. According to Raymond Williams, The Crucible is a powerfully successful dramatization of the notorious witch trials of Salem. It is technically less interesting than its previous ones because it is b ed on a historical event which is explicit enough to solve, the difficult dramatic problems which Miller had originally set himself. Miller brilliantly expresses a particular crisis " the modern witch hunt" in his own society, but it is not often, in ou own world, that the issues and statements so clearly emerge in a naturally dramatic form (13). Miller used the Salem Witch Trials of the 17 th century, to make an indirect, but assertive comment upon McCarthyism in American life (Richard Watt, Jr. 536).
In 1953, when the play was produced, the United States was in social and political turmoil. Joseph McCarthy a Senator from Wisconsin and the play in comparison were both significantly politically infamous. The Senator was responsible for the investiga ons to find communists in the State Department, Hollywood, and the U. S.
Army. These investigations created fear and suspicion within our society. McCarthy was eventually found guilty of misusing his authority (Watts vii). Before being found guilty S ator McCarthy accused the Democratic administration of sheltering and helping Communists in the American government. It was a fearful time similar to that in Salem. The United States government called McCarthys activities witch-hunts.
In The Crucible Miller mentions that McCarthy accuses individuals of being Communist if they opposed him. Any government official who criticized his hearings was soon found to be defending himself against the charge of being involved in a Communist conspiracy. Miller marked McCarthy to the Salem judges in a broad sense (Cliffnotes 52). In 1953 The Crucible was attacked as a comparison to the current Senate " witch hunts. " Critics said it was not a good play at that time, however, later it was found to be superior. he House Un-American Activities Committee summoned Miller to a hearing. Miller refused to name others as communist sympathizers.
He also said that he would only take responsibility for himself and not others. Miller was fined and given a thirty day s pended jail sentence because he spoke out like John Proctor in The Crucible (Griffin 7). During the McCarthyism period witnesses refused to answer questions and when they did they were scorned (Bentley 302). Thousands of people who refused to answer q stion's and confess were executed during the seventeenth century.
Authorities believed that " believing in witches was extensive in America and Europe" (Cliffnotes 44 45). Eric Bentley provides us with information that " Arthur Miller had tried to at olive this heroic refusal to speak in dramatic literature (The Crucible). In real life, unhappily, such refusal was rendered suspect and ambiguous by its whole background in the life and hates of the Communist Party" (302). Cushing Scott states that, " Miller has argued for (the) historical truth (of the play), pointed to its contemporary parallels, and defined its trans historical subject as a social process that includes, but also transcends, the Salem witchcraft trials a the anticommunist investigations of the 1950 s" (128). However, Miller was interested in the witch trials before he opposed McCarthyism however. He decided to write the play telling about the fear and hysteria McCarthyism caused.
His play makes clea the facts from the past that sinners and guilty people were mistaken for witches in Salem (Bu censored 128 - 129). Elsom writes that Arthur Miller wrote about witch-hunting in Salem but it was really an indirect commentary on Joe McCarthy and the compression sub-committees investigating un-American activities. (140) Joe McCarthy probably thought of Arthur Miller as a " dangerous communist subversive, " but in Europe he was regarded to be agreeably " left wing" (Elsom 139). After a few years McCarthy had died and the committees were dissolved. The Crucible was included in schools as a modern classic. " A political jou alist might have summed up Arthur Millers achievement like this: he had helped to rally the moderates against the forces of extreme right-wing reaction" (Elsom 140). Guilt was directly responsible for the social compliance which resulted in McCarthys reign of terror in the 1950 s: Social compliance is the result of the sense of guilt which individuals strive to conceal by complying It was a guilt, in this historic sense, resulting from their awareness that they were not as Rightist as people were suppose to be (Bu censored 133). The Crucible made a statement for the subject of the free mans fight against emotional terrorism to put him down.
Arthur Miller was completely involved with the social and moral problems of American society and inevitably made an impact on the world. he danger from Russian subversion was a more obvious danger than the witch hunts of innocent people in 17 th century Massachusetts (Watts viii). The comparison in 1953 was harmful to Arthur Miller and his drama. The similarities of the two eras dealing ith freedom of judgment against barbaric control remains an issue today. Witch-hunting and the evil Salem trials in The Crucible was a work of social dramatic art making a statement of evil intolerance for global history (Watts viii). Miller wrote The crucible to prevent history frm repeating itself.
Miller does not use an ordinary plot in The Crucible. " tension inheres in episodic conflicts rather than in an over-all advancing action. The sense of an evolving general situation, so well achieved by tight structure in The Crucible is larg y gone" (Heilman 151). Heilman states that Miller, turned to more vigorous characters who cause suffering rather than uncomprehendingly suffer, he portrayed an evil rooted in human nature overwhelming the community, he made advances toward complexity of motive, and he began to discover inner division (160). In Salem, Massachusetts, a black slave woman and twelve teenage girls were caught dancing around a bubbling cauldron in the woods, despite the fact that dancing was not allowed by the Puritans. The Puritan government ruled the church in 1692 and relief n believed that women who dance with the Devil are witches. Fearing being hanged the girls blamed each other.
Everyone in the town panicked and began accusing everyone else of witchcraft. The Puritans believed that the Devil was continually enticing man. If a person sinned they had to confess it, regret it, a perform some act of penance. To avoid being hanged many people in The Crucible confessed to sins they did not commit.
Fearing that she would be damned forever Rebecca Nurse refused to confess. Adultery was one of the worst sins someone could commit. The Puritans also thought that anything pleasant was the work of the Devil, therefore, they were a serious and fearful group. It was an atrocious sin for children to even dance, so to avoid punishment they would pretend to be under the spell of the Dev. The Puritans believed that a person became a witch by entering into an agreement with the Devil. They further believed that the Devil or one of his witches could take over the body of an innocent person (Cliffnotes 44 47).
It is a complex story b Miller makes it easier because he starts each new act telling us of the dreadful possibilities and ending each act with the possibilities happening. Miller uses a repetitive style of questions and answers forming the rhythm of the play. The story is t d in John Proctors perspective (Barrons Booknotes 7 8). The Crucible has a narrator, a voice not a character, that tells us about the characters and the action and helps us to understand the moral implications.
The director of the l 958 off-Broadway revival for The Crucible drew the consequences of the revised text and introduced a narrator, called The Reader, to set the scenes and give the historical background of the play. The introduction of a narrator element in The Crucible is closely related to Millers attempts to have a separate voice present the authors view of the generalized significance of the action in the later play (Overland 57). The Crucible has a " series of non-dramatic interpolated passages in the first act, where the playwright takes on the roles of historian, novelist and literary critic, often all at once, speaking himself ex cathedral rather than through his character ex ena" are concerned with motivation. " Psychological, religious and socioeconomic explanations of the trials are given Miller has also been seen to depart from the second of his basic principles of playwriting in introducing narrative and expository p sages into The Crucible" (Overland 57 60). Overland writes that Miller tends to confuse the characters with the real people with the same names from the seventeenth century, such as Parris, Putnam, Rebecca, and Francis Nurse (60). " Conflict between a mans raw deeds and his conception of himself, " poses as the struggle for John Proctor to attain high standards. To understand the character Proctor it is important to realize his sense of guilt, which is made clear to us by Eliza hs remarks and his behavior. Individual tragedy to John Proctor is the back bone of the play.
The first Puritans struggled to survive. John Proctor and John Hale went against the order of the Puritan society in The Crucible. Reverend Hale declares at the Devil can delude God so he can certainly fool humans. (Cliffnotes 43). During the witch trials there would be no half way point it was either black or white. If guilty you were to be hanged. You had to remain obedient.
Rebecca Nurse symbolize a wise woman who knew her place, the place of the church and the dangers of witchcraft. The danger could be brought forth at any time within the play. The confrontations within the play were brought together in precise detail but the powerful were bro ht to a lower level throughout the play. You could not be fearful or you would be among the guilty. Ezekiel Cheever arrested Elizabeth Proctor, even though he was on her side, because he had no other choice. Abigail Williams was described by Rebecca " the very brick and mortar of the church. " All hell broke loose due to the evil of Abigail Williams, seeking revenge on the Proctors when John stopped the affair.
Miller writes as though he belittles his characters and condemns them as he sees fit to unt down all dwellers of the Salem society. The irony was that the purist of the citizens hunted down the innocent people and plagued them with crimes, when they themselves were now a part of the crime of the hunt. Hale was the first to come to the re ity to oppose the view of the court proceedings and terminate his position in the court. It was better to hang innocent people than to admit to a wrong doing.
Old Goodby Osborne was found guilty of witchcraft because she could not remember the command ts (Cliffnotes 43). Hale later in the play realizes that this is wrong and tries to convince Proctor to flee for his life which leads to the most dramatic scene of confrontation. John Proctor is caught in the tangled web he has woven between his wife, rings, and himself and the entire Salem community. Proctor did not want to be a part of the trials and was forced to make important decisions.
He was also accused of being a witch. His destiny relies on his choices. He becomes a rebel against the c rch and now he must sign a confession. John Hale tries to convince Proctors wife to get him to sign. Elizabeth replies with " I think that be the Devils argument. " Which means John Proctor knows inside himself what he will do and no one else will cha e his mind. John Proctor mulled this over and over and he finally came to a decision.
A once weak man now had the authority to make a commitment to mankind. He has chosen to die an honest man. " He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from hi " Charity and justice are major features of human relationships, both public and private. " These issues, therefore, not only frame the play, but specifically define the relationship between John and Elizabeth Proctor, and they largely determine the co se of their tragedy" (Bu censored 135). We recognize our own victory over evil from our Puritan past because of the struggles for justice in characters like John Proctor. The Crucible practically has all of the qualifications of a successful tragedy as Miller imagines them to be. " Yet it c not be said to reach those heights where the breath fails because it lacks something far more important to drama: that sense of vividly and fully imagined character that made of Willy Loan a kind of modern Everyman" states Clinton W.
Trowbridge (44). It is apparent that Danforth and Hathorne are a threat to freedom. Proctor is not a threat to freedom because he does not have the power or authority. The Puritans became dangerous and powerful in the new world. Also powerful is the richest man in Sa m, Thomas Putnam. He gets land by having his daughter accuse others of witchcraft.
Indeed, the apparent difference between Proctor and the Puritans serves only to stress how corrupting power can become in the hands of a certain kind of person, the Puritan American who is obsessed by his own guilt and driven by the desire to determine sanctity in himself and in others, and to make it conform to the visible human being (Bu censored 131). It is ironic that Proctor is a victim of what he opposes. As well as John Proctor adding to his own disaster, the Reverend John Hale finds that in trying to solve a horror he creates a horror. " He could be a tragic hero, but his role is minor: through him, then, the play has a tragic accent " (Heilman 324 325). Arthur Miller was not satisfied with the original version of The Crucible so he added additional data. Overland reports that Miller added a scene to explain Abigail's behavior even though it was not needed (57). Miller does not accomplish artistic d th in The Crucible " because of his inability to project seventeenth century sensibilities and thus to sympathize with them. " The play, according to many critics, " is not seriously historical and, therefore, not seriously literary or political.
This pl seems to fail to reach the social, historical, and moral depth of a great work of art, because it cannot imaginatively conjure the world that it pretends to describe" (Levin 127). The Crucible, some critics say, is a controversial and a modern virtuous lay. Miller has created a community disturbance too far-reaching to result from an evil plot of a simple villain according to Heilman (144 145). " The Crucible is an argument in favor of moral flexibility. The fundamental flaws in the nature of the Puritan elders and by extension of the McCarthyites, as Miller sees it, is precisely their extreme tendency toward moral absolutism" (Bu censored 129). wants to abolish these factors. Critics say that there is a balanced cast of sinners and non-sinners who deserve our sympathy.
Despite the continuing serious crimes by judges Danforth and Hathorne, there is a moral education in the characters Hale an Parris. Goody Nurse and Giles Corey symbolize " unabated moral sanity and good will" (Bu censored 130). John Proctor is a basic hero who opposes evil. He was, however, indiscreet with Abigail Williams, this of course is only a fabrication by Miller. Mill s plays constantly stress the value of the nuclear family, the ties of loyalty between husband and wife, and their protectiveness towards their children. Marriage can be destroyed soured by nagging sexual guilt (as the The Crucible), it nevertheless remains an emotional stronghold, the instinctive centre of peoples lives, without which society itself falls in anarchy and self-destruction (Elsom 140 141).
Proctor does in some ways represent an enemy to the community because he does not like the representative of the church. He doesnt go to church regularly and did not take his sons to be baptized. Moral judgments are made by the good people and Salem leaders. " The courts condemn the " witches, " to be sure, and this act is the most flagrant example of over-zealous righteousness in the play" (Bu censored 130). The town is unmerciful in its destruction of witchcraft. Miller originally thought of naming his play The Inside of His Head instead of Death of a Salesman.
He wanted a huge head to appear and then open up so that we could see inside. This, in dramatic terms, is expressionism, and correspondingly the guilt of William Loan is not a single act, subject to public process, needing complicated grouping and plotting to make it emerge; it is rather, the consciousness of a whole life. Thus the expressionist method, in the final form of the play, is not a casual experiment, but rooted in the experience. It is the drama of a single mind, and moreover, it would be false to a more integrated or less disintegrating personality (Williams 11 12). Through the years expressionism has become sensitive to the experience of weakening.
It can be categorized in two ways, personal and social. " The continuity from social expressionism remains clear, however, for I think in the end it is not Willy Loma as a man, but the image of the Salesman, that predominates, " maintains Williams. The social theme in the alienation of Willy is his transition from selling goods to selling himself. He becomes the merchandise which will at some time become economically useless. The convincing sense of Death of a Salesman is one of false awareness, " the conditioned attitudes in which Loan trains his sons being broken into by real consciousness, in actual life and relationships. The expressionist method embodies his false consciousness much more powerfully than naturalism could do" (Williams 12).
Slang is used perfectly in the play because it is a result of their lifestyle. In 1950 Death of a Salesman was attacked in America as part of a communist movement threatening the American way of life and capitalism. Stage productions and movie shows were closed because Senator Joseph McCarthy accused individuals in this field o being communists. Actors, writers, and directors confessed to socialist principals to save their careers. Those who denied the charges found themselves unemployed (Griffin 5).
Death of a Salesman is one of the lasting plays of our time. Its strength lies in the ability to evoke sympathy and pity rather than fear and incite anger and controversy (Trowbridge 43). Probably the most significant comment about Death of a Salem is not its literary achievement but the impact it has had on readers and viewers in America and overseas. Its influence continues to grow in world theatre (Jackson 36). Death of a Salesman has been described by Professor Francis Fergusson as " poetry n the theatre" (Jackson 35).
It is a myth which projects before the spectator an image of the protagonists consciousness. The playwright attempts to reveal a tragic progression within the consciousness of the protagonist. He employs, as the instrumentation of vision, a complex theatre symbol: a union of gesture, word, and music; light, color, and pattern; rhythm and movement (Jackson 35). The most important asset that playwright Arthur Miller holds is his knowledge of the theater. He knows that plays must deal with matters of interest to the public. It is almost impossible to not be impressed with a play by Miller because they are writ n realistically. " A play, " according to Miller, " ought to make sense to common-sense people the only challenge worth the effort is the widest one and the tallest one, which is the people themselves" (17).
In Tom F. Drivers writings he states that, We must remember that the only success both popular and critical Miller has had in this country is Death of a Salesman" (20). He does have weaknesses in his writings. Miller has too narrow a view of man in society.
He has not investigated human natu fully, restricting him to a specific social theory. Millers idea of the real world in which humans must deal is limited and how he sees life is not extensive. He does not possess the curiosity that would help him to solve problems. One might say that he sees the issues too soon, sees them in their preliminary form of social or even moral debate, but not in terms of dramatic events that disturb the audiences idea of basic truth, which is the foundation for its moral attitudes. Miller is a playwright who wants morality without bothering to speak of a good in the light of which morality would make sense. Man must be made to create his values and live up to them (Driver 22).
According to Harold Bloom, Miller is not an articulate writer but he is not a bad writer either. Miller articulates, in language that can be appreciated by popular audiences, certain new dimensions of the human dilemma (Jackson 36). Both Death of a Sa san and The Crucible if properly staged are very effective dramas. Death of a Salesman is the best of the two, ranking as one of the half-dozen crucial American plays. There are still many other questions about the staging of the play that can not be bsolutely answered correctly. Each person will have different ideas as to why Miller used the music the way he did, about the way he uses language, about the comic lines and how they should be read, about the order of the scenes, and about the change f m the present to a scene from the past because of the use of a certain word and phrase (Schneider xx). " Yet its literary status seems to me somewhat questionable, which returns me to the issue of what there is in drama that can survive indifferent or ev poor writing" (1). " Thus with all our efforts, and good intentions, we have not yet achieved a theater; and we have not, I believe, because we do not see life in historic and dramatic terms" (Kernan 2). " Our greatest novelists and poets continue not see life in historic and dramatic terms, precisely because our literary tradition remains incurably Emersonian, and Emerson shrewdly dismissed both history and drama as European rather than American" (Bloom 2).
Whether the play is a narrative or a lyr al one the American style usually leans towards romance and musing, or something bizarre, rather than drama. " Miller, a social dramatist, keenly aware of history, fills an authentic American need, certainly for his own time" (Bloom 3). Bloom question if it has the aesthetic dignity of tragedy, but no other American play is worthier of the term, so far (5). The author has captured a kind of suffering that is universal, probably because his hidden model for this American tragedy is an ancient Jewish e. Willy Loan is not Jewish, but there is something about him that is and according to Bloom, " the play does belong to that undefined entity we can call Jewish literature. The only meaning of Willy Loan is the pain he suffers, and the pain his fate uses us to suffer. His tragedy makes sense only in the Freudian world of repression, which happens also to be the world of normative Jewish memory" (5).
In the Jewish environment everything has already happened and nothing can be new again because the is a meaning in everything and everything hurts. That order known to Jewish memory is the secret strength of Death of a Salesman and the reason for its ability to endure shrewd criticism. Miller wonderfully states that Willys decision to die happens hen " he is given his existence his fatherhood, for which he has always striven and which until now he could not achieve. " Willy is really a good man who only wanted to earn and have the love of his wife and sons. Willy is dying throughout the play n because he wants to be successful but by the common desire to be loved even though he feels he does not deserve it. " Miller is not one of the masters of metaphor, but in Death of a Salesman he memorably achieves a pathos that none of us would be wise to dismiss" (Bloom 6).
Deciding if Death of a Salesman is or is not a tragedy is determined by the reader or viewer interpreting it. " Is Willy, for instance, a born loser, or is he a game little fighter who, having been sold a bill of goods about the American Dream, keeps s going it out against unequal odds" (Weales xvi)? It is often believed that tragedy only happens to people of higher status. In Barrett H. Clarks writings he states that Miller believes that the common man experiences tragedy as well as kings.
Miller els that this should " be obvious in the light of modern psychiatry, which bases its analysis upon classic formulations, such as the Oedipus and Orestes complexes, for instance, which were enacted by royal beings, but which apply to everyone in similar motion situations" (Popkin 537). Tragedy is the result of mans total duress to judge himself justly according to Miller (Popkin 537). John Gassner calls Willy a " loud-mouthed dolt and emotional babe-in-the-woods and if so, does his love for Biff somehow let him transcend that characterization" (xvi)? Willy has been called a " low-man" by Schneider, a " common man" by Eleanor Clark, " victim" by Wiegand, a " poor, flashy, self-deceiving little man" by Ivor Brown, a schizophrenic by Hynes, and a social-martyrdom image by Raymond Williams. " Clurman is interested in him as a salesman, but Fuller, who has understandable interest in salesman, prefers him as Everyman. " Weales also writes that " Bierman, Hart, and Johnson find a basis conflict between the salesman and the man in him" (xvii). Willy has a complex personality and all of these things at once. It is because of all the fa s and lies, the realities and fantasies that Willy has the potential to actually kill himself.
He does not realize whether he is condemning or defending himself when he speaks (Weales xvii). Many readers feel that the play is about Biff and that it is a play about a sons troubles with his father. " Willys recognition of Biffs love does not alter his basic self-delusion about success, the audiences attention, sympathy, concern turn to Bi, who finds his true self, finds understanding, pushing Willy out of the spotlight" (Clurman and Gassner xvii). Schneider states that For me, the Requiem of the play is ironic, the gathering of people who never understand Willy at all, and how much more effective it would be if Biffs I know who I am, kid, were taken as still another sample of Loan self-delusion, the true legacy (the insurance being the false) of Willy (xviii). Dillingham believes that Linda adds to Willys plight, but according to T. C.
Worsley Linda is the perfect wife. Willys wife interacts with all the people in his life. She cares for their children Happy and Biff. She washes and mends the clothing and rates about paying bills.
She loves and admires Willy (Griffin 49). Most of the critics believe that Linda is the character that the audience should admire. Robert Garland feels that she is " the one character in the play who could see clearly what wa going to happen. There is no doubt about what that means in the context of the play. It is not necessary to decide, that Linda is the central character in Salesman, but it is important to decide just what her function is in the play" (xix).
According to Schneider the lesser characters should not be ignored. Of importance is Happy's feeling of guilt because he hates his older brother, Biff. It is questionable whether Charley, Bernard, Howard, or Ben are acceptable character or stereotypes. " If the lay belongs, as Gassner says it does, in the tradition of American realism, then those characters may stand out as unreal, stock. If, however, Millers borrowing of expressionistic techniques allows him to use a type character when he needs one to make point, they may be functioning legitimately within a particular scene" (Schneider xix).
Willy is a victim of ignorance. Willy " the protagonist is still only a man to whom things happen, who is not capable of even a belated understanding, and who is seen in a vocational and technological rather than a broadly human context" (Heilman 143). nd according to Heilman, Miller " wrote pathetic drama, the history of an undivided character experiencing pitiable obsolescence" (160). Miller tracks suffering to the ancient cause, ignorance and he follows Loman's progress from ignorance, suffering, t enlightenment. " As in Classic tragedy, the price of this Odyssey is death, but, through his personal sacrifice, the protagonist redeems his house, and promises to his posterity yet another chance. " Loman's suicide, as in traditional tragedy, is a con action to his victory over the circumstances (Jackson 35). Arthur Miller structured Death of a Salesman to show Willy Loman's pleasures, dreams, and hopes of the past. Thus the central conflict of the play is Willys inability to differentiate between reality and illusion.
In the opening of the play numerous otis are presented. The first being the melody of a flute which suggests a distant, faraway fantasy: Willys dream world. This is playing in the background as Willy enters carrying his burdensome traveling suitcases. He has been a traveling salesman for the Wagner Company for thirty-four years.
Willy left that morning for a trip and has already returned. He tells his wife Linda that he opened the windshield of the car to let the warm air in and was quietly driving along when he found himself drea ng. Later when Linda suggests taking a ride in the country on Sunday with the windshield open, he realizes that the windshields dont open on new cars and he was remembering the 1928 Chevy, alluding to his life being an illusion. Linda would like Will to work in New York so he would not have to travel, but he refuses as he is, " vital to New England. " This is another illusory motif; the reality is in fact that Willy is a hindrance to the company.
He tells Linda he is, " vital to New England, " to cove up his inability to get a position in New York. Willy asks Linda about his boys, Biff and Happy, who are home for the first time in years. He can not understand why Biff, thirty-four years old, can not find a job and keep it. After all, Biff possess so much, " personal attractiveness, " yet another motif. To Willy a person must not be liked, but well-liked. When a person is well-liked the entire world opens up for him, as it did for David Singleman, a salesman who was so loved and respected that he ent to a town, picked up a phone, and placed order after order.
When David Singleman died at the age of eighty-four buyers and sellers everywhere attended his funeral, but that was a time when selling depended on the salesman's personality and not the out. Willy sees all the, " personal attractiveness, " in Biff and expects him to have a successful career. Willy complains he feels all cramped and, " boxed-in. " The bricks and windows in the city make him feel too closed in and nothing grows anymore. e remembers a good time in his life when the boys were young and flowers were growing in the backyard, but now the outside forces are smothering him and he makes useless attempts to plant things in the backyard. The focus switches from Billy to the two boys talking up in their bedroom. Biff tells Happy what he has done in the last fourteen years and the reason he does not keep a job is because when spring rolls around he feels he has to move on to another pla.
Happy talks about having an apartment, a car, and plenty of girls all the things he has ever wanted but he is still lonely. This is because he has never bothered to find out what he really wants. Biff says men built like them are meant to work time in the open air and they should meet a steady girl to marry. Biff wonders if a man, Bill Oliver, would remember him. He had stolen a carton of basketballs once, but Happy assures Biff that he was well-liked by Oliver, a philosophy they learned f m their father. Downstairs, the boys can hear their father talking to himself and the focus is brought back down to Willy who is reminiscing a time in 1928 when he came home from a trip and the two boys were polishing the car.
Willys flashbacks are always in 1928. This is his last happy year before his break with Biff. Willy tells young Biff to be careful with the girls and then shows the two boys a punching bag he has brought home to help Biff improve his timing. The bo are all excited and Willy notices Biff has a new football. Football is used to symbolize immaturity in Biff and Willy (Heilman 123). He asks Biff where he got it and Biff tells Willy he borrowed it from the locker room to practice.
Happy says Biff w l get in trouble, but Willy thinks the coach will " congratulate you on your initiative. " The values Willy is teaching his son about, " personal attractiveness, " leads to more thefts and ultimately to jail. While all attention is being focused on Biff, happy announces, " Im losing weight, you notice, Pop. " Willy, not paying attention, says, " Try jumping rope. " According to Schneider the lesser characters should not be ignored. Of importance is Happy's feeling of guilt because he resents his older bro er, Biff (xix). Later Happy lays on his back and pedals his feet while saying hes lost weight, but still no one notices the overshadowed son.
Willy tells the boys that he will have his own business someday and he will not have to leave anymore. He t ls them it will be better than Uncle Charley's because Uncle Charley is, " liked, but hes not well-liked. " Willy also promises to take the boys on a trip through the New England states so they can see how well-liked he is. In reality Willy knows he is ot well-liked so he never does take his boys. Bernard enters and tells Biff they must study because his math teacher has threatened to flunk him. Since Biff has three athletic scholarships, Willy finds studying unnecessary. He would much rather see h son practicing or socializing so he can be well-liked.
He encourages Biff to cheat off of Bernard on the final exam. Willy tells his sons that good marks in school do not mean too much, but instead, " the man who creates a personal appearance is the m who gets ahead Be liked and you will never want. " Biff explains to Willy that Bernard is liked, but not well-liked. It has become evident that Biff is accepting all the values Willy is instilling in him and not making any of his own. This leads t his downfall. Willy tells his boys that later in life good marks mean nothing, " Because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. " Linda comes on stage carrying a basket of ash and Willy tells the boys to help their mother. Willy tells Linda he was great and sold 1, 200 gross in Boston and Providence.
Linda figures out how much they owe and Willy knows he only sold 200 gross and his commission does not cover what they owe So he told Linda the truth. Annoyed with the need for a new fan belt for the refrigerator he says, " The refrigerator consumes belts like a goddam maniac. They time those things. They time them so when you finally pay for them, theyre used up. " He us like to own something before it breaks.
When the boys were polishing the car, Willy calls it, " the greatest car ever built. " After he finds out he needs to buy a new carburetor for the car he has a quick change in temper, " that goddam Chevrolet, t y ought to prohibit the manufacture of the car. " Willy can not face the reality that he is not a good salesman and can not understand why, " people dont seem to take to me, " and why, " people laugh at me. " He guesses he talks too much, but Linda is alw s there to reinforce his illusion by telling him how wonderful he is. She also fails to recognize his limitations and covers them up so he can keep building his illusion. Linda takes out some silk stockings and begins mending them. Willy thinks Charl is a man of few words, yet people respect him.
Willy worries about his appearance, but Linda assures him that he is handsome. While Linda is talking a woman appears in Willys mind. She is laughing while dressing. It is clear that Willy gets lines on the road because he is not as popular as he says. As the woman leaves she thanks Willy for the stockings. Willy feels guilty and upon returning to the happier illusion he notices Linda mending her stockings and tells her to stop.
Bernard enters a asks for Biff so they can study because it is a state test and he can not give Biff the answers. Willy is aggravated by Biffs lack of studying and threatens to whip him. Then Bernard and Linda begin to criticize Biff as well and Willy abruptly turns n defense of Biff. Willy tells Biff that he does not want him to be a worm like Bernard because Biff has spirit and personality. Happy comes downstairs and Willy is saying he wishes he went to Alaska with his brother Ben. He says Ben at age seventeen, " walked-into the jungle and when I was twenty-one I walked outward by God I was rich. " Happy tells Willy he is going to return him for life and although that is what Willy wants, he can not ask his boys for help because then he will have to realize that they are incapable of helping him.
Willy tells his boys the, " woods are burning. I cant even drive a car. " When Willy s s the woods are burning he means that life is closing in on him. Ben is Willys ideal because he had nothing and ended up rich. The jungle is woods for Willy. Ben conquered the jungle of life (in its figurative meaning) and Willy is trapped in burnin woods. Thus time is running out on Willy.
Every time we see Ben he has his watch out and says he only has few more minutes to catch the train. This emphasizes the concept of time hurrying past man. Ben utilized time while time simply passed Willy by At this time Charley enters and sends Happy back upstairs. They begin to play cards and Charley offers Willy a job, but Willy refuses. Ben appears in an illusion and Willy is talking to Charley and Ben at the same time.
Ben is Willys ideal success ich Willy would like to obtain. Charley has practical success, which is not what Willy believes in, so when Ben appears in illusion Willy is anxious to get rid of Charley, this way Willy can indulge himself in his favorite daydream. Charley stands for very thing opposite of Willys view of life. Charley is not well-built, he has no personal attractiveness, he is not adventurous, and he is not well-liked.
But Charley is successful. These are the reasons Willy can not accept a job from him. It would ean Willy acknowledging that all his ideas in life were wrong. Charley tells Willy to forget about Biff, but Willy can not because he would have nothing left to remember. Biffs success is Willys purpose to live and later it is his purpose to die. W hout the memories of Biff and the hopes for a better future, Willys entire existence is meaningless.
Willy insults Charley on his card playing and Charley goes home. Willy is now alone with Ben and asks Ben about their parents. Ben tells Willy that eir father used to make and sell flutes giving more meaning to the flute being played in the background. Although this implies a similarity of a salesman quality between Willy and his father, we see that Willy pedals wares already made whereas his fat r made his own flutes and sold them himself by piling the whole family in a wagon and driving across the entire midwest.
Happy and Biff appear and Willy tells them that Ben is a genius, " success incarnate. " He wants to show Ben that his boys are magni cent. Ben suddenly trips Biff and tells Biff to never fight fair with a stranger, " Youll never get out of the jungle that way. " Willy sends his boys to the construction site to steal some lumber in an effort to show Ben their fearlessness and rugged. The stealing of the lumber relates to Willys teaching of bad values and Biffs stealing himself out of every job he will ever have. Charley's reaction to the stealing is that the boys will get caught and be put in jail just like the other fearless adapters. Ben says the stock exchange has fearless characters.
As well as Biffs approval, Willy would like Bens recognition. Willy expects Ben to praise him for having great sons but Ben merely says they are, " Manly chaps. " Linda comes downstairs to check on Willy, Willy complains about being too crowded and boxed in, and decides to go for a walk even though he is wearing his slippers. Biff comes down and asks his mother what is wrong with Willy. She tells him that when e is away Willy functions much better, but when Biff writes that he is coming home all of Willys dreams begin to close in on him and he becomes agitated.
Linda tells Biff not to come home just to see her because he can not be disrespectful to Willy. tension, attention must be finally paid to such a person. " Linda tells Biff that after thirty-four years the company has put Willy back on straight commissions. Biff thinks the company is ungrateful, but Linda tells him the company is no worse than h two sons. She tells her sons that Willy goes to Charley every week to borrow $ 50. 00 and tells Linda that it is his salary. Biff refuses to take all the blame and accuses Willy of being a fake. Biff calls him a fake because of the scene in the hotel Boston, but does not tell Linda.
Linda tells Biff that Willy is trying to commit suicide. Last month he had a car wreck, and the insurance company thought it may have been intentional. After the car accident, she found a rubber hose attached to the s pipe. This is the first introduction of suicide in the play.
Arthur Miller is trying to prepare the audience to accept Willys suicide as a result of cause and effect. Linda tells Biff, " I swear to God! Biff, his life is in your hands! " Biff says ey all should have worked out in the open, " mixing cement on some open plain, or be a carpenter. " Willy has just entered and represses these physical urges saying that even, " your Grandfather was better than a carpenter. " Thus Willys dreams make h aim higher than his heart would like. Biff and Willy argue and Willy tells Biff not to curse in the house. Then Biff, referring to the hotel scene in Boston, asks, " When did you get so clean? " Happy tells Willy that Biff is going to see Bill Oliver.
Willy gets excited over the idea and tells Biff to wear a dark suit, to talk as little as possible, and not to tell any jokes. Willy was being realistic, teaching Biff not to be like Willy Loan, but to conduct himself as Charley would. Biff says he wi ask for $ 10, 000. 00 and Willy tells him to ask for $ 15, 000. 00 because if you start out big you end up big. Contrary to before Willy gets caught up in his illusions and tells him to begin with some jokes because " personality" always wins the day.
Not o y is Willy getting caught up in his dreams but even Biff is beginning to believe that Oliver will lend him this large sum. When Linda puts in a few words Willy yells at her to stop interrupting. It gets to the point where Biff cant take it anymore and ends that Willy not " yell at her. " Subconsciously Willy takes out his own sense of guilt by yelling at his wife. Biff is upset by this, yells at Willy, and Willy leaves.
Linda follows Willy up to the bedroom and Linda reminds Willy that the plumb needs to be fixed. Now Willy feels everything is falling to pieces. The two boys come in to say good-night. Willy falls back into his dreams and could only think of Biffs greatness. He gives Biff more advice about what to do in the interview with iver and Biff begins to feel the greatness in himself. While Willy is reminiscing about Biffs greatness, Happy, feeling overshadowed by Biff, tries to get his parents attention by saying, " Im gonna get married. " This serves the same purpose as " Im owing weight, " in the earlier scenes.
Biff goes down to the kitchen and removes the rubber tubing, ending Act I on the thought of suicide. Act II opens up with a touch of hope and joy. Willy wakes up after a good nights sleep and finds that Biff has already left to see Oliver. Willy feels good and would like to buy some seeds to see if they will grow in the backyard because he has a st ng need to create something material to leave behind, something Ben says, one can see and touch.
Willy is determined to tell Howard he needs a New York job. On his way out Linda reminds him of the bills they owe. Willy resents the refrigerator repair ill because he bought an off-brand while Charley bought a well-advertised brand that has never needed any repairs. Willy also has one last payment on the mortgage and the house finally belongs to them. Linda tells Willy he is to meet Biff and Happy fo dinner.
Once again Willy asks Linda to stop mending her stockings. Willy is at Howards office and is not only denied a job in New York but was fired from the firm. Willy pleads saying he would only need a few dollars a week, reminding Howard of how many years he has been with the company, and the promises made to hi by Howards father. " You cant eat the orange and throw the peel away a man is not a piece of fruit. " He also told him the story about David Singleman. Willy tells Howard he averaged $ 170. 00 a week back in 1928, but Howard states that he never aver ed so much. Howard suggests that Willy gets help from his sons, but Willy cant go to them because the fact that they are fine boys is a part of Willys lies and illusions. Right after being fired and hitting an all time low, Ben appears offering Will a job in Alaska, but Linda reminds Willy of the partnership promised by old man Wagner.
Willy has to miss out on this opportunity to go to Alaska with Ben because he is trapped in his lies about his position in the Wagner firm. Willy tells Ben he is b line something, personality and connections. Bens idea of building something is so you can " lay your hand on it. " Since Willy has nothing tangible he tries to grow things in the backyard. Ben leaves and everyone is in a rush to go to Ebbets Field f Biffs football game. As everyone is getting in the car Charley appears pretending not to know that they are going to see Biffs game. Willy become very agitated and his display of fury shows his immaturity.
While thinking about the past Willy has been walking to Charley's office and is at the height of his anger upon arriving at Charley's to borrow money. Willy talks to Bernard and is impressed that Bernard will be playing tennis with his own tennis rack s on some private courts. Willy seeks Bernard's advice about where Biff, the popular athlete, went wrong, but once Bernard said the two boys fought for no reason after Biff came home from Boston, Willy becomes defensive and yells angrily at him. Charl enters and sends Bernard off to the train so he can argue a case before the Supreme Court. Willy asks Charley for $ 110. 00 so he can pay his insurance.
Charley offers Willy a job but Willy insists that he has one. In a small argument Charley asks, " W n the hell are you going to grow up, " a question he asked in the previous flashback. When Charley asks Willy how much he needs, Willy admits that he has been fired, but still refuses to work for Charley. If Willy worked for Charley it would be an adm sion that his life has been a failure.
Charley gives Willy the money and Willy says that a man ends up worth more dead than alive. Before leaving Willy realizes that Charley, whom he previously felt was an enemy, is actually the only friend he has. Happy and Biff are at the restaurant. Happy is flirting with a girl and when she leaves to find a friend to join them, Biff explains how he had to wait all day to see Oliver who did not remember him.
Biff discovers, " What a ridiculous lie my whole li has been. " He has always stolen as a result of feeling neglected. The fright of seeing himself for what he really is, caused Biff to steal Oliver's fountain pen. Happy opposes telling the truth to Willy, but when Willy joins them in the restaurant B f tries to make Willy understand reality. Biffs attempt to communicate with his father and bring him out of his world of illusion is unsuccessful.
In despair Biff cries to Happy, " I cant talk to him! " The failure of Biff with Oliver brings to Willy mind the failure Biff was in math. As Biff tells the truth, Willys dreams overpower Biffs realistic talk. Willy closes his mind to reality and feels that Biff is spiting him because Biff refuses to do as he says. The break in Willy and Biffs rela on ship was a result of the woman in Willys room in Boston. Willy blames the hotel discovery on the fact that Biff failed math. " If you hadnt flunked, youve been set by now! " Willy hears a womans voice asking him to open the door and he gets fri teen and goes to the bathroom. While he is in there Happy wants to leave.
Biff says Willy is, " A fine, troubled prince. A hard-working unappreciated prince. A pal, you understand? A good companion. Always for his boys. " This is a sudden change fro his calling Willy a fake earlier. This is because Biff has come out of Willys world of illusions and has begun functioning on reality.
Looking back on Willy he notices Willys faults but now can see lots of values. This realization makes him beg Hap to help him reach Willy. Happy wants to leave and Biff accuses him of not caring about his father. Happy denies his father, " No, thats not my father. Hes just a guy. " This is a result of the brutal rejection Happy has been subjected to throughout he play. " Death of a Salesman illustrated the ruin of a family because the father was a failure. Domestic happiness was shown to depend, not just on personal relationship, but on the way in which men and women coped with the injustices of society" (Elsom 139).
Throughout the play we have seen Willys guilt when Linda mends her stockings, we have heard the laughing of another woman, and we have heard Biff call his father a fake. While Willy was in the bathroom the two boys left with the girls. This next flash k is the climatic failure in Willys relationship with his son Biff. The flashback brings us to Willys hotel room in Boston. Biff knocks on the door continuously and Willy tells the woman to hide in the bathroom. Willy opens the door and Biff tells m that he has flunked math.
Biff showed Willy the imitation he gave in front of the class before being caught by the teacher. They both laughed. The woman hears the laughter and comes out. Willy gets her out of the room as quick as possible and she mand's the stockings Willy promised her. Biff accuses Willy of being a liar, a fake, and giving away " Mamas stockings. " Suddenly Stanley, the waiter at the restaurant, interrupts Willys flashback and tells him that Happy and Biff have left with the girls.
Willy asks if there is a seed store nearby. Now that his world has closed in on him he needs to leave something ta ible behind. Biff and Happy come home with flowers for Linda. She throws them on the floor and yells at her sons for treating their own father worse than a stranger. Happy begins to lie, saying that they had a good time, but Biff stops him and agrees with his mot r.
Biff hears a noise outside and Linda tells him that Willy is planting his garden. Now we see Willy outside talking to Ben he thinks Biff has been spiting him all of his life and that if Biff sees the number of people at Willys funeral then he will ave respect for him. At the same time, Biff will have $ 20, 000. 00 in his pocket. With that sum he could truly be magnificent.
Willys talking to Ben has convinced himself that he has finished his life. So rather than, " stand here the rest of my life nine up a zero, " he decides he will commit suicide. Biff comes out to Willy to let him know he is leaving for good and to ask for help to tell Linda. Willy refuses and warns Biff that spite will destroy him. Willy wants to talk about Oliver, but Bi has finally connected his thefts with Willys philosophy of being well-liked. Biff becomes angry and confronts Willy with the rubber hose.
He tells Willy that they should tell the truth. He says that he has stolen himself out " of every good job sinc high school. " Biff also tells
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