Death of a Salesman Summery and Analysis

*For the first part of this blog, I'm trying something out. The numbers intermittently placed throughout the summary are end notes.*

Death of a Salesman is one of Arthur Miller's most popular works (1). Willy Loman is a common travelling salesman who live in New York in the year of 1949. He has lived an unfulfilled life (2) and, as of late, is experiencing hallucinations (3) that take the form memories from the year of 1928 (a better time), in the same location as the present. In Willy's dreams, his sons, Biff and Happy, are well-liked and showing their potential for success; his older brother Ben (4) frequently visits. In the present, Willy's sons aren't doing very much with their lives: Biff has been travelling out West, out of work, stealing for spite (5); Happy sleeps around and exaggerates his status (6), and Ben has been dead for a while. Linda Loman is Willy's wife, and she is all too aware of what is going on: Willy is becoming suicidal. However, she does not bring it up with him for fear of destroying any shred of dignity (7) he has. Biff is torn between earning his father's approval and accepting the reality of what he is. Biff sees himself as a failure in his father's eyes, but he has issues (8) with his father that cause him to reject that notion and is content to not aspire to anything. Tensions really start to boil when Willy is fired from his job (9) and Biff realizes that he doesn't want to vie for his father's attention. Following a heated argument (10) between the family (but mainly Biff and Willy), the play concludes as Willy finally decides he is worth more dead than alive and goes and kills himself in a car crash.

Analysis End Notes:
(1) - As a child, Arthur Miller's father was a fairly profitable business owner and his family enjoyed many comforts. Due to the Great Depression in 1929, Mr. Miller lost his business and the family suffered much hardship. I believe that Death of a Salesman has much in common with the circumstances of Miller's youth and the struggles he observed in his own home.

(2) - Willy has had no father in his life, so he looked to those he envisioned to be the embodiment of what a father would be: David Singleman was a very popular and successful businessman who inspired Willy into his own career as a businessman; Ben, Willy's older brother, a very successful man.

(3) -Miller distinguishes between Willy's dreams and reality by allowing the characters to pass through gaps in the set walls during dreams, while confining the present-time characters to regular stage physics. The dreams themselves are important because they express Willy's conflict: he's lost because his life isn't going at all the way he planned and he doesn't know why. The memories that he plays back through his mind lead up to the point where his life flipped upside-down (when Biff caught him in an affair), at which point he realizes the pitiful state he's in.

(4) - "When I walked into the jungle, I was seventeen. When I walked out I was twenty-one. And, by God, I was rich!"(p. 35) - Ben's most significant line in the play. Ben had gone off, at the age of seventeen, leaving his mother and infant brother behind in search of his father, who was part of the gold rush in Alaska. By some odd mischance, Ben ended up in Africa, where he went into the jungle (and the diamond market) and gained a fortune. This fortune he did not share with his family that he had left behind. Like his father, he abandoned Willy and his mother, specifically Willy, leaving him without a father-figure to pattern himself after.

(5) - The reason Biff himself gives in explanation for his thievery is that all the praise his dad gave him as a boy made him feel superior to everyone else, so he couldn't take orders from anyone. As a result, he stole what he wanted.

(6) - Happy is a product of his father's making. Whether he knows it or not, Happy follows the patterns his father sets. First off, he sleeps with his coworkers'/ employers' women. This is because he is neglected by his family and feels lonely on the inside, so he looks for other means to feel wanted or loved. Willy had the same reasons to have his affair, except he was married at the time. Secondly, Happy exaggerates his status to seem more important or successful than he actually is. This is a play pulled straight from Willy's book, as we see Willy doing just that throughout the play.

(7) - Death of a Salesman is Arthur Miller's adaption of tragedy. In his essay, Tragedy and the Common Man, he defends his play's status as a tragedy with his own definition of tragedy, "As a general rule, to which there may be exceptions unknown to me, I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing--his sense of personal dignity." Linda plays at being, in part, a tragic hero by sacrificing common sense to preserve her husband's dignity; Willy himself, at the conclusion of the play, *look at this from Willy's point of view, as odd as that may be* makes the ultimate sacrifice to keep his sense of dignity as being a successful man and the provider of his home by committing suicide so that his family could have the $20,000 from his insurance policy. He also wanted to keep his dream of his son's success alive by providing him with the means to start anew.

(8) - Biff craved nothing more than his father's praise and attention as a boy. After Biff had failed his math class, he went to his dad for help (like any boy should), only to find him involved in an affair. This hit Biff hard, because he loved his mother as much as he loved his father; to see this man, whom he had idolized, being unfaithful to the woman he should love more than anything made Biff question if Willy ever actually was truthful about anything. In the place of every word of praise, every encouragement, was now a festering wound. Biff's dad was a fake in his eyes. Willy was angered and hurt by Biff's reaction, as well as worried that he would tell Linda, so Willy kicked Biff out of the house.

(9) - In the "Tape Recorder" scene where Willy gets fired, there is A LOT that goes down. The gist of it is that Willy's delusional perception on how the world should work (Willy has the idea that words are infallible and connections are the key to everything. This is true, but he missed the memo that ACTIONS speak louder than WORDS. So he doesn't get the concept that hard work is also involved to make one successful.) comes face-to-face with reality. Also, the audience finally understands what Willy is selling - he's selling himself. Not, like, his body, he's selling the essence of Willy Loman. All his ideals, values, dreams, and successes are laid on the line. This is that confrontation mentioned above. When Willy is fired, Howard is rejecting Willy's entire persona, his way of life and who he is. This scene would be the catalyst for the downward spiral leading to Willy's suicide, however, as Willy spouts off about Dave Singleman, "He died the death of a salesman." This is the one time the play the title is mentioned. It can be seen that every action Willy makes after this, he's only going through the motions; this scene is really where Willy's spirit dies, in the end his physical death was inevitable after this experience.

(10) - This argument at the end is what I originally thought was the climax, but after I had an "Aha!" moment with the tape recorder scene during a class discussion, I decided that this just sealed the deal/ closed off any other path that Willy might have taken. The argument consists of Biff plainly stating the truth of his and Willy's identities and his silent plea for his father's love and acceptance, like he was used to growing up; on Willy's side, Willy has already given up and he wants to hide away in his shell, but he's drawn out by Biff's breakdown - when he start crying and begging his dad to let him go - taking this in a completely different way than Biff meant it, Willy is convinced that Biff (despite his previous failings) will end up a great man *if he has Willy's life insurance behind him.* Solidified in his purpose, Willy can now kill himself with a clean conscience, believing that he is sacrificing himself for a noble cause, or rather,dying a "hero."

Quotes:

• Willy: "You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - man is not a piece of fruit!"(p.55) ...Maybe in Willy's world, but here in reality, everybody "eats the orange" and "throws away the peel." Sorry buddy.
• Biff: "I am not a leader of men, Willy, an neither are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can with the rest of them!"(p.93) This outburst of Biff's supports the motif of "not every man is a leader," also it drives in the nail that Howard set when he confronted Willy's delusions with reality.
• Ben: "When I walked into the jungle, I was seventeen. When I walked out I was twenty-one. And, by God, I was rich!"(p. 35) Here is the basis and summary of Willy Loman's work ethic, the "All you have to do is walk in" method. Since Willy never knew his father, Ben has assumed the father figure in Willy's eyes, and Willy deifies his older brother, latching on to every word he says.

Theme Statement:
Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman advocates the idea of valuing actions over words by emphasizing the consequences of Willy Loman's puffery; Miller implicates the folly in ignoring responsibility results in one building a house of cards on a sandy foundation (a.k.a. - puffery/ delusional perception) that will lead to inevitable self-destruction.

Biff is content with his dream of "...working out in the open." (p. 11) Despite his troubled youth, he understands the benefit of honest, hard labor. Willy doesn't get this concept, instead, he relies on his words to get the job done: 
Willy: "I averaged a hundred and seventy dollars a week in commisions."
Howard (impatiently): "Now, Willy, you never averaged..." (p. 55)
His facade doesn't hold up against the hard facts. But Willy never learned the benefit of hard work. He always went off of Ben's philosophy of just "going into the jungle" and "coming out rich." No one was there to teach him how he was supposed to go about being successful, so he had nothing to go on, and that turned out to be detrimental.

American Dream Summary and Analysis

The American Dream is a one-act play by Edward Albee, a well known playwright who had a slightly adverse view to the society he grew up in. The play is set in a room within an apartment; a basic, separated layout with a doorway on either side of the room (stage) and a couch in the middle (facing the audience) with arm chairs facing inward on either side. This is the almost black-box setting of the play. The story goes as follows: Mommy and Daddy are having a shallow discussion to introduce the audience to some of the main motifs (consumerism and a lack of satisfaction, as well as a lack of respect). Grandma (the old American Dream) walks in with loads of boxes (the old values) and it is clear that Grandma isn't quite welcome. Mrs. Barker then enters (a personification of the new consumerist society and a symbol of the roles women play in the era) and no one knows why she is present (this is another motif: everyone is lost as to what is going on). It is shown that Daddy has been emasculated and that Mommy has assumed the patriarchal role in the household. Later, when Mommy and Daddy are both absent, Grandma tells Mrs. Barker a would-be tragic story of a "bumble" that the family adopted. As the "bumble" grew, the parents literally chopped off pieces they didn't like and the "bumble" eventually died; now that the "bumble" is gone, they want satisfaction (in the form of a replacement, but they don't even know that). Mommy and Daddy come back, and the group reverts to frivolous conversation, then the doorbell rings. Grandma goes to get the door and a Young Man (the new American Dream) walks in, a perfect image of everything Mommy and Daddy ever wanted, but on the inside, he's empty. Void of emotion, the American Dream is a hollow shell, a superficial solution to the characters' problems. Grandma Ushers in the Young Man and has him help her remove her boxes from the scene. With Grandma gone, we go back to Mommy and Daddy. Mommy realizes Grandma is gone and goes into a shock, beside herself with some sort of anguish caused by Grandma's departure. Everyone notices the Young Man and Grandma and the memories of her are forgotten.

Though The American Dream contains many elements from Theatre of the Absurd and existentialism, the narrative voice of the story shines through in Grandma, who gives the play direction with things the says and how she interacts with the audience. Albee's own point of view is expressed through linking events in his life to events in the play; as a child, Albee was adopted and (being a budding homosexual) he felt his parents trying to "chop away" parts of him. In The American Dream, this is reflected in the "bumble." Albee uses strong imagery and details/ lack of details to convey his messages throughout the story.

Two important quotes found in The American Dream are:

1. Daddy: The way things are today; you just can't get satisfaction; you just try it. - This is a big motif throughout the play; the characters all try to obtain satisfaction, but in this consumerist society, they never will because there is always something more to want.
2. Young Man: As I told you, I am incomplete... I can feel nothing. I can feel nothing... And so... here I am... as you see me. I am... but this... what you see. And it will always be thus. - This sums up the ideology of the new American Dream; fueled by a superficial desire in a consumerist society, the new Dream has been stripped of the values that gave the Dream substance.

The title correlates directly to the meaning of the play. The theme of Albee's The American Dream is that it warns that the current generation of Americans has gutted the heart and soul of traditional American values and replaced them with a superficial/ materialistic longing that drives us to acquire unattainable satisfaction (gender change, Mommy married Daddy for money, Young Man will "do anything" for money, etc.). 

Close Reading October 13th

Apparently This Matters: Billionaire uses flip phone

By Jarrett Bellini, CNN

"My dad still uses an old flip phone. It's gray. It's clunky. And its two ringtone choices are an early recording of Greensleeves or a dramatic poetry slam by Grover Cleveland. But it works for him. And that's all that matters. The world sort of took notice of Jones' phone last week at the Arizona State-Notre Dame football game which was, for recruiting and financial reasons, being played at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The venue is now known as AT&T Stadium.Besides, how proletarian could it possibly be when even the billionaire owner of the Dallas Cowboys, Jerry Jones, uses one? But you can call it the Flip Phone Dome. Because, at one point, Jones appeared on the game's TV broadcast while talking on his flipper inside his luxury box. And that's when the tweets started pouring out." (Bellini)

I enjoy Bellini's writing style a lot. It's the kind of style I wish I had, but don't quite have a grasp on yet. In this article, he's writing about a billionaire with a flip phone and makes it sound like it's worth your time to read! How does he do it? In my opinion it's all about the diction and syntax. His tone and the mood he creates help out, but diction and syntax do his heavy lifting.

The author flirts with colloquial and informal diction to get you nice and comfy. For example, "My dad still uses an old flip phone. It's gray. It's clunky." Pretty simple start to the piece. And who uses the word "flipper" to describe a phone? Oh wait... we're talking about a flip phone... clever Jarrett, clever. So now we're disarmed and amiable; ready for his silly story about a "non-situation situation." You'll see though, that even though there is an almost overwhelming amount of slang and jargon, Bellini will throw an intelligent word or witty phrase in here or there: proletarian, "If the stadium roof were open... standing on the moon... you could... I wouldn't. But you could." Stuff that makes you step back and say, "Wha...? Where'd that come from? ...Oh it makes sense now." You can see the bright journalist behind the nonsensical "whywouldidothisohjustforfunsies" article.

Walking into this AP Lit class, the hardest thing for me to understand was syntax. I know I still have a shakey hold on it, but I'm learning fast. I love what Jarrett Bellini does with his sentence structures. Nothing is really ever long, it's all short. To the point. "I have something to say. This is a joke. Laugh." He says a lot, yet his ideas are clearly separated; not jumbled up into one huge blob (the way I often find mine). This was a fun, refreshing article for close reading. Not all authors can pull off straightforward humor like writing about nonsense in a serious way, like a reverse travesty, but that's what I see Bellini as having done here. 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/11/tech/social-media/apparently-this-matters-jerry-jones-billionaire-flip-phone/index.html

Response to Course Material

These first few weeks of AP Lit have been invigorating. Maybe you wouldn't think talking about diction, imagery, details, language, and syntax (DIDLS) in literature would be your slice of pie, but I thought it was great! As we dissected and discussed these gears that make the clock of literature tick, I was able to connect what we were learning to things I remembered and experiences I would have. Everything sort of turned into an assignment to annotate. One thing that I noticed was that whether it's in the literature we read, the movies/music we watch/listen to, or the conversations and interactions we have on a daily basis, we use the same patterns of DIDLS. It seems pretty obvious when you focus on it. We use books and plays and poetry because the DIDLS in these is super condensed, but the concepts carry through with the real world.

The American Dream is the first piece of literature that we've applied our new found knowledge to in class. We had some solid discussions about the superficial reality of the "American Dream," the roles Mommy, Daddy, and Mrs. Barker played, and what Grandma and "pioneer stock" had to do with the whole thing. However what I believe I will retain the most is the discussion we had on Thursday about dolls. Ms. Holmes was really pumped about 2nd hour's discussion earlier that day and how they had come up with a perfectly original and valid idea about the characters being like dolls being played with and how they could be representations of the ideas of another cast of characters altogether. (That's just a rough overview, I didn't want to try and explain and totally botch it; if you know about the doll thing, then you get what I'm talking about). Anyway, Holmes was excited yet hesitant to share the idea with our 6th hour class because she wanted us to "come to our own conclusions" or some cliche phrase like that, but we begged her to let us in on the mind blowing idea, so she finally did. Now, our class usually has awesome discussions, and I myself thought that with this crazy idea to kickstart Thursday's discussion, we'd come to some enlightenment about the meaning behind Albee's play. The complete opposite happened. We became so hung up on the doll/barbie/puppet idea that we came up with virtually every possible scenario revolving around that one idea. In short: we rode the proverbial horse into the ground, shot it dead, kicked the dead horse, burned it to ashes, kicked the ashed until they were thoroughly scattered, gathered them back up, and stomped on them. I'm exaggerating, but the point is, that discussion ended with very little enthusiasm and it didn't seem like we really learned anything that day. Ms. Holmes had been right when she had hesitated to tell us about the other class' idea because we clung to that idea like it was the one and only answer, which of course, was not the case. The outcome for us was a wasted opportunity to progress. Though I guess that's not completely true; I will look back on this experience as a reason to 1) trust that the teacher knows best, and 2) be unique and original in my work and ideas.

Close Reading September 15th

Space Invader Safari.

by Daniel Falk

This story is of a circus performer travelling throughout French-speaking Europe with his troupe (which includes his wife). He tells of a time on this adventure when he and his missus opted to take a tour of part of the more native scene of Paris. They took two days to discover the works of a prolific Parisian street artist known as the "Space Invader."

Falk uses articulate wording to settle the audience into the story and let them know how it's gonna go; wording such as hemorrhaging and sumptuous are used in a way that says, "Hey! I speak smart English!" Although he keeps big, meaty words to add flavor, Falk writes with colloquial diction to give off a relaxed tone. The whole piece makes you feel like you're chilling on your couch with the narrator, who's over for a visit, and you're chatting about his time in Europe.

The sentences' lengths vary greatly. If we're going with the imaginary scenario I mentioned above, this style fits rather well. It's almost as if the narrator is remembering parts bit by bit. There are places where the sentences are short, without conjunctions, and sound choppy; there are places where the sentences flow and are pleasant and gentle to read. Conjugations are sometimes utilized as sentence openers, this enhances the informal feel of the passage. For example, "I once heard one of my cast mates complain that he was sick of all the old buildings in Paris. And this chap was from Winnipeg of all places. Winnipeg. The home of frostbite and sadness and stabbings." Falk could have structured these sentences differently to sound disdainful or frustrated, but this setup sounds more scoffing, which (when the sentences are put in context) makes perfect sense.

There is one point in this passage where Falk presents an odd use of imagery.

"But hey, we were still in Paris, right? It’s not like we were in Fort Macmurray in February, or (shudder) Fresno, at any time of the year."

(shudder)

This single word appeals directly to the tactile sense, indicating that you should shudder when you think of Fresno. It isn't a completely original tactic, I've read a couple pieces that use imagery the same way, but it's still... well odd. In a good way though.

Overall, I deem Daniel Falk a pretty competent writer, and enjoy his style. I'd gladly "join his descent into madness" any day. (It's a quote from the intro).

HTTP://WWW.MCSWEENEYS.NET/ARTICLES/SPACE-INVADER-SAFARI

AP Summer Work Entry Two

While reading through the poetry multiple choice section in Peterson's AP English and doing the practice problems, I seemed to get caught up in the details and would generally miss the "big picture." Sometimes I would skip over important details, but that wasn't as prominent. I didn't seem to have a problem with the older poetry, in fact, I enjoyed reading "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" and "Sonnet 55" because of the imagery, symbolism, and style. My favorite poem was "The Chambered Nautilus," for the same reasons as mentioned above. I was unfamiliar with some of the allusions presented in the various poems, but I was able to at least discern where they were and make educated guesses. These exercises had welcome insights toward tackling poems as well as the helpful test-taking skills.

AP Summer Work Entry One

Peterson's AP English Diagnostics Test was a good eye opener for me. The first thing that surprised me was that I had to really focus on the text to find the answers, and that sounds kind of obvious, but I've always felt like it was easy finding information and answering questions in this format. I just had a little more trouble this time around, maybe because my expectation was for it to be really simple material. Now I'm going to break down the test to look at it more statistically:

A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning - 70% correct
I had trouble finding the tone and major conceit of the poem: tone because I didn't know the meaning of sanguine when I started the test, conceit because I guess I didn't understand how to find the conceit, (I thought that the stanza about "moving of th' earth" and "trepidation of the spheres" was the conceit). Also, I have, or rather had, no clue what true love and trepidation meant. My biggest concern from this poem is that I didn't quite understand all of the figurative language: just a few lines, here and there, but enough to be concerning.

From Pride and Prejudice - 80% correct
I'm still not fluent in reading classical literature, so I can read it, but I miss the meaning of phrases occasionally. I didn't catch the sense of irony when Mr. Bennet was talking about his wife's nerves. In hindsight, it makes sense though. I thought the excerpt was a satire of the Bennets' relationship, but I understand how the bantering was truly a discussion about the impact on the family of a new neighbor moving in. I also found that I didn't look at the big picture for some things, an example being question twenty four. The question was in regards to Mr. Bennet's comment on Lizzy's "quickness" in contrast to her sisters. The correct answer was "(C) He is defending his position." and I put "(D) He admires his daughter's intelligence." and while both are true, his admiration is part of his defense as to why Lizzy is better suited to marry Mr. Bingley.

Night Clouds - 100% correct
While I answered all the questions for this poem correctly, I have a funny story to tell. I read the poem without reading the title and proceeded to answer the questions, but I quickly realized that none of the answers made any sense! I thought the mares were beams of moonlight and the green porcelain heavens might be referring to the aurora borealis, so talk of clouds really screwed with my head. I read the poem again thinking, "WHAT IS THIS POEM ABOUT?!" Then I looked at the title and had to laugh at my ignorance. I might have come to that conclusion earlier if I had a more open mind on the meaning, but I came up with a conclusion and was dead set in my thinking. In the end, it was a good learning experience for me.

From the Preface of Modern American Poetry, a Critical Anthology - 80% correct
I picked a supporting detail rather that the overarching theme for the thesis. I didn't pay attention to the focus on the Civil War throughout the excerpt, so with question forty, I failed to choose the correct reason for the Brahmins' change in roles. Question forty four was a hold up for me. "Suddenly the break came. America developed a national conscience; the West discovered itself, and the East discovered the West." I tried to argue that this meant the Western poetry became the dominant verse, but it was a weak argument when I reread the first sentence. A "sudden break" sounds like "something clicked" so that supports the correct answer "American modern poetry found itself."

The reoccurring weakness I found in myself throughout this test was my illiteracy. I like to think that I have a pretty comprehensive vocabulary, yet I keep hitting unfamiliar words. I guess that's okay though, it gives me more opportunity to grow. While I've been focusing mostly on my shortcomings on this test, I feel that I did a decent job connecting most of the ideas presented in the text and questions. This diagnostics test was good crash course: I appreciate the opportunity to get a specific bearing on my strengths and weaknesses going into this AP course.