Category: Uncategorized

Society’s Effects

Adam B. Ferguson

Willy’s struggle and hardhips throughout his time reveals the pressure of society to not only achieve but to achieve greatness. In order to achieve and live the American Dream (either that of society or of Willy), social, political and economic envirornments are affected. Throughout his life Willy experiences much despair and abandonment which in the end affected his feature and him as an individual. From early on Willy’s visions and ideas of society are tainted leaving him wanting more for something he didn’t have. Things which society projected as good and successful traints. Wi Willy’s father leaves him and Ben when Willy at a young age which leaves him wanting the tangible (money) nor an intangible (history) legacy he has always yearned to have. Willy’s actions as well as thos events which ahve affected him, eventually push him to strive for the unreachable American Dream. Willy considers his son Biff to be the embodiment of promise and wants to achieve success and reach his dream through him / for him. However, Biff is unable to succeed in business which further estranges the two. This shows how much society and Willy’s outlandish ideas derived from societal beliefs has affected Willy to the core.At Frank’s Chop House, Willy finally believes that Biff is on the verge of succes. However Biff and Happy shatter this illusion of Willy. It is then that Willy has reached a point where he loses all control. This “let down” leaves Willy derranged and babling in the washroom. Not only can Willy no achieve his warped American Dream but neither can his son. Willy values money and business success over the true success and hapiness of himself as well as his family. He believes that if he reaches that unreachable dream he will be happy because society says he should be happy. If he has a pretty wife, a good job where he makes good money, a car, and a nice house that he will be happy. However, even if Willy ever achieved these things – would he even be happy?

Enviornment

 Adam B. Ferguson

Willy is a man who sets up a very different view of the Political, Social, and Economic environment.  Willy believes wholeheartedly in what he considers the promise of the American Dream (the American dream being a person who is "well liked" as well as  "personally attractive").  If Willy is able to obtain to “American Dream,” he beleives he will obtain the comforts offered by modern American life. However, this  fixation on superficial qualities such as attractiveness and likeability is different then that of the true American Dream.  Willy believes he can “cheat” the system by using only his good looks and charm, but overlooks the what that he must work hard without complaining in order to succeed and obtain the true American Dream.  It is Willy’s childish tendencies to judge based on superficial qualities (he dislikes Bernard because he considers Bernard a nerd) that ultimately gets him in trouble. Willy’s blind faith in his obscured version of the American Dream leads to his rapid psychological decline in which is is unable to differentiate between his own life and the “dream.” Willy’s need for success and affirmation labels him as someone who believes he must prove something to someone.  In order to achieve success you must first be at the bottom in order to work yourself to the top.  Willy must go through this same journey but tries to shortcut or work the system which leaves him grasping at imaginery ladders.

Idea and Metaphor- Metaphor

By Eric Houdek 

As we talked about earlier, there were two metaphors from the play that encompassed the whole meaning of the play. 

Howard: Kid, I can’t take blood from a stone(Pg. 81)

Willy: The world is an oyster, but you can’t crack it open on a mattress.(pg. 41)

Both of these metaphors summarize the play itself.  Willy Loman is a man who believes that being well liked by everyone will lead to sucess in the real world.  This is evident when he tells Biff that Bernard will never succeed in the real world because being a book worm does nothing to add to his popularity.  This ties in to the fact that Willy is a delusional character. Although he literally sees delusions throughout the course of the play, Willy has a warped perception of reality.  Willy embraces the American dream, which is to “make it big” and to take care of his family.  However, Willy uses the salesman Dave Singleman to make the decision to use “salesmanship” as the means to achieve the American dream.  There is nothing deceptive about Singleman’s name.  He dies a SINGLE MAN, and most likely he didn’t die with a lot of money, for he had to be out working at the age of 84.  It is with a warped sense of reality that Willy sets out to conquer the world.  Raising his children, Willy chooses not to instill many disciplinary values in his children, and even looks down upon Charley’s son Bernard for being a nerd.  As time passes by, and it is evident that many of Willy’s means of achieving success have not been successful, Will still comes to the conclusion that he can take care of his family by killing himself to achieve an insurance reward of $20,000.  He commits this act, but once again, he is using the wrong means to address the problem.  He leaves his wife a widow, his son Biff has no intentions of using money for the sake of business and has plans of moving away, and it is entirely possible that the insurance company did not even honor the policy.

SO WE NEED TO FINALIZE OUR METAPHOR…

Some Previous Actions of Principal Characters who have Polar Attitudes n’ such

Willy's need to be well liked most likely stems from his abandonment issues with his father and brother.   Ben describes his father as a masculine man who was skilled with his hands and had an entrepreneurial spirit.  According to Ben, Willy's father was a successful salesman who produced what he sold.  We see Willy's fear of abandonment in his memory of Ben's visit.  When Ben says he must leave to catch a train, Willy frantically searches for ways to delay his departure.  He shows off his children to Ben in a desperate plea for approval.  With his father and Ben gone, Willy is unable to develop a normal concept of self worth.  Therefore, he models that self worth after the American dream which is highly unrealistic.  He ends up downplaying more important measures such as family love and support, and the freedom to choose what to do with your life.   It becomes fairly clear that Willy made a poor choice in becoming a salesman after we see his dream of living in the Alaskan woods which related to the American dream of living life on the frontier.  The image of the American pioneer who searched for riches began to change in the late 1940s as people realized that the real place to strike it rich was through capitalism and consumerism.  Business entrepreneurs replaced the explorers of the old west.  Ben represents a character that was actually able to get rich by literally searching for riches in the wilderness of an African Jungle.  In the end of the book, Willy may be alluding to the fact that he regrets becoming a salesman when he uses gardening as a metaphor for his legacy.  Just as Biff had enjoyed his time working on a ranch, it seems that Willy preferred working in a more natural environment.

Willy's thought processing ability is marred by a lifetime of him creating his own realities to conceal his own failures in achieving his dreams.  His delusions are often revealed in the contradictions that arise from his multiple mindsets.  For example, he refers to his car as a piece of trash at one point and then claims that it is "the finest car ever built."  He says that Biff is a lazy bum in one instance, and later says that he is anything but lazy.  Willy acts as an enabler to Biff's compulsive thievery which later becomes a crippling habit. He never reprimands Biff for his bad grades or the stealing and even laughs when Biff first steals the football and is impressed with his ability to get away with theft.  It is possible that Willy doesn't reprimand Biff because he fears damaging Biff's ego or that he fears that Biff will no longer like him.

At the beginning of the play, Biff and Happy have come back home and are currently sharing their old room. Biff is the oldest son who was a football star in high school with several scholarships, but for the last fourteen years he has been unable to find himself and he has lost a great deal of his confidence. He is a war veteran and has had six or seven jobs since his time in the war (including one job as a worker on a ranch which he enjoyed).  He taught his younger brother about women although he has no idea how to act around them.  Biff is in a cycle of going home every time that he gets fed up with a job and then leaving home because of a fight with his father.  He recently returned from somewhere in the West because his mother asked him to see his father.  Biff and Happy went to school with Charlie's son, Bernard, who is now a prominent, successful lawyer.  Happy works in a department store and has his own apartment in different part of New York.  Willy has clearly favored Biff over Happy during their childhood because Biff represented a potential for the American dream with his reputation as a football star and his various scholarship offers.  Happy began to emulate the high school Biff in an attempt to get his father's approval.  Willy would praise Biff's success with women and his ability to get away with theft. As a result, Happy competed with more successful men by sleeping with their women as a form of theft that also established his sexual dominance.

Research – Miller’s life and parallels with the text

Branching out from Alex’s biography of Arthur Miller, I would like to point out some parallels between his early life and the Loman family’s experiences.  The biographical notes in The Portable Arthur Miller state: “When he was asked recently in what way his plays were related to the events of his life, Miller replied, ‘In a sense all my plays are autobiographical.’  The artist creates his biography through his work even as the events of his life serve to shape him”. (Bigsby vii)

Miller was a Jewish middle-class New Yorker whose father was an immigrant from the former Austro-Hungarian empire.  While their ethnicity and religion are never directly stated, it is widely accepted that the Lomans come from a similar background.  Miller also was born and raised in New York, going to high school in Brooklyn (the home borough of the Lomans).  Also as a young adult, he worked as a loader and shipping clerk in a warehouse.  These experiences are reflected directly onto the lives of the Lomans, specifically Happy and Biff.

The most striking parallel, however, can be seen in Willy’s ideal of being “well liked”.   In Timebends: A Life, Arthur Miller describes his father as “a fellow whom policemen are inclined to salute, headwaiters to find tables for, cab drivers to stop in the rain for, a man who will not eat in restaurants with thick water glasses, a man who has built one of the two or three largest coat manufacturing businesses in the country at the time and who cannot read or write any language” (Bigsby 2).  Miller’s role model obviously created the mold for Willy’s ultimate measure of success.  While Mr. Miller was not formally well-educated by any stretch of the imagination, he was prosperous and popular by dint of his prestige and likability.

Source: The Portable Arthur Miller.  Christopher Bigsby, ed.  New York: Penguin Books, 1995.

Idea and Metaphor-Construction of Nominal Phrase Used to Express Idea

By Eric Houdek 

Alright, for assigning our statement to the meaning of the play, I think there are a few crucial factors we must consider€¦

-Willy Loman followed the American dream, and it failed him. 

-Willy Loman believed that all a man needed to succeed was to be well liked by his peers.  This belief failed him as well as his son Biff.

-Biff Loman realized that his father and his family were common people, not destined for greatness. 

-Although Happy Loman says that Willy did not die in vain, it is clearly evident that he did.  Willy Loman sacrificed his life to get some meaning out of it by obtaining it for his son Biff so he can "make it big," when Biff shows no intentions of doing so.  In fact, he plans on moving out West.  It is not even clear at the end of the play if the $20,000 is honored. 

-Do to his dependence on his belief that all a man needs is to be liked by everyone to succeed, Biff fails to reinforce many key values in his sons.  Willy fails to discourage his children from stealing, and fails to place a value in hard work and respect for women. 

-There is a great emphasis on this play placed on delusion. 

-Hopefully this information will help us to brainstorm about the nominal statement identifying the idea in the play…

Refinement

I have discovered the "hard way" that when I look at the Blog posts under the various categories, the program tells me when it was posted but not who posted. Everyone is identified in the main Blog just not within the categories where I plan to  look for the development of your group’s assignment.  Therefore, please identify yourself at the beginning or end of each post. I realize that this will lead to double identification on the open blog but it will help the grading process which I assume you will all appreciate.
Thanks,

Walter

Some other perspective in & of thought in Medea.

late as I am to post, I am not so, in terms of the ‘thought’ of what I’m writing. (BEWARE: this was written under circumstances of major stress, that’s why it might come a bit too acid.)

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Part III (Thought). Group Project.

Alejandro's Part:

In consideration of the group grade I will not address particularities about the Aristotelian Analysis, for it is clear by now that we all know it. It escalates, reaches the climax and starts unraveling the gist towards the end in a slower, much slower pace. Medea, she is so great, for it represents not only women's struggle in the historical perspective, but rather and furthermore, the always combating human passions.

Passions, desires the gist of us all. In her aim there is no reason. Her reasoning, ever so bright, has been blinded by the red lights, fleshy, humanly tender and emotionally susceptible, of her womb insides. Her insights, are no to be undermined, nevertheless.

What Euripides tells in this story –story for the sake of thinking of thought and not of parts and €˜play'- is how a woman is, in terms of her position in society, analogous to the larger audience that is and was to attend the wine, and much more, festival of Dionysius. The Greek had, as much as we have today, a very clear power structure. Although it differs in terms of €˜to-whom-it-is erected', in terms of alleged responsible deities, it speaks, loud and clear, about what it is to be the underdog.

In every tragedy according to our friend, the teacher of my GREAT antecessor, the great characters are, for I cannot avoid them in thought, so full of attributes. Like Medea, who got the Golden Fleece and €˜bla, bla, bla', is so great as her downfall in terms of glory. The sort of consistent inconsistency and vice-versa, where the great will be the lower ones and the lower ones the great, eventually an according to the development of the action, empowers the playwright and his message. It makes of what is to be said, what is to be homage or criticized, susceptible to interpretations. And the interpretations are what will make a play great or awful, succeed or fail.

Analogous to all the rest of the parts of the Aristotelian analysis, thought in Medea, is the power of its elements, combined, and the ability, example of all great Tragedies, to take everything to its maximum. Take these elements of the play, character, plot, language, spectacle, €˜bla bla' to a point where it will altogether collide and collapse, relentlessly, so the result of interpretation IS THOUGHT.

Provoking and poking. Analogous to this analysis of thought in Medea, the script, there is one analysis of thought, in terms of transcendence, of Medea the €˜Greek' play –obviously, in this analysis.