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Metaphors in fences by august wilson
Metaphors in fences by august wilson
What is the american dream in american literature
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What is significant about Willy’s repeated failed attempts to grow vegetables in the garden? - His failed attempts to grow vegetables refers to his failure to raise his sons to be successful and live up to Willy´s idea of the American Dream.
Explain Willy and Howard’s different philosophies on business.
Howard was a symbol of progress and innovation in contrast with Willy’s outdated business tactics.
Explain how the theme of living/clinging to the past is conveyed through their meeting. What role does the recorder play (symbolism)? - Willy's appeal is not for some abstraction of attention or dignity. He is arguing directly to his employer that there must be responsibility taken for employees. Willy gave his youth to the company, and now the
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company must take care of him. The significance of the recorder is Willy’s fear of new and improved things in the business world. Why does Willy tell Howard about Dave Singleman?
Describe the dramatic effect when Howard listens to the voices of his family while Willy tries to talk business. What could the machine be symbolic of? - Because Singleman was Willy’s inspiration in life and business. It creates the effect that Howard sees Willy as insignificant. The machine could be symbolic of
Analyze the reference to the title of the play (1804). Analyze Dave Singleman’s name. Why is his name important?- the title is a reference to David Singleman and how when he died Willy’s inspiration. His name is an indication that he was single his whole and it exaggerates Willy’s idea of the American dream.
Why does the ghost of Willy’s brother Ben enter after Willy’s meeting with Howard? (1816) What is his general message to Willy? Do you think Willy would have been happier if he took Ben’s advice? - Willy’s memory slips so he sees Ben. His general message is that wealth isn’t a physical thing that one can touch. I think Willy would have been a lot happier if he took Ben’s advice.
What is Willy’s impression of Bernard when he sees him in his father’s office? Why does Willy exaggerate Biff’s importance? - He has contradicting feelings of envy and pride for him. He exaggerates Biff because he wants to look like a success to
Bernard. Why does Bernard ask what happened after the game at Ebbets Field? He asks because he wants to know what changed Biff’s mindset after the game. What is the significance of Bernard as a character? He represents the opposite of what Willy thought was a successful person because he is nerdy and not popular.
A very significant character who may seem to not play much of a role in this play but actually is a big driving force of the plot is Bernard; Bernard is the consciousness of Willy Loman, and he manifests in his flashbacks of joyous times to bring Willy back to reality and to face the crime he committed against his whole family. Bernard is the essential part of the battle Willy is having with himself, whether he can stick to his fault or place the fault on others, and this influences Willy and others around him greatly.
Willy’s father, a “very great” and “wildhearted man,” made a living traveling and selling flutes, making “more in a week than a man like [Willy] could make in a lifetime” (Miller 34). Even though Willy barely knew his dad, he built him up in his head as an amazing person and role model, striving to be as “well liked” as him (Miller 34). Willy also idealizes his brother, Ben, as evidenced by his constant one-way conversations with him.... ... middle of paper ...
Like countless characters in a play, Willy struggles to find who he is. Willy’s expectations for his sons and The Woman become too high for him to handle. Under the pressure to succeed in business, the appearance of things is always more important than the reality, including Willy’s death. The internal and external conflicts aid in developing the character Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.
The change in technology represents the change in the business and sales industry. Willy’s inability to understand technology shows how the world has gone on without him. The play shows how the idea of a salesman has changed for both Howard and for Willy. Howard believes in the new and modern way of selling items, while Willy still believes that having a good personality is the best selling point when it comes to making sales. The wire recorder indicates the end of Willy’s career as a salesman because it was Willy’s reaction to the technology that reminds Howard about his decision to dismiss Willy from the Boston job. When Willy started out as a salesman, they paid more attention to people rather than numbers – which is the opposite of what
...r because he did not change with the times. Finally, Willy hoped to show his family that he could do something right and give them a little pleasure by planting seeds in the backyard. He hoped that these seeds would grow into a wonderful garden for all of them to enjoy. Then his family would appreciate him. But the garden fails, as does Willy.
At the beginning of the first act, it is evident that Willy gives a lot of importance to his house and to what is going on around it (garden, neighborhood, etc.). Moreover, he put a lot of emphasis on owning it: “Figure it out. You work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there’s nobody to live in it” (Miller p. 15). It is clear that he has been working to pay this house so his sons could fully enjoy it, and that he is quite disappointed to realize that there is no one to savour it. As the story comes closer to its climax, Willy shows more and more examples of his desire to let something tangible as inheritance to Biff and Happy. Among others, he begins to grow a garden in the yard even if, in the first act, he states that even grass does not grow. This garden represents two things: first, it is a hand-working job, just as he like; second, agriculture is the symbol of long-term subsistence. He may already have an idea at this point that he his going to commit suicide soon. Therefore, he wants to make sure that his family will not be starving and the garden is the perfect idea for this. Finally, the most important asset he wants to give to his sons his money. All his life he has been paying his insurance policy. And in his decline, he tries to use this insurance policy to get money. Two evidence of this are the car “accidents”, that were not accidents at
Throughout the play, Willy can be seen as a failure. When he looks back on all his past decisions, he can only blame himself for his failures as a father, provider, and as a salesman (Abbotson 43). Slowly, Willy unintentionally reveals to us his moral limitations that frustrates him which hold him back from achieving the good father figure and a successful business man, showing us a sense of failure (Moss 46). For instance, even though Willy wants so badly to be successful, he wants to bring back the love and respect that he has lost from his family, showing us that in the process of wanting to be successful he failed to keep his family in mind (Centola On-line). This can be shown when Willy is talking to Ben and he says, “He’ll call you a coward…and a damned fool” (Miller 100-101). Willy responds in a frightful manner because he doesn’t want his family, es...
He even lies to himself, and then his boss, about how much he actually earns. Because he wants to prove to himself that he is well liked, Willy has at least one affair, attracting the young woman by offering to purchase her a pair of silk stockings. When Biff discovers his father in the hotel room with the woman, he recognizes Willy for what he is and calls him a liar and a fake. Willy also lives in a world of illusions about his two sons.
Willy’s character alone has many flaws which bring about his tragic ending, most of which can be attributed to society. Here, society has created and nurtured Willy’s character, passing its values, morals and dreams onto him. Miller has described society as ‘the condition which suppresses man, perverts the flowing out of his love and creative instinct’, although it is a crucial factor in this tragedy. It is because of this society and environment Willy has been surrounded by that he embodies the ideals of the American Dream. The false ideas of success and happiness that Willy has adopted have been readily handed to him by the materialistic and superficial environment he lives in, works in and fails in. Another perception that Willy had acquired from society is its shallowness, which leads to his infidelity and also losing the trust of his older son, Biff.
Growing up, Willy doted on Biff the most, which reflects the way his own father doted on his older brother Ben. Their father-son relationship was strong until the incident with The Woman caused a rift to grow between them. Willy feared seeing his son due to the chance of being exposed, and Biff did not want to be reminded of his father’s betrayal. However, near the end of the play, Biff and Willy had a heart to heart which seemingly did some repair work on their relationship. Biff grew to forgive his father and confessed that he loved him despite their past. He experienced growth through the events of the story, making him another candidate for the
Perhaps it is due to the abandonment by his father that Willy Loman experienced at a very young age, or the subsequent abandonment, a few years later of his older brother Ben, that underlies the reason Willy so desperately seeks to be loved and accepted. He continually makes reference to being “well liked” as being of the utmost importance. Physical appearance, worldly admiration, and the opinion of others are more important to Willy than the relationship he has with his own family. These and several other references throughout “Death of a Salesman” portray the troubled relationship between Willy and his two sons, Biff and Happy.
Within the play the reader sees that the time period that the play is set in is the 1940’s which is right after the depression, and the economy is booming for those who take advantage of it to become financially fit that was the American dream at the time. Living during this time period the author describes many salesmen. Willy Loman, Howard, Richard Singleman, Ben, Charley. Now the difference between these characters is that some of them are successful, while others are not. The main character that we need to look at is Willy. He is an ordinary salesman that has extraordinary thoughts. He believes that he is well liked and for those that are well liked the world will just revolve around them, and everything will just happen correctly for them. The reader can sense the irony to this statement when they see what happens to Will and his family in the play. Willy’s upbringing of his children was not as positive as Willy thought it would be. He preached to his children that being well liked was the only thing that was needed in the real world. What Willy didn’t grasp was the the world changes, and when it changes ideas change as well. An idea from one time period will not be compatible with another time period. ...
Willy's goal throughout life was to climb out of his social class. As a salesman, Willy was a failure and he tried desperately to make his sons never end up like him. As a result, he loses his mind and his grasp on reality. Throughout the story, Willy often has flashbacks of the conversations that he and his brother Ben once had and the author intertwines them in past and present very nicely.
When Biff is young, Willy lives vicariously through Biff’s popularity and success in high school. He sees them as proving his view of life; that popularity equals success. This keeps Willy from realizing that he is neither a good father nor a good salesman, and that he is failing in his own life. Comparing Bernard to his own sons he says, “Bernard can get the best marks in school, y’understand, but when he gets out into the business world, y’understand, you are going to be five times ahead of him.” When Biff fails over and over after high school, Willy sees this as a rejection of him. He accuses him of spite, and returns to better times more and more often in his mind, becoming more delusional and failing to deal with the reality of his life. Linda notes that Willy hallucinates more when Biff is around. “And then the closer you seem to come, the more shaky he gets, and then, by the time, you get here, he’s arguing, and seems angry at you.” In the final scene, Biff tells Willy the whole truth and starts to cry. Willy realizes Biff really does love him. Willy has already decided to kill himself, but now he believes that Biff will love and admire him even more for doing so. “Always loved me. Isn’t that a remarkable thing? Ben, he’ll worship me for it!” His relationship with Biff, in some ways the most important of his family relationships, keeps him from recognizing the truth of his life at every stage.
Willy is a multi-faceted character which Miller has portrayed a deep problem with sociological and psychological causes and done so with disturbing reality. In another time or another place Willy might have been successful and kept his Sanity, but as he grew up, society's values changed and he was left out in the cold. His foolish pride, bad judgment and his disloyalty are also at fault for his tragic end and the fact that he did not die the death of a salesman.