Symbols And Themes Flashcards
Distant lands
- in several of Willy’s flashbacks his brother ben asked him to go to Alaska a wide open land of opportunity, in the end Ben ends up in Africa another wild lush location, rich by 21 in Africa’s diamond mines.
- uncle ben and far-off geographical locations represent the material success that Willy has aspired to but not achieved
- they also symbolise freedom and possibility in contrast to the confinement and death of New York City.
- Biff has his own symbolic pull to the West and his dream of a cattle ranch. Both father and son experience this pull and though Willy commits suicide with unfulfilled dreams, the ending suggests that Biff might succeed where his father failed.
Stockings
Miller’s choice of stockings is significant during WW2, the materials used to make stockings silk, nylon and rayon were rationed for the war effort. Making this stable of a woman’s wardrobe hard to get.
This context clarifies that the gift Willy gives his lover is rare and valuable, something he cant also give to his wife.
Both the silk stockings and the woman’s laughter symbolise Willy Loman’s betrayal and deception. They also represent the central rift between Willy and Biff.
Seeds
Seeds symbolise Willy Loman’s longing for nature. Something he cant get in his urban environment, his desire to plant seeds reveals a healthy need to nurture growth.
But near the end of the play when a delusion Willy is planting seeds in the back yard they represent a desperate hallucinatory effort to become successful and fruitful.
Overall, Willie’s character doesn’t match the symbol, he fails at raising his sons just as he has routinely failed to grow a garden without sunlight.
Flute
The play begins and ends with the melody of a flute and music is used frequently in stage directions, the sound of the flute signals to the audience that on stage the past is about to overtake the present in the narrative of the play Willy’s father was a flute maker and salesman.
Though he dragged his family across the country and abandoned them when Willie was a small boy, Willy remembers his father as a model.
Flute represents a profoundly sad symbol of Willy’s nostalgia, mixing a sense of abandonment with fatherhood and a longing for family connection.
American Dream and Disillusionment
Idea that financial prosperity is available to anyone that works hard enough for it.
Willy Loman experiences the lie of this dream, even as he watches his brother ben, his neighbour Charlie and his neighbours son succeed financially.
Social admiration for financial success is the second part of the American Dream.
Willy mistakenly measures his value according to the recognition of others and he passes this belief onto his sons.
Illusion versus reality
Flashbacks confuse Willy Loman’s mind, making the tension between illusion and reality central to the plays structure, as well as its main character. Willy struggles to maintain the lies on which his sense of self depends, the lies that allow him to see himself as respected and well-known, well liked and successful.
He spins the facts about his sales earnings to hide his financial instability and serial mistruths prop up the illusion of his son’s successes.
Central is the illusion of his fidelity to Linda, and linked to this, the illusion that his broken relationship with Biff has nothing to do with his cheating.
With the exception of Biff the entire Loman family functions under the illusions of happiness and pending success, as if to protect themselves from the heard reality that the American Dream isn’t universally attainable.
Betrayal
As young men, Willy and his brother Ben were abandoned by their father. This first betrayal unravels Willy’s idea of family and of a father’s responsibility to provide emotional and material stability.
Ben later abandoned Willy when he moved to Africa and Willy also feels left out of Ben’s success and family wealth.
Family history seems to influence Willy’s own betrayals of his family, as a travelling Salesman he abandons his son for road trips and he betrays Linda with his affair with the woman.
In the end suicide is Willy’s final abandonment but ironically the only support he could offer.
Nature versus Man-Made environment
In addition to Willy Loman’s strive to be a successful, well-like Salesman, we also glimpse his longing for nature and a country life. Travelling allows him to feel a sense of freedom and participation in the natural world, even just driving through it.
When feeling at his worst, Willy wishes for fresh air, a garden and an outdoor life. Part of the plays profound sadness is Willy’s belief that real success comes from working in a man-made environment, and this keeps him chained to his life in New York City and his dead end job.
Biff inherits Willy’s same love of nature as well as his inner conflict, he loves working on a farm in the west but he’s been so indoctrinated by his fathers ideas that he doesn’t allow himself to embrace what he most enjoys.
Biff’s change provides hope to the ending of this otherwise deeply saddening play.
