Download
1 / 67
690 likes | 731 Views
Arthur Miller. October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005. Biography. Arthur Asher Miller, the son of a women's clothing company owner, was born in 1915 in New York City. His father lost his business in the Depression and the family was forced to move to a smaller home in Brooklyn.
E N D
Arthur Miller October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005
Biography Arthur Asher Miller, the son of a women's clothing company owner, was born in 1915 in New York City. His father lost his business in the Depression and the family was forced to move to a smaller home in Brooklyn. After graduating from high school, Miller worked jobs ranging from radio singer to truck driver to clerk in an automobile-parts warehouse.
Best Works Miller is perhaps best known for several of his earliest works, most notably "Death of a Salesman" and "The Crucible”. In both works, the past works upon the present, but in dramatically different ways.
Tragedy • A modern tragedian, Miller says he looks to the Greeks for inspiration, particularly Sophocles. "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," • Miller writes. "From Orestes to Hamlet, Medea to Macbeth, the underlying struggle is that of the individual attempting to gain his 'rightful' position in his society."
Tragic Hero • Miller believes. "It is time that we, who are without kings, took up this bright thread of our history and followed it to the only place it can possibly lead in our time-the heart and spirit of the average man."
hes' a human being, (protagonist) • In the play, Miller writes, "Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But hes' a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him."Protagonist: Willy Loman Antagonist: In a broad sense, competitive America society
Playwriting • "When I began to write," he said in an interview, "one assumed inevitably that one was in the mainstream that began with Aeschylus and went through about twenty-five hundred years of playwriting." (from The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller, ed. by Christopher Bigsby, 1997)
The play is a scathing critique of the American Dream and of the competitive, materialistic American society of the late 1940s. • The storyline features Willy Loman, an average guy who attempts to hide his average ness and failures behind delusions of grandeur as he strives to be a "success."
Death of a Salesman relates the tragic story of a salesman named Willy Loman, whose past and present are mingled in expressionistic scenes.
Background of Expressionism In The Birth of TragedyNietzsche presented his theory of the ancient dualism between two types of aesthetic experience, namely the Apollonian and the Dionysian;
A dualism between the plastic "art of sculpture", of lyrical dream-inspiration, identity , order, regularity, and calm repose, and, on the other hand, the non-plastic "art of music", of intoxication, forgetfulness, chaos, and the ecstatic dissolution of identity in the collective.
The analogy with the world of the Greek gods typifies the relationship between these extremes: two godsons, incompatible and yet inseparable.
According to Nietzsche, both elements are present in any work of art. The basic characteristics of expressionism are Dionysian: bold colors, distorted forms-in-dissolution, two-dimensional, without perspective.( to depict the inner emotions)
Title • Willy is the salesman throughout the play, and he is the character that ultimately dies, but the title can be seen as figurative, rather than literal. . The complete title of the play is Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem. The first word of the title refers not only to the death of the main character, Willy Loman, but also to the death of his career and his hopes for a better life for himself and his family. " Requiem means rest. Requiem refers to a song for the dead.
The characters will also be allowed to pass through the walls that are only obeyed to in the present as told in Miller's stage directions in the opening of ACT 1.
Dramatic Techniques • Flashbacks would show an objective image of the past. • Miller's mobile concurrences show highly subjective memories.
Stream of consciousness A Willy's mental state deteriorates, the boundaries between past and present are destroyed, and the two start to exist in parallel.
Stream of consciousness • About the writing of the play, Miller says, "I wished to create a form which, in itself as a form, would literally be the process of Willy Loman's way of mind."
Reality and Illusion • Throughout the play the Lomans in general cannot distinguish between reality and illusion, particularly Willy. Willy cannot see who he and his sons are. He believes that they are great men who have what it takes to be successful and beat the business world. Unfortunately, he is mistaken. In reality, Willy and sons are not, and cannot, be successful.
Willy has created network of Lies in which he has become trapped.
Willy dies self-deceived. Willy believes that to be well liked is the means to being successful. This is an illusion that Willy lives in. On the literal level, Willy very often lapses into a flashback and appears to be reliving conversations and situations that occurred years ago. This itself is an inability to see reality.
The Dangers of Modernity • Death of a Salesman premiered in 1949 on the brink of the 1950s, a decade of unprecedented consumerism and technical advances in America. Many innovations applied specifically to the home: it was in the 50s that the TV and the washing machine became common household objects. (Run for More Money) • Willy Loman's career - traveling salesmen are rapidly becoming out-of-date. Significantly, Willy reaches for modern objects, the car and the gas heater.
The Dangers of Modernity Willy Loman's career - traveling salesmen are rapidly becoming out-of-date.
Madness Madness is a dangerous theme for many artists, whose creativity can put them on the edge of what is socially acceptable.
Protagonist Anti-hero Hero Larger than life Problems of Cosmic Scale. (grandiose) He possesses few heroic qualities---Anti-hero Domestic Problems
Growth The members of the Loman family are stuck with the same character flaws, in the same personal ruts throughout time.
Growth Willy does not recognize that his business principles do not work, and continues to emphasize the wrong qualities. Biff and Happy are not only stuck with their childhood names in their childhood bedrooms, but also are hobbled by their childhood problems: Biff's bitterness toward his father and Happy's dysfunctional relationship with women
Know Thyself The words on the ancient Greek temple at Delphi advised, "Know thyself." But Willy continually fails to recognize his limitations. He does not know himself. Consequently, he constantly overreaches himself and thus constantly fails
An American resident experiences a sense of confinement. What do you think Linda and Willy feel themselves confined to?
