The Rise and Fall of Paul Paul’s Case by Willa Cather is a tragic story of a young man who struggles with the fantasies of living a luxurious life while being trapped in a lower class lifestyle. His obsession with theatre and art plague his study habits and his work ethic in the class room. After school Paul works as an usher at Carnegie Hall, which feeds his obsession even more. When his dad is informed of Paul’s continual failing grades, he is forced to send Paul out into the work force to prove a point. After Paul is given a duty to make a deposit for his employer for 2,000 dollars, he faces temptation of a lifetime to flee all his problems, and experience the life of an upper class citizen.
DEATH OF A SALESMAN In the play, Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is, at first, set up as the character of the tragic hero. He has had goals and ambitions that he did not fulfill, and that his sons have not fulfilled, despite the pressure that he puts on them to accomplish his opinion of what success should be. However, as the story moves along, we see Willy’s tragic hero status decreasing substantially. As he desperately sifts through his past for some sort of actualization or realization, he only proves himself a to be failure, by the standards that he himself had set. There are a great many comparisons to be drawn from this play, and compared to the novel, The Great Gatsby.
Death of a Salesman focuses on the theme of failure to succeed in a class orientated society. The central character, Willy Loman, is from the start on the verge of a breakdown. Willy is overworked, weary and struggling to face the truth that he is a failure, this causes an internal conflict leaving him in a state of depression where he finds it difficult to differentiate between dream and reality. He lives with his wife Linda, who acts as mediator between Willy and their sons, Biff and Happy. The play becomes a tragedy as Willy Loman falls from the height of his self perception, reaching the level his name suggests, where he realizes that he is worth more to his family dead than alive.
He lies and lives on the road degrading himself in every way to attain the friendship with the most people. Willy’s severe dementia cements him as unreliable early on in the play, and it also explains some of the resentment his family feels towards him. Willy is so obsessed with succeeding in the business world and being “well liked” (Act 1, Scene 2) he can’t except that his life in general has been a failure. He replays moments in his life when the world brought nothing but promise and his sons were talented young athletes with their whole lives a head of him. Willy drifts fluidly in between reality and fantasy fluidly sometimes having two conversations at once.
The years 1949 and 1953 mark the beginnings of the two most glorious tragedies playwright Arthur Miller has ever composed. The Crucible tells the story of John Proctor, a man who was wrongly accused of witchcraft, and his struggles to prove his innocence without tarnishing his family’s name. Death of a Salesman tells of Willy Loman, an unsuccessful salesman caught up in high hopes for his sons, who both soon become failures as well. In reading these plays, one may find that both The Crucible and Death of a Salesman were intended to criticize the frailties of society and human nature. While the settings and theatrical elements of the two plays may differ, one thing that I found particularly interesting was the amount of similarities between John Proctor and Willy Loman.
The American Dream The American Dream; A white picket fence, the yard, and a big red door. In Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman does not achieve this American Dream ethically. Throughout the play, Willy Loman cheats on his wife teaches his sons to cheat and steal, and believes that if you are well liked you will get far in life. While on the road selling his products, Willy was faced with many temptations, and gave into them. While in Boston Massachusetts, Willy would come to meet the character known as The Woman.
Lincoln used to be a hustler, but then he turned into a circus attraction where he sits dressed as Abraham Lincoln. Eventually, Booth tries to imitate Lincoln’s technique which creates tension between the two brothers. Finally, Booth ends up killing his brother. A Raisin in the Sun talks about the struggle of an African-American family that lives in the Washington Park subdivision of Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood. Problems start when Lena receives money from the death of her husband, and the family doesn’t know what to do with the money.
“A searing condemnation of the American Dream” How well does this phrase express the concerns in Miller’s play. It can be said that the American dream and its failure is certainly one of the central themes of Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’. Miller tells us the story of an ageing travelling salesman, Willy Loman, who’s success is rapidly dwindling, who’s sons fail to live up to his expectations and who is increasingly haunted by memories and imaginary conversations with people from his past. A significant portion of the play takes place as flashbacks that give us insight into the problematic relationship between Willy and his family and the origins of his failure as he strives to achieve success. Willy has a dream that he refuses to give up even when it becomes clear that his dream is shallow, unrealistic and unattainable.
Arthur Miller, the author of the script Death of a Salesman, portrayed his opinion in a cleverly written play. He attacked the truth of the American Dream by using theming his work upon how false he considers it is. Miller portrays how he deems the American dream to be deceitful in the theme of Death of a Salesman through describing the failures of Willy, and his two sons, Biff and Happy. To begin, the financial and domestic debacles of Willy’s life express the falseness of the American Dream. Willy, a hardworking man immersed in the world of business, put in an enormous amount of effort into his employment as a salesman.
They are the reason that Willy cannot seem to find success, and when he cannot meet his high expectations for himself, he lies and cheats in order to keep the unachievable ideal alive instead of being satisfied with less than perfect. The theme of dreams as aspirations, in this way, is what drives the main characters choices and therefore the entire play. Dreams also represent an escape from reality in Death of a Salesman, many times in the form of hallucinations. It is through Willy’s hallucinations that the audience is exposed to the past and they also provide a window into his feelings of regret. The audience learns about Willy’s affair through his delusional memory at the Chophouse, this form of a