The Old Man and the Sea
We have the old man (Santiago) and we have
the boy (Manolin) who is the friend of Santiago; there were a king of friendship between Santiago and the boy
Manolin. The old man gone for
fishing, he lost and had been absent from his village where he live for 84 day.
The Idea of hope: in novella where we see
"hope", we see also the "will". He gone to the sea alone, without Manolin, he was afraid in a boat alone. The old
man, time to time, felt loneliness which let him behaved in a strange way. He
talked to animals and to himself.
The main protagonist was the narrator, in
order to imitate the life and the present that life, but not to produce it.
Mirror reflects reality as it is, but imagines that the novel reflects reality
as it is, so it?s boring.
The old man is mentioned in the novel as a
hard worker, his work is so irresistible for young, however for olds!
Everything is young in his body except his
eyes, ?the eyes is the mirror of the soul? and you?ll see life through eyes, it
represent the hidden personality, even you have desire to live or not, ?full of life and undefeated?.
It
is a world basically of males: ?man is a fighter, a
hunter, and a lover?.This idea
considered woman as a wariest repose in the world of the fisher man.
Back to novel, there is no old man, as a
will cause with hope. The fishing village is a place where Santiago and others
live. Santiago is a Spanish holy name, but Santiago is religious when he is
alone, so Santiago reveals Christianity. He believes in God and his help, he
remembered God when hi faced death. He was alone and aloof, so when he was alone
there was heath waiting him because there was no solution. The writer described
his loneliness and solitude.
Huge change of the novella is concerned
the speech to the nature, those creatures to whom he spoke, but they don?t
spoke, so he spoke with himself. The novella opened with the description of the
protagonist: a third person narrator.
The theme basically is what the writer
wants to transmit to us: the will; it is the idea of resistance, of hope and of
life. So the willing gives him the possibility to survive. We are like animals,
that is why we fight with each other in order to survive. As said Darwin in the
theory of evolution: ?your brother is an enemy?.
Santiago wasn?t hopeless, he left in the
beginning the hope, but se started again, and he resumed fishing. The old man
was alone; he needed some kinds of presence.
The metaphysics of presence: for the philosopher Heidgger, in western
metaphysics the spoken word (phonons) represent presence, obviously writing
reflects presence, he was done and he also needed to speak to somebody. He
needed this human presence (speech). Speech is the way of translation thoughts existence. As the philosopher
said: “I speak therefore I am”.
Love: Santiago loves the fish, but how can
he loves a thing and he kills it? Santiago who was a religious man lived in
paradox between requirements of live and taught of Christianity. it is a kind of
Darwinism, to kill in order to give life or to survive; all that depends on the
way of killing.
We have a monistic narrator, as if the
writer observes Santiago and tells us and to describe the whole truth of
characters.
The panic place for the main protagonist
(Santiago) is the whole Atlantic. So
we feel that we are in place with him in Hispanic culture or identity, and fixe
it to Cuba. The writer has a strong relationship with Cubans.
Santiago has either the fish to eat or the
boy Manolin brigs his food from his home, so we have a companion relationship.
It is a friendship based on innocence and purity.
You feel this strengthen of Catholicism
and Christianity in this Hispanic environment and religious elements in Hispanic
world.
The fisherman considered the sea as a
woman; the Hispanic people compared it (sea: la mar) to the woman because the
sea gives food as woman gives life. It is a symbol of fertility; it is
mysterious, rich, and deep.
He’s still unlucky and unproductive
because he has no fish in his basket. He says: “Agnamala”, and then he compares the sea as a man by
saying to it: “why you don’t give me a fish! So you
don’t love me?” The old man is
frustrated because he needs food to stay alive.
He is now more and more feeling loneliness
and luckless. He speaks to the elements of the nature. Ruthless Darwinism world,
all this tragedy is only to survive, and the survival is the strongest.
The old man spoke to the fish (it is a strange relationship), which
was the one who wanted to get and which was a victim: “Oh fish, I love you, I respect you so much, I will kill you
one day”. Here Santiago was
dispirited; there is a whole issue of killing in order to survive. He had no
choice so he killed the fish. There’s a certain ethics: he wanted to fish and to
justify himself (a morally satisfaction).
These elements of nature are personified,
they are spoken to. The sea is a kind of a jungle, he said to the birds: “stay
in my house, is a boat”; he wanted the bird to stay more because he felt
loneliness and weakness.
For the fisherman, he was gregarious, he
was weak but after eating sardine he felt himself strong and able to kill the
fish. Ethically is correct, while the aim is natural (surviving).
He needed the God to give him fish, he
said: “I’m not religious but I will say ten times
our fathers and ten hale Mary that I...”. He needed supernatural power, and he
becomes, a primitive man and religious but he had to be, but he forget about
another danger which is sharks and forget that the sea is not ful”. He needed supernatural power, and he
becomes, a primitive man and religious but he had to be, but he forget about
another danger which is sharks and forget that the sea is not full only of
sardines and Marlines.
The American Dream
It is a modernist novella, Modernism
emerged in USA and UK, whereas Naturalism died quickly in UK, it stay alive for
a long time as Modernism in USA.
What is the American Dream? It is the
wealth, happiness, mental freedom, physical independence, Equality, brotherhood,
faith and hope.
American Dream has been interpreted in
various ways, the first notion of American Dream is not money, but it is the
physical independence. American Dream has religious aspects; it is based on the
law of God. They want to create a new Eden, a land of faith and with the ruling
of the bible: fundamentalism.
Since it is a new nation and a new Eden,
Americans considered their selves as brothers, they have to be equal, they fight
for justice and equality, they pursuit the American constitution which protect
these rights. It has to do with the American Revolution.
The more interesting aspect of the
American Dream is the material happiness, which is based on wealth. Among those
writers who characterised the American Dream, Arthur Miller.
Death of a Salesman (by Arthur Miller)
The boss is a rootless, so it is a kind of
rootless world. Willy (the father) with a wife and too big children; one is
called happy who is a typical, a young boy who spends his money, he is happy
even the way he is. Willy fails to buy things for the family, he provide for the
family in the decent way, after Miller shows that this salesman who is working
hardly everyday just for survival. He dreamed to be a wealthy man on day, as the
American Dream requests: “you work, you have money”. There’s some ways which are unethical, the American Dream is has been corrupted (deviated and
transformed from its original values). For example: in Great Gatsby, the main
protagonist gets money by stealing.
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American Dream |
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Religious |
Justice and Equality |
Economic |
In this play, the writer believes in the
world of business, he is exploited by his boss and there’s no society for
emotions. The old man (the father) is bargaining the boss: “Oh! Please, 50$ in
the week!”.
Happy is ambitious than his father, but he
is dandy, dangerous man. Happy emerges as almost another image of his father, he
doesn’t believe in the American Dream. From the beginning doesn’t believe in
that conservative value of hard work.
The practical meaning of the American
Dream is hedonistic. Willy believed in the American dream and that he could be
rich, he has simply fight to survive.
Linda knows one thing, she is afraid that
Willy gets lost, because he is driving all time which can cause a car accident.
We feel that he could not carry on living that way: death.
Audience is being prepared gradually in
the middle of the play: a barring routine life.
At the end, we see the death of the hero,
it is a tragic end: The hero died because of his working conditions, his
dissatisfaction with the owner, and he was in a country of Protestantism ethics.
A frustration is created by the justice in
which he lives, because for them is injustice that the other people have money
and the others no! Who were frustrated are those who received the image from
Americans to wear Jeans and to put perfume. The frustration still exists because
there are different social classes.
The American Dream was interpreted in
different ways: at the firs, it had a religious aspects, Americans went there to
worship God the way they want, then they built a nation based on justice and
equality “Fundamentalism”, the 3rd aspect was wealth, to make the
material happiness, but was this a dream or a nightmare?!
It is a play about a salesman (Willy) who
has a chance to go with his brother to Alaska where he starts working a hard
work as a salesman. He sells things in the road by which he’s in the move; he
has an unstable life. He works in very difficult conditions just as travelling
form one place to another to sell. As more as he sells, as more he gets. Willy
tries with his wife Linda and his tow boys Happy and Bief. Happy uses to get
money, but he loses them on flat with women. In the other hand, Bief is very
lazy boy because he is unable to own any money. Their father Will has a will to
fight, to survive, to provide his family with all what they need, but the will
is not enough to do all that and that’s why he lives with his family in tight
budget though he has a dream of being rich such as all other Americans, but no
way. America, the new land is no longer based on brotherhood; there was no
utopian world for Americans. One of that dreams is the economic one such as
Willy dreamt of.
America for Willy is the land where his
dream will be read. Willy, as any others, is homo economic, he moved towards
richness, but unfortunately, he is
exploited by his heartless boss, who unfairly dismisses him form his job just
because he asks for giving him the chance to stop travelling and do something
else less difficult. Willy life with the work was so bored of daily routine.
Willy made a big mistake by asking to change the job, which led to destroy his
family life. Willy decided to make an end to his life by an accident. The death
of the hero shows the tragic end of a man because of frustration, which was made
by injustice. This man became unhappy so he tried to be like others but
unfortunately he loses his life when he doesn’t find any way for his dream to
imitate their lives. This is why readers of this play expect from Willy who is
rightly from the beginning is not convinced by the way he lives with his family.
The American Dream was reflected by many
writers in different ways, and Arthur Miller was one of them. In this play “The
American Dream”, Arthur Miller described the American Dream as an impossible
dream, if not as a nightmare, because for him, America was no longer a new land
for dreamers, where any one could realise his dream and make it real. This can
be clearly seen by the characters: “Happy” who believes in the life of hero and
now he sees the American Dream as simple as being with women. Enjoying with
them, and from that we know that happy is a womanizer because he can not succeed
at the top. Happy goes to the top territories, which for him are women,
searching for money and sex. Though Willy is ethic man, but he is optimistic for
his son Happy, because for him: his son can at least succeed in something. Willy
is one of the victims of the American Dream, he does believe on it, but he is a
dreamer who does not achieve any thing for his family, nor for himself. Even he
can not help his tow old sons, when Willy tries to have a step towards improving
his way of living he has done something that should not be done.
One can say that there is a contradiction
in the play because how can Willy, the poor man have a mistress knowing that
such a relationship cost him a lot of money, can fall in such relation? Simply
because this woman innovated the routine of Willy’s life.
The Old Man and the Sea
The Old Man and the Sea is a novel by Ernest Hemingway written in Cuba in 1951 and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it centers upon an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. It is noteworthy in twentieth century fiction, and reaffirms Hemingway's worldwide literary prominence and significant in his selection for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.
Background and publication
Most biographers maintain that the years following Hemingway's publication of For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1940 until 1952 were the bleakest in his literary career. The novel Across the River and Into the Trees (1950) was almost unanimously disparaged by critics as self-parody. Evidently his participation as an Allied correspondent in World War II did not yield fruits equivalent to those wrought of his experiences in World War I (A Farewell to Arms, 1929) or the Spanish Civil War (For Whom the Bell Tolls).
Hemingway had initially planned to use Santiago's story, which became The Old Man and the Sea, as part of a random intimacy between mother and son and also the fact of relationships that cover most of the book relate to the bible, which he referred to as "The Sea Book." Some aspects of it did appear in the posthumously published Islands in the Stream. Positive feedback he received for On the Blue Water (Esquire, April 1936) led him to rewrite it as an independent work. The book is a novella because it has no chapters or parts and is slightly longer than a short story. He also referred to the bible as the "Sea of Knowledge" and other such things.
The novel first appeared, in its 26,500-word entirety, as part of the September 1, 1952 edition of Life magazine. 5.3 million copies of that issue were sold within two days. The majority of concurrent criticism was positive, although some dissenting criticism has since emerged. The title was misprinted on the cover of an early edition as The Old Men and the Sea.
Inspiration for character
While Hemingway was living in Cuba beginning in 1940 with his third wife Martha Gellhorn, one of his favorite pastimes was to sail and fish in his boat, named the Pilar. General biographical consensus holds that the model for Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea was, at least in part, the Cuban fisherman Gregorio Fuentes.
Fuentes, also known as Goyo to his friends, was born in 1897 on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, migrated to Cuba when he was six years old and met Hemingway there in 1928. In the 1930s, Hemingway hired him to look after his boat. During Hemingway's Cuban years a strong friendship formed between Hemingway and Fuentes. For almost thirty years, Fuentes served as the captain of the Pilar; this included time during which Hemingway did not live in Cuba.
Fuentes at times would admit that the story was not exactly about him. He related that the true inspiration of the old man and the boy did exist but they never knew who they were. The story goes that in the late 1940s, upon return from an early morning fishing trip, Fuentes and Hemingway saw a small rowboat 10 miles out to sea. Hemingway asked Fuentes to approach the vessel to see if they needed help. Inside the boat was an old man and a boy. As the vessels closed in the old man began yelling at them with insults including telling them to go to the devil, indicating that they had scared away the fish. According to Fuentes, he and Hemingway looked at each other in surprise. Just the same, Hemingway asked Fuentes to lower them some food and drinks while the old man and boy glared at them. Without another word exchanged, the two boats parted ways. According to Fuentes, Hemingway began immediately to write in his notebook and later asked him to find the old man. According to Fuentes, he never was able to find the fisherman that had made such an impression on Hemingway. Fuentes recounts that this was the real origin of the lore. A few years after The Old Man and the Sea was published, residents of Cojimar believed that the old fisherman that Fuentes and Hemingway ran into at sea was a humble local fisherman they called el viejo Miguel; some described his physical appearance as a wiry Spencer Tracy.
Fuentes, suffering from cancer, died in 2002; he was 104 years old. Prior to his death, he donated Hemingway's Pilar to the Cuban government.
Plot summary
The Old Man and the Sea recounts an epic battle between an old, experienced fisherman and a giant marlin said to be the largest catch of his life.
It opens by explaining that the fisherman, who is named Santiago (but only directly referred to outside of dialogue as "the old man"), has gone 84 days without catching any fish at all. He is apparently so unlucky that his young apprentice, Manolin, has been forbidden by his parents to sail with the old man and been ordered to fish with more successful fishermen. Still dedicated to the old man, however, the boy visits Santiago's shack each night, hauling back his fishing gear, feeding him, and discussing American baseball—most notably Santiago's idol, Joe DiMaggio. Santiago tells Manolin that on the next day, he will venture far out into the Gulf to fish, confident that his unlucky streak is near its end.
Thus on the eighty-fifth day, Santiago sets out alone, taking his skiff far into the Gulf. He sets his lines and, by noon of the first day, a big fish that he is sure is a marlin takes his bait. Unable to pull in the great marlin, Santiago instead finds the fish pulling his skiff. Two days and two nights pass in this manner, during which the old man bears the tension of the line with his body. Though he is wounded by the struggle and in pain, Santiago expresses a compassionate appreciation for his adversary, often referring to him as a brother.
On the third day of the ordeal, the fish begins to circle the skiff, indicating his tiredness to the old man. Santiago, now completely worn out and almost in delirium, uses all the strength he had left in him to pull the fish onto its side and stab the marlin with a harpoon, thereby ending the long battle between the old man and the tenacious fish.
Santiago straps the marlin to his skiff and heads home, thinking about the high price the fish will bring him at the market and how many people he will feed. However, the old man determines that because of the fish's great dignity, no one will be worthy of eating the marlin.
While Santiago continues his journey back to the shore, sharks are attracted to the trail of blood left by the marlin in the water. The first, a great mako shark, Santiago kills with his harpoon, losing that weapon in the process. He makes a new harpoon by strapping his knife to the end of an oar to help ward off the next line of sharks; in total, five sharks are slain and many others are driven away. But by night, the sharks have devoured the marlin's entire carcass, leaving only its skeleton. The old man castigates himself for sacrificing the marlin. Finally reaching the shore before dawn on the next day, he struggles on the way to his shack, carrying the heavy mast on his shoulder. Once home, he slumps onto his bed and enters a very deep sleep.
Ignorant of the old man's journey, a group of fishermen gathers the next day around the boat where the fish's skeleton is still attached. Tourists at the nearby café mistakenly take it for a shark. Manolin, worried during the old man's endeavor, cries upon finding him safe asleep. The boy brings him newspapers and coffee. When the old man wakes, they promise to fish together once again. Upon his return to sleep, Santiago dreams of lions on the African beach.
Symbolism of character
The Old Man and the Sea allows various interpretations. Hemingway emphasizes that
“ No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. ... I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things. ”
The style of the work, the simplicity and the concreteness of its descriptions, provides a rich opportunity for symbolic interpretations. Some insights follow.
Santiago is not a defeated hero. Santiago, the main character in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, may be seen as a defeated hero. He represents the courage, strength and endurance of the human race. He, like all men, struggled with faith (the fish) and both hated and loved life (the sea). The thing that truly defeated Santiago was his pride.
Santiago represents Christ suffering. Hemingway compares him to Jesus Christ on several occasions. Santiago "...picked the mast up and put it on his shoulder and started up the road. He...[sat] down five times before he reached his shack" (121) much like Jesus did on the journey to his crucifixion, carrying the cross. Later Santiago sleeps "...face down ... with his arms out straight and the palms of his hands up" (122), the position of Jesus on the cross. All throughout the book the old man wishes for salt, a staple seasoning in the human diet. He is a fisherman, similar to Christ's disciples.
The marlin represents what man is searching for whether it may be good or bad. Some men love their gods, but he hates the fish as men hate their gods. The fish was very beautiful and huge and Santiago felt a connection with it, he considered it his brother. Hemingway says that Santiago is not a religious man, but he seems to have some faith as shown by his offers to say his "Hail Marys" and praises if he catches the marlin.
Santiago is ultimately defeated by his pride. He goes too far out to sea and thinks that he can conquer the sharks. Santiago questions sin, and pride is the ultimate sin in Christian discourse. He even apologizes to the fish, as a man would apologize to his god, for his pride. The old man's pride breaks his heart and he spits it out in the night.
Santiago is a hero, but he is defeated. He wins over his adversary, whom he considers his brother, but is still not victorious because he does not reach his goal. He wins over his religion (the fish), but life (the sea) makes sure he does not get what he wants by sending the sharks to destroy what he has won. Santiago did not give up; he ultimately won over his main adversary but did not get the meat of the fish as he had wanted. The ordeal destroyed him, but he did not give into the pain. Although he lives in the end of the book, a part of him may have died.
Literary significance and
criticism
The Old Man and the Sea served to reinvigorate Hemingway's literary reputation and prompted a reexamination of his entire body of work. The novella was initially received with much popularity; it restored many readers' confidence in Hemingway's capability as an author. Its publisher, Scribner's, on an early dust jacket, called the novella a "new classic," and many critics favorably compared it with such works as William Faulkner's "The Bear" and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.
Following such acclaim, however, a school of critics emerged that interpreted the novella as a disappointing minor work. For example, critic Philip Young provided an admiring review in 1952, just following The Old Man and the Sea's publication, in which he stated that it was the book "in which Hemingway said the finest single thing he ever had to say as well as he could ever hope to say it." However, in 1966, Young claimed that the "failed novel" too often "went way out." These self-contradictory views show that critical reaction ranged from adoration of the book's mythical, pseudo-religious intonations to flippant dismissal as pure fakery. The latter is founded in the notion that Hemingway, once a devoted student of realism, failed in his depiction of Santiago as a supernatural, clairvoyant impossibility.
Joseph Waldmeir's essay entitled "Confiteor Hominem: Ernest Hemingway's Religion of Man" is one of the most famed favorable critical readings of the novella—and one which has defined analytical considerations since. Perhaps the most memorable claim therein is Waldmeir's answer to the rhetorical question,
Just what is the book's message?
The answer assumes a third level on which The Old Man and the Sea must be read—as a sort of allegorical commentary on all his previous work, by means of which it may be established that the religious overtones of The Old Man and the Sea are not peculiar to that book among Hemingway's works, and that Hemingway has finally taken the decisive step in elevating what might be called his philosophy of Manhood to the level of a religion.
As of 2006, the current cover for the Charles Scribner's Sons edition of the novella
Waldmeir was one of the most prominent critics to wholly consider the function of the novella's Christian imagery, made most evident through Santiago's blatant reference to the crucifixion following his sighting of the sharks that reads:
Ay, he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood.
Waldmeir's analysis of this line, supplemented with other instances of similar symbolism, caused him to claim that The Old Man and the Sea was a seminal work in raising Hemingway's "philosophy of Manhood" to a religious level. This hallmark criticism stands as one of the most durable, positive treatments of the novella.
On the other hand, one of the most outspoken critics of The Old Man and the Sea is Robert P. Weeks. His 1962 piece "Fakery in The Old Man and the Sea" presents his claim that the novella is a weak and unexpected divergence from the typical, realistic Hemingway (referring to the rest of Hemingway's body of work as "earlier glories"). In juxtaposing this novella against Hemingway's previous works, Weeks explains that
The difference, however, in the effectiveness with which Hemingway employs this characteristic device in his best work and in The Old Man and the Sea is illuminating. The work of fiction in which Hemingway devoted the most attention to natural objects, The Old Man and the Sea, is pieced out with an extraordinary quantity of fakery, extraordinary because one would expect to find no inexactness, no romanticizing of natural objects in a writer who loathed W.H. Hudson, could not read Thoreau, deplored Melville's rhetoric in Moby Dick, and who was himself criticized by other writers, notably Faulkner, for his devotion to the facts and his unwillingness to "invent."
Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play by
Arthur Miller and is considered a classic of American Miller and is considered a classic of American
theater. Viewed by many as a
caustic attack on the American Dream of achieving wealth and success without
regard for principle, Death of a Salesman made both Arthur Miller and the
character Willy Loman household names. It was greeted with enthusiastic reviews,
received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1949, the 1949 Tony Award for Best
Play, as well as the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. Death
of a Salesman was the first play to win these three major awards, helping to
establish Miller as an internationally-known playwright. More profoundly, the
play raises a counterexample to Aristotle's characterization of tragedy as the
downfall of a great man, whether through (depending on the translator) a flaw in
his character or a mistake he has made.nt:0cm">
Plot synopsis
The play centers on Willy Loman, a
salesman over sixty years old, who is beginning to lose his grip on reality.
Willy places great emphasis on his supposed native charm and ability to make
friends. According to him, he was once well known and liked throughout New
England as a travelling salesman whose skills were unparalleled. His sons Biff
and Happy (a nickname for Harold) were the pride and joy of the neighborhood,
and his wife Linda was picturesque, smiling throughout the day. Unfortunately,
time has passed, and now his life seems to be slipping out of control due to a
mental breakdown because he feels his son, Biff, is a failure.
Willy has worked hard his entire life and
ought to be retiring by now, living a life of luxury and closing deals with
contractors on the phone—especially since increasing episodes of
depersonalization and flashback are impairing his ability to drive. Instead, all
of Willy's aspirations seem to have failed, none of Willy's old friends or
previous customers remember him, and he remains useful to the company only as a
traveling salesman. After a bout of anger before his boss, Howard Wagner, Willy
is fired from his job. Howard is a man young enough to be Willy's son, whose
father, was, in fact, a friend of Willy, and sought Willy's help in naming him.
He further suffers the indignation of being pleading unsuccessfully for his
hated job (which didn't pay enough anyway) as Howard (callously) reminds Willy
that his sons are "well-liked" and should be successful so they can help him
out.
Willy is now forced to rely on loans from
his next-door-neighbor Charley to make ends meet. Charley is the closest thing
Willy has to a friend, but Willy still harbors jealousy and contempt toward him
for being more successful. Out of pity, Charley even offers the now-unemployed
Willy a job, one that pays more and does not require him to travel, but Willy is
too proud to take it (see below, as Willy is still believing the American Dream
and accepting would destroy what he lived for). Biff, his 34-year-old son, has
been unable to 'find himself' as a result of his inability to settle down
(caused by Willy constantly insisting that he needed to 'make it big within two
weeks'), and Happy, the younger son, lies shamelessly to make it seem as if he
is the perfect Loman son. In contrast, Charley (who, Willy tells his boys
conspiratorially, is not 'well-liked'), is now a successful businessman, and his
son, Bernard, a formerly bespectacled bookworm and friend of Biff, is now a
brilliant lawyer.
We are told how Willy had at least one
affair while out on business trips, one that Biff walked in on and discovered.
This terrible ordeal broke Biff's faith in his father and sent him on a downward
spiral. As Willy had given The Woman stockings, considered a luxury at the time,
this explains why he is continually haunted when his wife Linda mends stockings
that he urges her to discard.
Willy is haunted by the memory of his dead
brother Ben, who made a fortune in Africa in the gem trade. Ben then offered
Willy a position overseeing some gold-rich land in Alaska, which Willy turned
down (a choice he has regretted ever since). Ben has constantly overshadowed
Willy, and he is in many ways the man that Willy wanted to be. Ben's approach is
heralded by idyllic music, showing Willy's idolization of him, and in flashbacks
we see Willy asking for Ben's advice on parenting.
The American Dream is basically a perfect
life.The depths of the problem are gradually revealed. Willy's emphasis on being
well-liked stems from a belief that it will bring him to perfect success—not a
harmful dream in itself, except that he clings to this idea as if it is a
life-preserver, refusing to give it up. In high school, his boys were not only
well-liked but quite handsome, and as far as Willy is concerned, that's all
anyone needs. He pitches this idea to his sons so effectively that they believe
opportunity will fall into their laps. (In this way, Biff and Happy can be
considered forerunners to the culture of entitlement.)
Of course, real life is not so generous,
and neither are able to hold much in the way of respectable employment. Willy
witnesses his and his sons' failures and clings ever more tightly to his master
plan, now placing his hopes vicariously on them: he may not succeed, but they
might. His tragic flaw is in failing to question whether the dream is valid.
Happy never does either; he has embraced his father's attitude, and at the end
of the first act, he convinces Biff to seek financial backing in a
get-rich-quick scheme. But when Biff tries to do so, he realizes his father's
mistakes, and finally decides not to let Willy fall prey to the unrealistic
dream again.
Father and son confront each other at the
play's climax; Biff confronting Willy's neurosis head-on, while Willy accuses
Biff of throwing his life away simply to hurt Willy's feelings. Despite a
raggedly emotional battle of words, neither is able to make much headway, but
before Biff gives up, he breaks down in tears: "Will you take that phony dream
and burn it before something happens?" Willy is touched that Biff still cares
for him after all, but fails to understand the deeper meaning of his words, and
resolves to do everything possible to leave him with the right opportunities to
strike it rich.
As the rest of the family goes upstairs to
bed, Ben reappears over Willy's shoulder. Willy proclaims that in taking his own
life, the attendance at his funeral would make a show to his doubting son of how
popular he was in life, and that, if handled to look accidental, the payout from
his life insurance policy will allow Biff to start his own business. This final
action can be viewed as his attempt to leave a tangible legacy for his family.
Willy acknowledges that, "Nothing grows here anymore" and his vain attempts to
plant seeds during the darkness express his desperate desire to leave something
behind. The neighborhood is drawn out of bed by the roar and smash of Willy's
car, despite Ben's warnings that the insurance policy won't be honored in the
event of suicide. Thus Willy's grand gesture — and indeed his earlier assertion
that one is often "worth more dead than alive" — leaves his family (and
especially his wife, Linda) in even worse a position than before.
The end of the play is a Requiem. The
Requiem takes place at Willy's funeral, which is attended only by Biff, Happy,
Linda, Charley, and Bernard. Nobody else turns up and this shows the reader that
regardless of how well liked Willy claimed he was to his children, nobody liked
or remembered him.
Charley makes a very moving speech as Biff
accuses Willy of not knowing what he really wanted in life; Charley explains
that, as a salesman, all Willy ever got by on were his dreams, and they cannot
blame him for having them. Happy insists, "Willy Loman did not die in vain", and
says that he will 'fight' for Willy's, and his own corrupted version of the
American Dream. At the graveyard, Biff says, "He had the wrong dreams. All, all,
wrong." Happy tries to defend Willy, as he cannot understand Biff's point of
view. Charley is the one who is perhaps best able to defend Willy's dream,
saying that, being a salesman, all he really had was a dream.
In the last lines of the play, Linda,
unable to cry, gets on her knees for the undertaker, delivering a final brief
monologue: Willy's dream of owning his own house is realized in the requiem but
only after his death; Linda paid the last payment on the mortgage that morning.
This adds irony to the play, and shows us that the American Dream, for many, was
just out of reach; the wrong dream to aim at.
As a salesman, Loman produced nothing
(unlike the 'masses' that only have their labor to offer), but the fruits of
Willy Loman's labor - and that of every other American salesman - were hopes and
dreams. The American Dream is a variation of infatuation and illusionments in
Willy's life.
The play is mostly told from Willy's point
of view, and the play occasionally flashes back to previous parts of Willy's
life, sometimes during a present day scene. It does this by having a scene begin
in the present time and adding characters onto the stage that only Willy can see
and hear, representing characters and conversations from other times and places.
One example of this is during a conversation between Willy and his neighbor
Charley. During the conversation, Willy's brother comes on stage and begins
talking to Willy while Charley speaks to Willy. When Willy begins talking to his
brother, the other characters do not understand who he is talking to and some of
them even begin to suspect that he has "lost it". However, at times it breaks
away from Willy's point of view and focuses on the other characters, Linda, Biff
and Happy. During these parts of the play, the time and place stays constant
without any abrupt flashbacks as usually happens while the play takes Willy's
point of view.
Flashback
The American Dream
Requiem
Style
