Death of a Salesman : Authur Miller

GENERAL
1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read, and explain how the narrative fulfills the author's purpose (based on your well-informed interpretation of same).
Death of a Salesman is an attack on the American Dream cliché. The novel focuses on the Loman family, namely Willy Loman – the father. Willy, above everything else, holds appearances, popularity and his salesman title as priorities even though he has not completely acquired these characteristics. He has created this false image that he and his family are successful but in reality they are on the edge of poverty. He faithfully believes that they will soon get their “big break” that they so greatly “deserve”. But as his mirage slowly begins to crumble and he begins to see he is really a failure, he slowly goes insane – has flashbacks and talks to his self-created apparitions. In the end he dies as a failure in the eyes of society (shown by the lack of guests at his funeral).

2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid cliches.
The theme of this novel is that of the American Dream. Willy believes that the key to success is through attractiveness and likeability however these ideals are very superficial and contrast with the real path to the American Dream – through hard work. When the American Dream doesn’t present itself to Willy he goes through a state of psychological degradation.

3. Describe the author's tone. Include a minimum of three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).
The author’s tone mocks Willy and his unrealistic and materialistic view of the American Dream.
“He [Willy] never knew who he was.”
“I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been!”
“And what goes through a man's mind, driving seven hundred miles home without having earned a cent”

4. Describe a minimum of ten literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the author's purpose, the text's theme and/or your sense of the tone. For each, please include textual support to help illustrate the point for your readers.
-Diction: uses powerful words to intensify the story and make it more dramatic
-Syntax: uses periodic sentences to hold on to the readers’ attention “but now his old friends...they're all dead, retired”
-Rhetorical question: questions the character’s situation they’re in and also helps to portray the author’s tone
-Flashback: Willy often flashes back to better times in his life when he can’t accept his current unsuccessful situation.
-Anaphora: Willy often repeats “He is not just liked, but well-liked” which shows his materialistic views
-Antithesis: Charley is Willy’s neighbor and unlike Willy is successful, humble, and generous.
-Apostrophe: Willy often creates these illusions in his mind and attempts to talk to them.
-Cliché: the infamous American Dream that Willy tries to obtain.
-Dialect: the author makes the language used seem like it is from a big city like New York through use of slang.
-Symbols: diamonds as wealth and Willy’s failure as a salesman.
CHARACTERIZATION
1. Describe two examples of direct characterization and two examples of indirect characterization. 
Why does the author use both approaches, and to what end (i.e., what is your lasting impression of the character as a result)?

•  Happy and Biff described as strong, well-built men for labor and this contradicts with their office setting. Miller uses direct characterization to set the mood and the setting of the characters.
• Biff is extremely sarcastic. He feels bitter about his past and his relationship with Willy. Everything that comes out of Happy’s mouth is positive, and he’s always trying to smooth situations over and keep everyone at peace. 
• The author uses indirect and direct characterization to both set the setting and to establish the network of characters in the story.

2. Does the author's syntax and/or diction change when s/he focuses on character?  How?  Example(s)?

•  Everything that Happy says is positive so the author needs to change his diction and syntax to match the characters personality. If the author used sarcastic words for Happy, the audience wouldn't be able to tell exactly the personality of a character.

3. Is the protagonist static or dynamic?  Flat or round?  Explain.

• For the most part, Willy doesn't change during the play; therefore, Willy is a static character. Willy's inability to grasp reality, his poor parenting, and his constant lying to his wife all show that he doesn't really change during the play.
  

4. After reading the book did you come away feeling like you'd met a person or read a character?  Analyze one textual example that illustrates your reaction.

• I felt like I read a character because Willy's failure is so unrealistically rigged in my opinion. If a man has as much potential as Willy, there should be no reason for him to fail, rather, it should lead him to success easily. Most of the people with potential that I know, make it to the top someday. And Willy's insecurity just doesn't add up either.

Thinking Outside the Box

Think about the place you have chosen as your hell. Does it look ordinary and bourgeois, like Sartre's drawing room, or is it equipped with literal instruments of torture like Dante's Inferno? Can the mind be in hell in a beautiful place? Is there a way to find peace in a hellish physical environment? Enter Sartre's space more fully and imagine how it would feel to live there endlessly, night and day

• I imagine my hell as a dark forest, but ordinary and boring like Sartre's drawing room. There wouldn't be any torture tools, just trees and night all the time. Hell could be a beautiful place, but I feel like if Hell was beautiful then there would torture tools. Finding peace in Hell is like a needle in a haystack. Someone would go crazy if he/she had to stay in one place all the time.

Could hell be described as too much of anything without a break? Are variety, moderation and balance instruments we use to keep us from boiling in any inferno of excess,' whether it be cheesecake or ravenous sex? 

•  The whole viewpoint of Hell is a place that people will dislike, so it will never be too much of anything without a break. Passing time with cheesecake or ravenous sex doesn't change the fact that Hell is hell and it is going to stay like that.

How does Sartre create a sense of place through dialogue? Can you imagine what it feels like to stay awake all the time with the lights on with no hope of leaving a specific place? How does GARCIN react to this hell? How could you twist your daily activities around so that everyday habits become hell? Is there a pattern of circumstances that reinforces the experience of hell?

• Sartre showed a lot of anger and arguing in his dialogue which could suggest that the effects of hell are all negative. If they weren't in hell then there is a chance that the arguments wouldn't have happened. Obviously staying awake all the time with the lights on and no hope of leaving would be ridiculously boring. If I wasn't already dead, I would kill myself. Garcin argues, and in a sense, he is embracing hell because of all the negative energy he and his hellmates are putting off. Garcin is confused at first but once he accepts that that is hell then he goes ahead and embraces it. Some of my daily activities are already hell like school. School is really repetitive and boring; therefore, I associate it with hell.

 In Plato's allegory, hell was something you could escape by being introduced to reality, but in Sartre's play, hell is inescapable and it is personified as a character that does nothing but bad to Garcin, Inez, and Estelle. The only solution I can think of towards Sartre's hell is to sit and do nothing, but that in itself is hell because, personally, I would go crazy.

 

Allegory of the Cave Sonnet

From the fire and the flames
to the shackles and the chains,
the prisoners were forced to see
the shadows they thought were reality.

One freed man's freedom
to see the sunlit kingdom
showed him the reality
he could not see 

When the man went back
to tell the men in the black,
the cave shunned and disapproved him
With ignorant hearts, the prisoners stayed shackled by the limb.

The triumphant freed man in his victory
looks at the ignorant prisoners suffering in misery.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave

1. According to Socrates, what does the Allegory of the Cave represent?

•  The allegory represents how we refuse to see what is real, and how we reject reality. Until we are shown by someone else, we generally don't want to see the "sun". By doing that, we close ourselves into a cave where we believe what we see and we don't really think at all.

2. What are the key elements in the imagery used in the allegory?

• Prisoner- ignorance
• The freed prisoner- philosophers
• Sun- reality
• Cave- imagination

3. What are some things the allegory suggests about the process of enlightenment or education?

•  Enlightenment and education really isn't something you can find for yourself. Someone has to give you the opportunity and you have to be willing to take it. Also, enlightenment and education are metaphors for the sun.  

4. What do the imagery of "shackles" and the "cave" suggest about the perspective of the cave dwellers or prisoners?

• The shackles suggest that the prisoners are essentially slaves to the "puppeteers". The prisoners are forced to only see shadows, so their mind is in a prison they can't escape without freedom into reality. The cave is the prison, but in this case, it is more of a slave prison than a prisoner prison.

5. In society today or in your own life, what sorts of things shackle the mind?

• The government shackles the American mind. They all say that the power is in the people, but realistically there are many "under-the-table" deals that happen in the government. 

6. Compare the perspective of the freed prisoner with the cave prisoners?

•  The cave prisoners are restricted to only what they can see, in this case the shadows on the wall, but the freed prisoner can see reality. By seeing what is real, the freed prisoner can think for himself and believe what he wants to believe.

7. According to the allegory, lack of clarity or intellectual confusion can occur in two distinct ways or contexts. What are they?

•  One of the prisoners were freed from the shackles. He was confused and didn't know what to think about reality and the shadow.
• Inside the cave, the prisoners were only seeing shadows on the walls.

8. According to the allegory, how do cave prisoners get free? What does this suggest about intellectual freedom?

• The cave prisoners get released by outside influences in order to get free. Intellectual freedom comes through experience. One cannot call "free thought" intellectual freedom because intellectual freedom has to be valid.

9. The allegory presupposes that there is a distinction between appearances and reality. Do you agree? Why or why not?

• For the most part, what you can see is pretty real. In a certain point of view, the shadows that the prisoners were seeing was reality. It was reality in that the shadows were real things, but the prisoners just didn't know what or where the shadows came from. From another point of view, appearances and reality are different. Just like the freed prisoner, the moment he turned around he saw what was really going on.

10. If Socrates is incorrect in his assumption that there is a distinction between reality and appearances, what are the two alternative metaphysical assumptions?

• 1: Reality does not really exist. What we see is completely different than what other people are seeing. We see an apple because we want to while others could be see an orange. In the same effect we hear only what we want to hear.
• 2:  The life we live is all a dream, and our death in the dream is the awakening of another dream as another person. Except we don't have any recollections of the past.

Sonnet Analysis Part 1

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.

• This part of the sonnet describes how Poe was very lonely and different as a child. He didn't blend in with everyone, and because of that, he was sad and alone.

Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:

• The sonnet is saying how Poe's childhood was only the beginning to all the sorrow that followed. The "mystery" Poe talks about is the question he has to life about why his life is so terrible.

From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view. 

• All the lines before the last show that everywhere else is perfect, and things are going through its natural course of life. 
• The last line tells about how Poe's life is so bad even though everywhere else seems to be fine. 

Big Question

Why does everyone tell me to do what I want in my life, both career and hobby wise, but at the same time pressure me to get into a fantastic college with excellent school marks and grow up to have a well paying job that requires a lot of schooling and intelligence?

Musical Blog

Due to popular request, I finally decided to do a sort of tutorial on my blog on how to get a music player on here.

My method is a bit more techy but it works just fine.

First you are gonna want to go onto your blog's "layout" settings

• basically the layout setting will give you how your blog looks without anything on it except boxes for where everything goes. 

Based on where you want your music player on your blog, you are gonna click "add a gadget"

• for example, a typical place to put your music player is at the bottom so that is where I placed mine like so
 
•  Notice how I have an HTML/Javascript gadget already on mine? well you are going to want that on yours. 
• Just click on "add gadget" then scroll down until you find the HTML/Javascript gadget and press the "+" button to add it.
• Once you click the +, it will come up as a configuration menu. you are going to want this code ---> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://o.aolcdn.com/art/merge?f=/_media/sp/sp-player.js&f=/_media/sp/sp-player-blogger.js&expsec=86400&ver=11&clicktext=Click%20to%20Play%20the%20DEMO%20Song&showplaylist=false&showplaylistbutton=false&autoplay=true&showpop=false&popup=false"></script>
• Copy the code and paste into the body part of it.  like so 

 

•  Click save and never touch it again. That code is solely for the music player itself. 

Now for the actual mp3 files that go along with the player.

Go to Open Drive and create an account there. For now go with the free version of the sign up.

• Opendrive is basically an online storage device where you are going to store the music that you will need for the blog. 

Once you made your account, upload your music files from the computer onto your opendrive. Should be fairly easy if you can find the mp3 files on your computer. Like if you buy music on iTunes then your music will be in your music ---> itunes folder

• you can upload as many songs as you want on your blog. As you can see I have many to choose from. 

 Okay now we are going to jump back to blogger for a moment. 

Add another gadget of the same "HTML/JavaScript" and copy/paste this code. 

<a href="Direct link" style="display:none;">Title</a> 

DON'T SAVE THE CONFIGUATION JUST YET! LEAVE IT OPEN FOR THE TIME BEING!

Now back to Opendrive. You are going to want to go into the options of your song and go to links. 

copy and paste the "direct link (streaming)" into the part of this code <a href="Direct link" style="display:none;">Title</a>  where it says direct link.  

  Copy that

 Paste there

 While you are doing the coding for that, you can also change the title like I did. All you have to do is delete the word "title" with what you want like penguins or something. The title is what it will show up as in the music player when people view your blog.

So there, Congratulations! You completed your music player. If you would like more songs then you can keep using the same code in the same HTML/Javascript for all the other songs. The order that you place them in in the configuration will be the order that they play in on the music player. 

So mine looks like this because I have a total of 5 songs on my music player.

Just make sure to click save when you are finished. Save the gadgets, then press "save arrangement" on the layout menu.

 There is the tumblr method which is a lot simpler than this, but I chose to go with a multiple song option which you can't achieve through the tumblr option (i think). 

Once you check your blog again, the music player should be there fully functioning if you didn't do anything wrong. 

If you guys have any questions regarding this, you can ask me via comment or email and I'll see what I can do. 

Thanks! :)