Nature Vs City Flashcards
How is the nature vs city theme presented?
• the towering apartment buildings that surround Willys house, which make it difficult for him to see the stars and block the sunlight that would allow him to grow a garden in his backyard, represent the artificial and materialistic nature of the world of the city. A direct reflection of how the American dream rather blocks truth and growth by trapping the common man in a world of advertisement and superficiality.
How is the nature vs city theme important?
• the dynamic between nature and the city are a direct reflection of willy and his brother, as well as reflecting Willys sons different character arcs. His brother, Ben, blazed into a fortune after walking into the jungle and finding a mine of diamonds. But willy is both too timid and too late. He does not have the courage to head out into nature and try his fortune. Instead, the urban world has replaced the rural and willy chooses to throw his lot in with the world of sales, which does not involve making oneself but selling oneself.
How does the nature vs power theme embody his sons?
• biff and happy embody these two sides of Willys personality: the individualist dreamer and the eager to please salesman. Biff works hands on in farms while happy schemes within the stifling atmosphere of a department store. While Willy collects household items and cars, as the American dream taught him so, these things do not ultimately leave him satisfied and he thinks of his own death as venturing into nature, the “dark jungle” that the limits of his life have never allowed him to enter.
“_______ fifty weeks a year…. When all you really ______ is to be outdoors… and always have to get ahead of the next fella. And still - that’s how you ______ a _______.”
Suffer
Desire
Build
Future
• in this passage biff explains how he enjoys living a more simple, natural way of life in rural areas. He iterates why he doesn’t want to be a salesman and doesn’t understand why he has to prioritise making money, especially in a way willy approves of. His discussion of his love for working on a farm is in deep opposition with the blue collar city lifestyle of willy and happy. Arthur miller consistently draws this comparison throughout the play suggesting the city represents the pursuit of materialistic items, often clouding (literally) the important things in life. Conversely, the countryside represents staying rooted and planted and following the simple passions in life, while appreciating the other sentimental qualities around you.
STAGE DIRECTIONS “a solid _____ of apartment houses around the seeming, ________ home”.
Vault
Fragile
• at the very exposition we are introduced to stage directions which set the tone for the act which is about to unfold. It directly foreshadows the struggle willy loman goes through to reach his impending death. The metaphor of a “solid vault” infers that due to the commercialisation and industrialisation of New York in relation to the American dream keeps him trapped in a forever lasting disillusionment between reality and his idealised version of the American dream. The exposition creates the meaning and theme of the play, painting a literal and metaphorical image of not only the home, but Willys mental state.
“Gotta ______ your neck to see a _____ in this yard”
Break
Star
• in this passage Ben is leaving Willys imagination and Willy asks Ben how he can teach his boys about making something of themselves. Ben replies by telling him to simply walk into the “jungle”. Willy is then snapped out of this dreamlike state and replies by saying to see a star in the yard you must break your neck. The jungle is an elusive concept in the play. It was bens literal way of making a fortune but it also represents jumping into life and working at full force. But also representing how Willy must “walk into the dark jungle”, dark inferring death, for his sons to have a chance. Though, stars are impossible to see in the city, they are clouded by industrialism and the “solid vault of apartment houses”, much like the life of the loman men. The reference to him breaking his neck is a foreshadowing of Willys own death; the only way to escape his own life. Nature is a persistent symbol for freedom and simple, clear way of living which Willy cannot see due to the industrialism.
“The jungle is ______ but full of ________”
Dark
Diamonds
• after what seems to have been a revelatory moment with his family, Willy sinks back into his delusions hearing the voice of his dead brother telling him to “walk into the dark jungle”. Unbeknownst to his family willy turns and listens to this voice. In his delusional state Ben tells Willy that with these “diamonds” - his life insurance policy - he will be magnificent one day. Ben urges Willy to not give up on his dreams and return to the “jungle”. In a moment alone, willy agrees. He chooses to abandon his family and walk into the impending darkness of the jungle in the ultimate search of wealth. The night he takes the car and kills himself. His American dream has been realised, and he has at last reached into the “dark jungle” of both death and money. Again, miller represents nature as a way of freedom rather than the entrapment of living in the industrialised world.
