Response to Course Material 12/22

Hamlet On Screen
 Like many other great pieces of literature, several visual adaptations of Hamlet have taken the liberty of bending and polishing the original story line set by William Shakespeare. The class watched scenes from five films focusing on the following: Claudius and Gertrude's wedding, The sightings of the Ghost, Hamlet and Ophelia's break-up, Hamlet in his mother's closet, Ophelia's slip from reality/innocence, and the final battle scene.
  Kevin Branaugh's 1996 adaptation was the first of the five Hamlet movies we watched. The relationship between Claudius and Gertrude was depicted as something romantic, instead of a political move that I drew from the text. Having been the first visual representation many of us had watched, the class was pretty shocked by the bold acting choices the actors made. Specifically, by Hamlet in his interactions with Ophelia and his mother. I do not think anyone read/listened Hamlet's part and envisioned him throwing Ophelia to the ground and pinning his mother to a bed. This film showed the class right away the different motives of a playwright and a director. Branaugh's film was set in a more recent period, which brought up a discussion in the class if it is appropriate to put Shakespearean plays in modern time.
   Ms. Holmes showed the class two versions of Hamlet set in modern time. My favorite was Micheal Almereyda's version starring Ethan Hawke as Hamlet. I liked this version for the following selfish reasons:  it reminded me of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo+Juliet, I like late 90's to early 2000's fashion, it took place in New York City, and I enjoy looking at Ethan Hawke. Ethan Hawke's performance was very different from past Hamlets. He was seen more as a deep thinking misfit, and  less of a frustrated momma's boy with a chemical imbalance. His love for Ophelia seemed genuine and he acted more like an expected thirty-something man would if confronted by the ghost of his father.
Compared to the 2009 BBC version starring David Tennant, I am not sure which modern portrayal did the original story the most justice and honestly, I am starting to think that it doesn't matter. When so many movies have been made trying to recapture the tragic tale, I think it is more logical for recent versions to be more "creative" with the original storyline. Many people are bothered when movies stray from the the text they are based off of. However books serve as inspiration to filmmakers--not guidelines. I mean, that is what art is all about. Taking inspiration from another artist and making it work using your preferred mediums and exercising your creative mind. I could dedicate an entire blog post to what I thought about each movie and what new perspectives they offered me, but I will save my fingers and your eyeballs the extra effort.

Forum Post
Listening to the prisoners discuss how reading Hamlet impacted their lives and hearing their personal connection to the main character was exceptional. I hope we will do more activities like this in the future where we can be exposed to real people's perceptions on literature. However, I was most fascinated by the responses my fellow classmates had about Arthur Rimbaud's poem "Ophelia." This was a great example of when you get many people to read the same thing, many opinions and solutions will result. To me, the style of Rimbaud's poem matched the innocence and beauty that the characters in Hamlet saw Ophelia. Many classmates said this lofty language did not do Ophelia justice because Rimbaud depicted her as a child. I agree that Ophelia is not an angel, but she is a child nonetheless. She is a a teenage girl and does not have the means to live on her own. She has the dilemma of having the appearance of purity while having occasional "adult" desires. When I read some critiques students made saying she was "dark" and "impure" it was pretty shocking considering the times (and social climate) we live in. In the hallways we hear the latest "hook-ups" and often they are about people we know and call our friends. Good people. There is a difference between having impure thoughts and acting on them, but in medieval times, it was expected for young girls to marry (that means eventual conception) and start a family before they were 21. So I agree with Rimbaud when he says something in the river drowned Ophelia against her will. Ophelia was just trying to do what she had been assigned to do since birth. The insecurities and judgements of others were what ruined her.

Shakespeare Uncovered Video: David Tennant
 I appreciated this video for the insight it provided on the actor's journey to "becoming" Hamlet. What this video really did for me was emphasize, once again, how people see the play in different ways and appreciate it for different reasons. When Tennant interviewed Jude Law about his experience playing the "Prince of Denmark", Law caught himself talking more about his own emotions during certain scenes and how he personally related to Hamlet. Think about it, an uneducated convict of murder and a noteworthy (undeniably good looking) actor can see themselves in the same character.

Tragic Balance in Hamlet
This essay was long. As I was reading it with half of my brain already logged off for the night, I wondered what kind of discussions we would have about it the following day. To my surprise, it drew up quite the stir. A lot of our discussion focused on the elevated diction used by the author and how it hindered the audience from understanding his intended message. Reading the essay was a challenge for me, but I think I understood the broad message that there is evidence in the text for extreme, contradicting views throughout Hamlet. An respectable argument can be made the Hamlet is crazy and the Ghost is an illusion, but so can one that Hamlet saved Denmark and the Ghost is a message from God. The essay is organized sort of oddly, but the author argues for both sides for each argument he proposes in his essay. For some of the classmates, this was saw this as him being an inadequate writer, and others found him hypocritical. I sided more with people who said he was not necessarily contradicting himself, but showing different perspectives. The idea of "balance", was for readers to appreciate all interpretations of Hamlet because casting an idea aside weakens your understanding and richness of the reading.

OPEN PROMPT

2006 Prompt Question # 3:  2006. Many writers use a country setting to establish values within a work of literature. For example, the country may be a place of virtue and peace or one of primitivism and ignorance. Choose a novel or play in which such a setting plays a significant role. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the country setting functions in the work as a whole.

Student #1 Essay-Score:8
 Student 1 uses Jane Austen's novel Persuasion to explain how a country setting was used as a "backdrop to Anne [protagonists]'s character development." Anne is fed up with her simple father and older sister in Bath (city) and decides to be with her sister in Uppercross (countryside). The student states that it is common for writers to attribute "primitivism and ignorance" to the country, but Austen challenges this stereotype by sticking Anne in the "nurturing, virtuous, and peaceful Uppercross. The student supports her argument through evidence supported by the novel. First, the student provides a little background information to explain how Anne's morals/ideas do not those of her father and older sister living in the city. However, it is in Uppercross where the people admire " her intelligence, kindness, and modesty" ; thus making Uppercross a virtuous place. Second, the student explains how in the Bath "Anne is constantly surrounded by others and has little time to reflect." In the peaceful woods of Uppercross, Anne discovers her own sanctuary where she is able to meditate and think clearly. Lastly, the student points out how Anne makes many friends in Uppercross, and is not bothered by her past or unpleasant family members. This student received an 8 because their essay flows so nicely and the examples provided were very clear cut.

Student #2 Essay-Score: 6
   Student 2 uses the play The Importance of Being Earnest as an example of how setting can be used to heighten a character's internal complications in a comedic way. In the first body paragraph, Student 2 explains how the protagonists lives a double life; In the city he goes by Earnest, and in the countryside he is Jack. The student says in the country Jack finds tranquility, but "the drama of his urban-life [also] serves to develop the confusion of the play which makes it a successful comedy." This is as analytical as the their essay gets on how the country setting affects the play. The Student frequently refers to how the country is "an agent of confusion" that furthers the comedy in the play. However, instead of providing concrete evidence for how the natural setting perpetuates the hilarity, they simply summarize how Earnest/Jack's dishonest lifestyle unravels while he is in the country. The student offers no insight for why that might be. Had the student not mentioned in the opening paragraph how the solitude of Jack's country home contrasts with the chaos of Earnest's urban life, they would have received a lower score (and perhaps a more deserving one).

Student #3 Essay-Score: 4
   As the commentator observed, the main problem with this student's essay is that they have an "oversimplified understanding of the work." Student #3 selected William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying as an example work where a rural setting plays a significant role in a novel. The student explains that the characters act irrationally and are ignorant. They state that it was Faulkner's intention to make the reader realize that the characters' lack of intellect is a result of "the backward ways of the [S]outh." The student just repeats this line over and over again, followed by poorly written examples of the character's peculiar actions. Student #3's essay is not much different than Student #2's as far as structure goes, but what makes this essay worse are the convoluted sentences and distracting wit.

Social Media: A Heatbroken Creeper's Paradise

       Amanda Hess covers the cyber journey of a 25-year-old New Zealand man, Reese McKee, in her editorial Man Asks Internet to Hunt Down His Lost Crush. Social Media is often viewed as an ever expanding beast that never seems to leave us alone. It is the ultimate stalker. Which is why it should not come as a surprise that the lonely hearts of the planet flock to it for company. Hess uses diction, details, and language to convey the creepiness of this one man's tale that has been cloaked by the Internet in heroic romance.

      In the the heading of the article, Hess uses denotative diction to make the point that there is nothing romantic about this "Man." When Hess uses the word "hunt," she uses the exact definition to show the unrequited passion of the McKee's M.I.A. crush, Katie. McKee can easily be likened to a bloodthirsty hunter thrashing through a forest of profiles and photos and Katie as the innocent doe that did not sign up for this lime light. The author uses colloquial diction for this article, which fits the content perfectly. The subject matter of this article is not very serious and does not require the analysis of intellects to understand.

      Reese McKee sounds like a lonely guy who is genuinely looking for his "soul mate," but Hess adds details that make him seem a little too desperate for companionship. McKee has used Facebook as the main tool to track down his disconnected love and recruit the cupids and fellow romantics of the world to assist him in his search. Hess includes some of McKee's bizarre Facebook posts to give readers a better idea of who he is.One post McKee wrote was, "Somewhere along the line my romantic soul went silent, and this is a step towards putting that right." With this detail, Hess does not need to mention that McKee is a hopeless romantic that might have watched too many of Richard Curtis' films. It sounds like he quoted a line straight out of a romantic comedy. It becomes clear that McKee sees his adventure as a noble conquest when he writes, "If she isn't taken, i'll need to duel someone/something to take insult of her honour." The bits of McKee's voice were essential details to persuade the reader to think of his "noble deed" is more of a fool's jest.

      Language is a tool used skillfully by the author to make her article sound similar to a storybook fairy tale, which adds to the irony of the situation. Hess uses whimsical language like "traipsing", "mystery woman", and "fateful" to dissolve the reality of McKee's experience and make it sound like the plot of an over dramatized love story. Hess uses this language when recalling the night that the two star-crossed lovers met for readers to see the events through the eyes of McKee. Hess later points out the irony of this flowery portrayal when she analysis the event through the perspective of a young woman from the 21st Century. "when a woman hangs out with a dude for an evening, coughs up fragments of her email address, then tells him, “find me,” what she often means is: “Do not find me.” Hess' detached language highlights the greatest irony of the article. Katie does not love McKee. The author makes it clear that this is not a romantic story. It anything it is a romanticized view of the they-could-be-the-one hysteria sweeping over the Internet.

      Hess uses diction, details, and language to not only tell the story of a man in search of love, but to share with readers how the Internet is being used to misinterpret what defines romance. When she uses words such as "womanhunt," she is not trying to be clever. This is denotative diction and she wants the reader to see McKee more as a predator than a knight set on a quest. The use of McKee's actual love thirsty Facebook quotes make all the difference in this article by allowing the reader to hear his actual foolish voice. Language makes the article more fun to read and sheds the light on the irony of the situation. There is a much bigger picture here that Hess is hinting at when she writes this article. Not only are people too infatuated with fantasy romance, but with the expansion of social media, we have created a disillusioned view on what is considered an invasion of privacy.

Response To Course Material

Fishing For Answers
That was the first time I have ever participated in a Fish Bowl discussion before and it was a refreshing take on our usual format. Beside from biting my tongue when I was outside of the "bowl", my biggest challenge was discussion the tape recorder. I will go ahead and pat myself on the back for being the first person (out of my little bowl of fellow fishes) to point out how Willy's inferiority to the recorder represented the idea of men being replaced by machines in the workplace. It took my group and I a long time to reach this conclusion, but it was sort of fun bouncing ideas of each other desperately trying to find out the device's significance.
The Century Quilt
I have been loving all of the poems we have analyzed in this class so far, and "The Century Quilt" was no exception. The first time I read this poem I understood that the women of this poem were connected (aside from lineage) because they had prophetic capabilities when under their favorite quilts. However, in the essay rewrite I focused mostly on the usage of color to represent the speaker's family members. I loved how the colors of the speaker's blanket reminded the speaker of her family and how she discussed ethnicity. That is not to say that I accurately depicted the author's intentions in my essay. Unfortunately, I misidentified which races the colors were supposed to represent and which relatives the colors belonged to. Whoops! I don't think my second in-class essay was much of an improvement, structurally, but I left that day understanding the poem better. I think often I get a pretty firm grasp of what the author is trying to say, but in my writing I fail to get them across.
Syntax Exploration
     On November 11th, the class looked at a series of photographs and had to agree on one photo that we would analyze. After a democratic vote, the class decided on a black and white photo of eleven men staring into the camera. Some of the men looked startled and others were raising a skeptical brow. A few students recognized the still shot from the film 12 Angry Men (1957). Next, the class had to select one word from a list that accurately described the photo to help us focus on a theme when we wrote a sentence that described the picture. The word we picked was tense. As a class we bounced rough sentences off each other and picked out specific elements of the photo that we thought where significant. This is the second time our class has done this exercise. Second hour is made up of many students who share the same traits to perfectionists and, like the last time we did this syntax assignment, we spent at least 30 minutes constructing our sentence. The point of this exercise is to help us understand syntax, however, I feel that it focuses more on diction. I understand how syntax can be used to adhere to the human sense to evoke feelings. In one of the earlier syntax assignments our class did, we learned that by using short sentences to create drama. The reader.Feels.More.Intensity. This would have been a good tool to use for our sentence, but I recall us focusing more on specific word choice.
Hamlet
     That same day we began reading Hamlet. I read the part of Gertrude, the Queen, and I was experiencing anxiety about how I should read her part. In past years when my class read plays, I was always bothered by the student who read in a monotone voice or read their lines with some bizarre accent. I think this is one of my snobbish pet peeves, but I do not think I am alone. Ms. Holmes mentioned this to us our first day of reading, that these plays deal with character archetypes and situations that can easily be paralleled to modern times. Therefore, I feel that no accent and "haughty" intonation was necessary to evoke the  Renaissance. In the end, I mixed my "haughty matriarch" voice with my normal one ( not that anyone noticed).
    
     As I listened to the tortured main character's soul, I felt that Hamlet represents many young men who are at odds with pleasing their father(literally or God) and following their own personal interest. Reading Hamlet, I tried to think of other fictional characters that had a desire to make their father proud, and in the process led to their self-destruction. Peter Parker's drive to avenge his uncle's death did not lead to total destruction, but his life did become much more complicated. After he got his "spidey powers," Parker could not shake Uncle Ben's motto from his head, "With great power comes great responsibility." If you think of Uncle Ben as Lord Hamlet, and Hamlet as Peter Parker you can see some similar parallels. Although Hamlet never experiences the ecstasy of saving lives, both characters make the decision to sacrifice their lives to avenge their fathers' muders. Spider-man might not be the best of comparisons, but I am encourage to look for more Hamlet-inspired characters.

    I felt I did not participate that much in our brief Hamlet discussions, but one observation I did make about the play was that Hamlet was a Christ figure. His father, who later became a ghost, represents the other two parts of the Holy Trinity. Hamlet (Jesus) was given a mission by his "invisible" father to avenge his wrongful death. If Hamlet were to successfully kill Claudius, he would probably sacrifice his own popularity and his relationship with his mother. If he chose not to kill Claudius, he would have sacrificed his integrity and self-respect. How Hamlet actually kills his evil uncle is very dramatic and involves a lot more casualties than original expected, including his own death. However, we discussed in the class that all the characters in the play had to die if order were to ever be restored in Denmark. Hamlet has transcended Antony and Cleopatra as my favorite Shakespeare play. I am always attracted to stories dealing with "troubled youth" and dysfunctional families. Reading Hamlet has made me aware or new motifs to look for when I read other literary works and films.

2004 Student OPEN Prompt Responses (Question #3)

2004. Critic Roland Barthes has said, “Literature is the question minus the answer.” Choose a novel, or play, and, considering Barthes’ observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers answers. Explain how the author’s treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole.

STUDENT #1 Essay-Score: 8

Student #1 explains the main character’s journey to figure out if he lived in the best possible world in Voltaire’s Candide to answer this prompt. In introductory paragraph, Student #1 states the central question in the novel, “‘Is this the best of all possible worlds?’” The following paragraph explains the story briefly by describing how the main character, Candide, was banished from his castle and set out to travel the world. This summary is effective because it explains how Candide finds the “model society” he was looking for in El Dorado. This is a place where “greed and lust do not exist”, but the Student expresses how Candide was still unsatisfied due to “the greed he had brought with him from the outside” and he left the mythical utopia. His superficiality hinders him again from achieving happiness when he finds his long time love, Lady Cunégonde and is repulsed by her aged appearance. The student concludes this paragraph stating that in the end, none of the characters are successful in their search for happiness. In the third and final paragraph, the student explains how the novel’s answer is “neither answering nor dismissing.” Candide responds to the question with “we must tend our garden.” Student #1 explains his answering as meaning “that this is the best of all possible worlds, but those who inhabit this world must work to maintain it.” This student directly answered the prompt and offered clear analysis of the novel. The commentator critiqued the student’s use of colloquial language (i.e. “kicked out of his castle”) as a reason worthy of point deductions. However, I think this essay was one of the most fluid and clear I have read.

STUDENT #2 Essay-Score: 6

Student #2 states that in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the question “What does it mean to be free?” is posed through “the limits that slavery and civilization place upon the novel’s characters.” The first body paragraph simply states that both Huck and Jim suffer from different types of slavery and run away together. In the second and third body paragraphs, Student #2 explains how the two boys are deprived of freedom because society forbids their interracial-friendship. Even after the two boys’ masters are killed, and they are technically free “Jim is still restricted by society’s discriminations against blacks and Huck is restricted by the conventions of modern society.” The concluding paragraph is pretty much ineffective. The Student has yet to directly explain the extent of which the novel answers the question, “What does it mean to be free?” Instead, they marvel at what a pressing question this is in “a country where we place so much emphasis on freedom.” Although failing to answer the entire question, what saved this student’s score was their ability to locate the central question prompted by the novel and hint toward its complexity. 

STUDENT #3 Essay-Score: 3

 According to the commentator, Student #3 used an “excellent example” to discuss Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. However, this does not come across through their essay. First of all it takes too long for the student to state the central question the novel poses “does anything ever stay the same?” Student #3 explains that in the main character, Okonkwo’s village, “another society began to have influence on theirs.” Okonkwo “fought” for his village and its people to resist the change, but it is unclear how this was done and what changes occurred. Unfortunately, the student does not dig any deeper in the novel to uncover greater analysis of the central question beside Okonkwo’s desire to save his village. This, along with many grammatical errors and the use of “+” instead of “and” contributed to this student’s low score.

 

 

Death of a Salesman Summary/Analysis

Author
Arthur Miller was born on  Oct. 17, 1915, in Harlem, New York City and the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants. Miller's family was reasonably wealthy, until the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and was forced to take up laborious jobs to pay for his tuition at the University of Michigan where he majored in Journalism. Miller's most famous written works are All My Sons (1947), The Crucible (1953), and the 1961 film, The Misfits.

Setting
That time is probably in the 1940's, considering the play was published in 1949. The intro states that the play follows Willy Loman as "he visits in the New York and Boston of today." The Loman family live in a suburb, presumably just outside of the city, that is slowing transforming into a product of urban sprawl and industrialization. There are "apartment houses" surrounding the Loman home, instead of greenery.In the stage directions, Miller puts emphasis on the transparency of their house (set) and the fact that the characters can pass between walls in Willy's flashbacks.

Significant Characters
Willy Loman- Over sixty years old, Willy has the semblance of being worn and ran rugged. He is insecure about this status as both a salesman, and a good father. Willy desperately wants to be viewed by his peers as an illustrious salesman, and the play follows his struggle trying to strike upon success. He also fails at bringing up his sons to be successful in the business world. Willy has a hard time facing the disappointment of reality and often has vivid flashbacks of better times for him and his family. These flash-backs, in themselves, reveal hints to what cause the issues and tension inside the family.

Linda Loman- Wife to Willy, Linda is the rock of the family. She has given up any ambitions of her own to serve and support her husband. She is a master of turning a blind eye to Willy's raging antics and peculiar ways.Instead, she sees an honest, hard-working man that wants the best for his family. Linda is often guilty of pacifying Willy and compromising her sons' best interest to accommodate Willy's wishes.

Biff Loman- Former high school football star and most popular-guy-in-school. Now, he is thirty-four years old and has moved back with his parents after having little success working on a cattle ranch out West. Biff is stuck between providing for his family doing work he despises, or pursuing his own ambitions.He is not the brightest and has no experience in selling, however Willy, his father, is always pushing him to join the business. Biff is embarrassed by his father's mood swings and delusions and only really considers working as a salesman for his mother's sake.

Happy Loman- Happy is an able-bodied, thirty-two year old womanizer who has no ambition to do anything but please his parents. The problem is, Happy spends more time flirting with women than working.It seems wrong to say Happy aspires to be please his parents because he puts such little effort into work--and as a result is an embodiment of his father . As a child, Happy was shadowed by his big athletic brother and competed for his father's attention by trying to be just like him. He is similar to his father because he pretends to be more important than he really is and desires material success.

Charley- The Loman's next-door neighbor and object of Willy's envy. Charley is a successful businessman and his son, Bernard, is becoming a noteworthy lawyer. Charley loans Willy money so the family can get by each month and is characterized as a laid back parent--unlike Willy.

Bernard- Charley's son. In Willy's flashbacks, Bernard is characterized as nerdy and endlessly pestering Biff to study for his math class--which he is failing. As an adult, Willy visits Bernard and realizes who successful Bernard has become and deeply regrets not pushing Biff to study more. He is another reminder for Willy of how he has failed at properly raising his sons.

Howard Wagner-Willy's current boss who assumed the position after his father passed away;whom Willy had great admiration for. Howard is probably closer to Biff's age and is condescending to Willy. He sees little value in Willy and has no inclination to helping him out during his financial woes, even though Willy played a hand in naming him as a child, has worked for the company for over 20 years, and had great respect for his father.

The Woman- Willy had a mistress around the time Biff was graduating high school. The woman is much younger than Linda and is an element from Willy's flashbacks that the reader can be certain is real because Biff makes hints that his father is unfaithful. The woman is a secretary at an important office and Willy's relationship with her is a display of his desperation to attain a higher level of success. The woman's purpose in Willy's life was to boost his confidence and frail self-esteem.

Ben-Willy's older deceased brother who happened upon glorious wealth after he ventured into an African jungle. Ben only appears during Willy's flashbacks where he is constantly asking his older brother for "the secret" to being successful. Willy admires his brother's lifestyle as much as he envies it. To Willy, Ben is the quintessential idea of a successful man and he often states how he regrets not having gone to the jungle with him.

Plot Summary
The play begins with Willy arriving home late one night, after a long commute from work, to a very concerned Linda. Linda keeps asking if Willy is "Alright" and if he "smash[ed] the car" and Willy reassures her he is alright although, he appears a little shook up after repeatedly zoning out during the drive home. Linda brings up the topic of their sons and Willy explodes with rage at his "lazy bum" of a son, Biff. Willy continues to the kitchen where he drifts into a daydream; reminiscing with himself about Biff polishing their old 1928 Chevy.
Introduction of Biff and Happy
  Biff and Happy, in their bedroom, hear all the commotion and discuss how they hate their jobs, past girlfriends, and plans to raise their own farm. Meanwhile, Willy is still downstairs thinking back to a day when Biff was prepping for a big game. Willy gives Biff a high dollar punching bag and tells Linda he raked in "five hundred gross in Providence" by selling. After Bernard reminds Biff he should be studying for math, Willy tells Biff that he will go further in life if he is well-like by his peers. Willy hears a women's laughing. He "leaves" the kitchen and finds himself in a hotel room with The Woman and they exchange in playful flirting while she puts on her stockings. Charley, the neighbor enters the kitchen, checking to see what all the commotion is about. Charley and Willy play a card game when Willy sees his dead brother, Ben.
Ben
 Apparently, Ben left for Alaska with his father to discover wealth while Willy was only three years old. Ben reveals that when he went after his father in Alaska, he accidentally took a different path and wound up in Africa, and became very rich. Willy comes back to reality and retires for the night. Linda, Biff, and Happy are in the kitchen now having a heated argument about them not caring enough about their father to find decent jobs. Biff as yet to understand why his mother still defends Willy, and she reveals that Willy has been trying to kill himself. The boys are taken aback and Biff agrees to take his job search more seriously(even though working-for-the-man kills him insides).
ACT TWO
 Willy soon breaks this uplifting moment and begins to complain about the broken kitchen appliances he is always having to spend money on. Linda tells him that his sons are will be meeting him for dinner. Willy leaves for a meeting with Howard to ask for money. In Howard's office, Willy competes with a wireless recording machine for Howard's attention. Willy eventually is able to ask for money, but  Howard rejects him. Willy leaves the office a wreck and heads to Charley's office where he runs into a successful Bernard. Willy asks Bernard what happened to Biff that made him so unmotivated in school and Bernard reveals that after he came back from Boston one summer, everything had changed.Willy asks for some money from Charley, but refuses to accept a job from him after he offers. Charley agrees to loan money, and Willy leaves the office in tears and tells Charley that he was his only friend.
The Restaurant
 Biff arrives to the restaurant a little frantic after a disastrous attempt to find a job. When Willy arrives, Biff tries to explain how he waited for hours to see Bill Oliver. The intensity builds in the conversation as Biff struggles get the whole story in as Willy begins hearing the voices of young Bernard, Linda, and an operator calling his name. Willy rushes off stage, however, as a response to The Woman calling after him. Happy is the least bit concerned and Biff is so overcome with emotion he flees the restaurant. Having a flashback to a time when he was in a hotel room with The Woman. Stanley, the waiter, finds Willy and informs him his sons had left. Willy gives Stanley the money Charley lent him and goes to buy some seeds.
Back Home
Happy and Biff arrive home to an enraged Linda. Biff finds Willy planting a garden outside the house. Biff tells the family that he is going to leave with no plans of seeing or contacting them again. Linda agrees this is the best solution and tells Willy and Biff to shake hands. Willy refuses of course and Biff says he is through with all the dishonesty and tells Willy the reason he never could stick with a job was because Willy had "blew [him] so full of hot air" that he refused to take orders from anyone. Biff tells Willy to burn his "phony dream" and says he is leaving in the morning. When Biff goes up stairs, Willy is left in amazement, and says that Biff " is going to be magnificent!" The family retires for the night, except Willy who is talking to Ben about his life insurance. Ben is hurrying Willy to follow him and says they are running out of time. Willy gets in his car and crashes it.
Requiem
Linda, Happy, Biff, Bernard, and Charley are standing at Willy's grave. Linda is surprised that no one showed up to the funeral and can't understand why Willy wanted to kill himself. Happy is still cursing Willy for his selfishness and says the family could have easily helped him overcome his depression. Biff reflects on the good days when Willy would come home from his job and work around the house. Charley comments that Willy was happiest when he was working with his hands. There is a much bigger picture here that Hess is hinting at. Happy is determined to prove that Willy had a good dream by becoming a successful salesman by himself. In her moments alone, Linda says she has paid off their debts and repeats three times "We're free."
Analysis-Point of View
Arthur Miller offers a negative perspective on the "American Dream" and how it determines success. Willy Loman knows all about this "Dream" and Miller shows the audience the downside of trying to attain what society projects as the ideal lifestyle. The one character that seems to share Miller's pessimism is Biff. Biff Loman points out the flaws and side-effects that come with "white-collar" America. He does this either through dialogue or in his own inability to find happiness while working in the corporate world.
Tone
The feeling of hopelessness and dissatisfaction never really cease in Death of a Salesmen. Willy rarely, if ever, speaks positively of the present. The only moments of content are in his flash-backs. A bitterness still remains, however, because the audience knows Willy memories are not always replicas of the truth and that he is so unhappy with reality. Biff and Happy are also to characters that can not seem to ever get off on the right foot. It is inferred that Happy's life is headed toward a downward spiral just like Willy's. Biff decides to go off on his own to attempt at making a living doing something he loves, but it is at the expense of never seeing his family again.
Imagery
To match the rather melancholy tone of the play, the Loman home seems similarly drab. Miller never mentions any shiny fixtures or comfortable furniture. Instead, everything is very standard and the main room in the home where there is action is in the kitchen and yard. Apartment buildings surround and tower over the family's home and there is a scarcity of typical suburban greenery. It makes the audience realize how industry can  ruin a home/neighborhood by stripping it of it's natural beauty. The location of the home makes it seem locked in which sort of illustrates the play's theme of immobility.
Theme
Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman supports the idea that society's view of success simply places limitations on people through the reoccurring emphasis of paralysis and the character's inability to make progress in their lives.

Close Reading: "No One Brings Dinner When You Daughter Is An Addict"

     Larry M. Lake, a writing professor at Messiah College in Grantham, Pa., submitted a heart-felt commentary to Slate.com about the stigma of mental disorders. Lake contrasts the support his family received from their neighbors when his wife, Mary-Beth, was going through chemo therapy with the time his  daughter, Maggie, was checked into a psychiatric hospital. As a pleading father for a societal change and as a writer, Lake uses imagery, language, and syntax to prove that dealing with mental illness affects families the same as any sickness.
     The author makes sure the reader understands the magnitude of support his family received during his wife's battle with breast cancer by vividly describing the dishes they were given. For months, neighbors brought them "chicken breasts encrusted in parmesan, covered safely in tin-foil;pots of soup with hearty bread;bubbling pans of lasagna and macaroni and cheese,...and warm pies overflowing with syrups of cherries or apples." The author is flooding the reader with images of warm, well-prepared dishes that prove the family's neighbors were genuinely showing concern for them. A few paragraphs later, the author is describing Maggie while working in the garden at her drugs and alcohol addiction treatment center. In the garden, Maggie "arranged rocks around an angel statue "and planted flowers. The author wants to capture the essence of rebirth and freshness when he describes his daughter, a struggling addict, "carrying buckets of water to nurture impatiens, petunia, delphinium, and geranium." The euphoria of this scene would be lost if the author simply said, "she watered flowers in the garden." With the additional details, the reader imagines a heavenly place where Maggie is planting seeds and growing internally. Another example of the author using powerful imagery to convey Maggie's journey to recovery was the description of the chaos that ensued her horrific car crash. He says, "the accident site was a garish roadside attraction of backboards" with "IV tubes", "strobing lights", "the deep thumping of helicopter blades", and Maggie's front tooth "lay[ing] in a puddle of blood on the ground." Here the author is attending to the reader's senses to illustrate the shift in environment/setting. By the author paying attention to imagery, the reader attributes warm and loving images to the family's experience with Mary-Beth's breast cancer. In contrast, empty refrigerators, bruises, and  gritty images are associated with Maggie's story to convey the different treatment the family received from their peers.
      Language is used creatively by Lake and is often used to make powerful comparisons that stick in the reader's mind. For example, after Maggie survives the violent car crash, Lake describes her lying in a hospital bed  with a "swollen mass of stitches" and dried blood still "caked in her ears." The author compares Mary-Beth trying to clean up the blood "with a licked paper towel, as if she were gently wiping Maggie's face of grape jelly smudges or white donut powder just after Sunday school." This simile does more than describe Mary Beth's actions, but hints to her desperation to help her daughter like she used to back when times were much simpler. The effect of this simile plucks at the reader's emotions and allows them to see deeper into this family's suffering. Another example of the author using language effectively was when he retells the day he returned Maggie back to the addiction center after the crash. He said Maggie was "a heroine in a wheelchair among heroin addicts and alcoholics." Although the author never states that Maggie used heroin, it is implied through the details of her "drug abuse" and "arrest for drug possession". By placing "heroine" and "heroin" together, the author is using the connotation of heroine to describe Maggie. Though the words sound the same, the reader is made to understand the difference. Maggie is a heroine and has transcended her heroin dependency.
     Throughout Lake's essay, syntax is regularly used as a tool to create drama.The first line opens "When my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, we ate well." The reader soon discovers this is the author's way of explaining the great support his neighbors showed by giving them delicious meals. Then, Lake introduces Maggie's story.To remind the reader of the lack of support his family received, after he would explain a painful moment in Maggie's illness, we would follow it with a short sentence like "No warm casseroles." This pattern is seen in the rest of the essay to show the continued lack of support the neighbors showed during this difficult time. The brevity of these sentences stand out from the longer, more descriptive lines that surround it. This grabs the reader's attention and ensures they take the correct message away; mental disorder equals no food which means, no support. Of course, the author is not saying that giving food is the only way someone can sincerely show their concern for others. However, by saying "No scalloped potatoes in tinfoil pans," the author is pointing out how Mary Beth's  cancer seems to resonate differently among people from Maggie's bipolar disorder. In this case, it was represented through their sympathy dishes. 


THE ARTICLE:http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2013/11/families_dealing_with_mental_illness_need_support_too.html