From His Sons Idol, To a Terror (Reaction #5)

                                      From His Sons Idol, To a Terror

 

Playwright Arthur Miller wrote his second play -of many- in 1949, titled “Death Of A Salesman.”  The play sets us in Brooklyn, New York, in a small apartment where an older couple lives. At this time their two sons have come to visit, and the readers learn about the tension between everyone. Arthur Miller uses characterization of his protagonists to show the  readers how he has become who he is in the play, from a loving caring father, to a crazy over worked grump.  Arthur Miller also gives his readers  a sense of their past by creating flashbacks in a very unique way.

The play starts off with an introduction into the play, it states how the actors and actresses would perform on the stage. Since, technically it was set in two different times, present and past, Miller needed a way to show his audience that they were in the past, without outright saying so. He created fluent transitions into the past and ‘present.’  It was very unique way to show a flashback, the actors didn't even have to step off stage, they would just be in the past and the audience would know. The actors would step through the non-existing walls in the past, but only step through the doors in the present. Miller must have realized his audience would have gotten bored of the play if they had to fade the lights each time he wanted to show a flashback.

Millers characters made me feel so many emotions, I felt hatred but also sorry for the father figure Willy Loman. He actually reminded me of my own dad at times in the play, he's a hard person to like.  Willy, like my father complains a lot! Less than 5 pages into the book he is already complaining about something stupid, that annoys him.  “The street is lined with cars” this sentence has come out of both my fathers and Willys mouth. In my father’s case we live on a generally empty block, so to have more than one car for each house on our block at anytime is torture to him. Its crazy that Willy’s wife puts up with him, she cares so much about him! She’s such a sweet lady, who tries to care for everyone, not just her husband, but her two sons who are never around, and don't have jobs. She’s a lot like my mother honestly, very caring, and puts up with a lot of stuff. Its easy to sympathise with Biff, the eldest son, he was put so much pressure on him as a child to be great that now, anything he does is seen as horrible.

Biff is just trying to find his way in the world and it seems like the one person that he ever idolized, his own dad, is no longer supportive of him.  Although Biff did grow up with everything handed to him, such as test answers from his cousin, and he would steal sporting equipment to stealing lumber from construction sites.  His charm was the only reason he got any where in life, every girl loved him for his looks, and people trusted him because of his appearance, he grew up thinking he was so great, because everyone told him so. As he grew up he realized he didn't know where he was going, he was lost. I often feel like this as well. I feel very lost, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, or if I even have a future in anything.

Miller created characters that people can really connect to, they might even find themselves in the characters.  Everyone knows that extremely nice person, that does everything for everyone, and puts up with a lot. Then theres people that complain about everything and expect everything to just be handed to them and be perfect. They expect everyone else to be just like them, perfect, flawless. Except no one is like them because they are the most imperfect people there are. Lastly there are those people that are just lost, they don’t know what to do with their life, they think they’ve come to a dead end. They don't know where else to go. I wonder where Miller would have put himself.