After seeing the the movie/play The Death of a Salesman I saw the sad truth of those times. I'm no doctor but I know that Willy Loman had some type of mental disorder. At one point I observed the Loman family and thought, "Don't they know that he has some type of mental problem?"
But, in the area of metal disabilities, the technology of that time was not advanced. I was looking at the movie as a person of the 21st century, but if I watched the movie during he story's time period I would have a completely different view.
Another key theme that consistently showed itself through the words of Willy Lohman was the issue of being liked. It is human nature to want to be liked, but most people realize that it is impossible to be like by all people. Even more, most people with common sense have come to the realization that sometimes they cannot try to please others and hope that they like you.
Many men have the aspiration to be admired, loved, and have a certain amount of influence and power. Consequently, I can understand Willy's intense desire to be respected and loved. Although, Willy showed extreme selfishness when he cheated on his faithful wife with a common woman. The worst part of the affair was that he gave his mistress gifts that he wouldn't even give to his own wife. His wife stuck with him through richer and poorer. I know that the wife had suspicions that her husband was cheating, but she stuck with him- because of love.
The sons were a direct product of their fathers morals. He often would encourage and delight in the mischief Biff caused because his peers laughed and enjoyed the entertainment. Happy always looked up to his big brother and wanted to please his father. Nevertheless, I believe that Biff probably got some of his strength from his mother. The fact that Biff finally resolved to be brave and decided to try to pursue his dreams, shows his strength.
Willy wanted specific goals for his children, but I believe that he truly loved his sons and wanted the best for them. Similarly, the mother wanted her sons to do great things but she didn't have specific jobs that she wanted her children to do. In other words if her children were happy she would be happy.
The Death of a Salesman is a great story of how life can be a lie when one doesn't pursue one's passion.
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I realy liked this post. I completely agree with your thoughts and opinions. You seemed to focus on all the issues going in throughout the play.
ReplyDeleteAlexis this is really good . You brought out and focused on all major problems and ideas that the author used through out the book . Your first part about the differnt time periods inspired me and got my brain going.
ReplyDeleteYou make some interesting interpretations in your post about a number of characters in the play, and I get the feeling reading this that you are working out some of your thoughts about play as you write.
ReplyDeleteFor the future, I would suggest that you focus on a single character (as you seem to do at first when you write about Willy) or theme/aspect of the work and write more narrowly on that topic. I'd like to see a bit more close reading of the text going on. Try to strike a balance between your interpretations and a focus on the specifics of the text.