推销员之死英文论文.doc

Analysis of A Tragic Character of Death of a SalesmanINRODUCTIONAs is known to all, ones personal experience of life and social environment undoubtedly will affect his views towards life and his notions of art. As Arthur Millers explained, “The writer who wants to describe life must describe his own experience(5).” In addition, “the best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him-where he puts himself on the line(6).” According to Walden, Arthur Millers social conscience stemmed from the economic effects of the Depression which he experienced when he was a young man(189). Therefore, it is basic and necessary to know about his growing background and his works before introduction and analysis of Death of a Salesman.Arthur Miller was a prolific American playwright, essayist, and prominent figure in twentieth-century American theater, born in New York City on October 17, 1915. He was the son of Isidore Miller who was a Jewish businessman migrated from Austria, and spent his first fourteen years of life in Harlem, a middle-class neighborhood of mixed ethic people. Millers childhood was comfortable, but the Great Depression of 1929 inevitably had great impact on his views about life. His career as a playwright began while he was a student at the University of Michigan. His successful plays include All My Sons, Death of Salesman, The Crucible, A View from the Bridge, After the Fall, Broken Glass and so on, among which Death of Salesman is the most successful one. Since its premiere in 1949, it has been widely acclaimed and won the Pulitzer Prize. Many critics described Death of Salesman as the first great American tragedy, and Miller gained eminence as a man who understood the deep essence of the United States.The story of shows Death of Salesman the last twenty-four hour about the life of Willy Loman, an diligent traveling salesman, whose values, ideas and vanity is smashed into pieces by the fact that he is a total failure both in his family and the society. The postwar economic boom has shaken up his life, which causes that he is eventually fired and begins to hallucinate about significant events from his past. Linda, Willys loyal, loving wife, suffers through Willys grandiose dreams and self-delusions. She has nurtured the family through all of Willys misguided attempts at success, and her emotional strength and perseverance support Willy until his collapse. Biff Loman, Willys thirty-four-year-old elder son, represents Willys vulnerable, poetic and tragic side. He cannot ignore his instincts, which tell him to abandon Willys paralyzing dreams and move out West to work with his hands. However, he ultimately fails to reconcile his life with Willys expectations of him. Happy Loman, Willys thirty-two-year- old younger son, represents Willys sense of self-importance, ambition and blind servitude to societal expectations. Happy has lived in Biffs shadow all of his life, but he compensates by nurturing his relentless sex drive and professional ambition.Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. In the book Death of Salesman, there exists three themes. First, there is no doubt that one of themes is the American Dream. Willy believes absorbedly in what the promise of the American Dream that aspiration, hard work and individual enterprise will be rewarded with prosperity, regardless of family background. Unfortunately, Willy clings to the superficial qualities of attractiveness and popularity, which is at odds with a more gritty, more rewarding understanding of the American Dream that identifies hard work without complaints as the key to success. Willys blind faith in his distorted version of the American Dream leads to his rapid psychological decline when he is unable to accept the disparity between the Dream and his own life. Second, it refers to abandonment. Willys life charts a course from one abandonment to the next, leaving him in greater despair each time. When Willy is very young, his father leaves him neither a tangible money nor an intangible legacy. Then his brother departs for Alaska, leaving his to lose himself in a stunted version of American Dream. Through these experience, Willy develops a fear of abandonment. However, when his son Biff fins out about his adultery, Biff also drops Willy. Third, its about betrayal. Willys primary obsession throughout the play is what he considers to be Biffs betrayal of his ambitions for him. However, Biffs betrayal stems from Biffs discovery of Willys affairs with The Woman-a betrayal of Lindas love. Besides, there is another betrayal that Willy has betrayed him with his unending stream of ego-stroking lies.In Death of Salesman, Miller creates a colorful and vivid world and depict a society full of problems, which are all the reflection of life and the playwrights questioning of the present social value.Analysis of A Tragic CharacterThe whole play is written both in time sequence and in accordance with the protagonists psychological movement. The structure of events is the direction reflection of Willys view on his life and lives in his own world full of contradictions. “Young Biff and Young Happy appear from the direction Willy was addressing(Miller 68).” “Charley has appeared in the doorway (Miller 120).” Like these examples, past and present flow into one another perfectly. So in Death of Salesman, Miller not only depicts what happened in an 24 hours about the life of Willy Loman, but also describes the whole life of Willy. Besides, from depicting past, we can see that the purpose is to escape the depressing present.At the beginning of the play, Willy suffers from crippling self-delusion. His consciousness is so fractured that he cannot maintain a consistent fantasy. In one moment, he calls Biff, “Biff is a lazy bum (Miller 22).” In the next, he says, “Theres one thing about Biff-hes not lazy (Miller 23).” his later estimate of his car is at odds-one moment he calls it a piece of trash, the next “the greatest car ever built (Miller 91).” Willy changes his interpretation of reality according to his psychological needs at the moment. Labeling Biff a lazy bum allows Willy to deflect Lindas criticism of his harangue against Biffs lack of material success, ambition and focus. Besides, denying Biffs laziness enables Willy to hold onto the hope that Biff will someday fulfill his expectations of him in some capacity. This kind of satire fully shows Willys self-delusion and failure.In the meanwhile, by the time the play begins, it introduces the strangely unnatural tone of the dialogue, which appears more attractive. For example, “Maybe its your glasses. You never went for your new glasses (Miller 10).”“Im the New England man. Im vital in New England (Miller 14)”. and there is persistent vexed questioning, “Why do you get American when I like Swiss (Miller 24).” The above sentences shows the particularly Jewish-American idiom. In fact, such dialogues will parallel the complex struggle of a family with a warped version of the American Dream trying to support itself.Furthermore, in Death of Salesman, there are many symbols representing the implications in order to deepen the theme like cars, diamonds, seeds and so on. Cars represent freedom, mobility and social status in American. However, in this drama, Willy loses the control of his family car.Willy: Im tired to the death. I couldnt make it. I just couldnt make it, Linda.Linda (very carefully, delicately): Where were you all day? You look terrible.Willy: I got as far as a little above Yonkers. I stopped for a cup of coffee. Maybe it was the coffee.Linda: What?Willy (after a pause): I suddenly couldnt drive any more. The car kept going off onto the shoulder, yknow?Linda (helpfully): Oh. Maybe it was the steering again. I dont think Angelo knows the Studebaker.Willy: No, its me, its me. Suddenly I realize Im goin sixty miles an hour and I dont remember the last five minutes. Im-I cant seem to-keep my mind to it (Miller 7-9).As above shows, at the beginning of the play, Willy comes home exhausted, which means his car is going out of control. That is to say, his exhaustion with driving symbolizes his tiredness from life. In addition, it also give a sense of what the end will hold.Then, Bens incantation of “The jungle is dark, but full of diamonds” in Act 2 turns Willys suicide into a moral struggle and a matter of commerce. Diamonds stands for the material success as well as a “get-rich-quick” scheme that is the solution to all problems. According to Ben, Willys death likes a “diamond.rough and hard to the touch.” Whats more, what Willy really understands is that the product he sells is himself and in the end he sells his own life.Another symbol is about seeds. Generally, seeds are regarded as a hope that Willys hope to his sons future. Besides, seeds also represents for him the opportunity to prove the worth of his labor. When Willy says, “Nothings planted. I dont have a thing in the ground” after both his sons abandon him in Act 2, we have a feeling he is a failure.Thus, a conclusion can be drawn naturally that Willy dies as deluded as he lived. Through the fictional character of Willy Loman, Miller manages to touch deep chords within the national psyche. SUMMARYTo sum up, on the basis of the analysis above, we may draw a conclusion that death of salesman Willy is a corollary. In the last 24 hours of Willys life, he walks towards death step by step inevitably. Actually, the salesmans condition is an enlargement of an insignificant facet of the general human condition. Miller shows that it is not an individuals failure. While it is more l