Drama 3

Question 1

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Answer 1

(infos look at notes)

• written in 1949
• advanced to the most often played American drama
• won the Pulitzer Price for drama
• deals w/ the American Dream, especially the pursuit of happiness + the rages-to-riches myth
• social critique of its time + the American way of life

Question 2

What defines the character Willy Loman?

Answer 2

• a common man
• Miller draws an Aristotelian conception of the tragic hero, but Willy is a common man + not one of high social standing
• he suffers from a human flow or blindness
• his fall, as in Aristotelian drama, is huge

Question 3

what defines the secondary text?

Answer 3

Title and Subtile:

• “Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in two acts and a requiem”
• Social domestic drama with a middle-class hero

Question 4

What defines the Requiem?

Answer 4

• works like a coda or epilogue
• Biff has realized that “Willy had the wrong dreams, all, all wrong”
• Charley says that “a salesman is got to dream, boy, It comes with the territory.”
• Happy hangs on to the false dream “I’m gonna show you + everybody else that W.L. didn’t die in vain. He had a good dream . It’s the only dream you can have (…)”
• Linda cannot cry + doesn’t understand –> she made the last payment on their house that very day