论文部分内容阅读
摘要：In Death of a Salesman, Miller depicts Willy’s daydreams, private conversations and soliloquies, to unveil Willy’s past family expectations, betrayals and lies, and elaborate Willy’s road to destruction led by those past experiences, intertwined with the present. From the perspective of loss, the thesis analyzes the existing plight of Willy and inevitability of his death. Willy’s tragedy reminds us todistinguish between fantasy and reality, and establish the correct values.
关键词：Death of a Salesman；Willy；loss；tragedy
中图分类号：H31 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1009-0118（2011）-03-0-02
I. Introduction
The story of Death of a Salesman describes the last twenty-four hours of the life of Willy Loman, a diligent elderly traveling salesman, whose values, ideals and vanity are smashed into pieces by the fact that he is a total failure both in his family and the society.
Applying the writing technique of stream of consciousness, Arthur Miller portrayed the typical psychological characteristic of the unimportant man Willy who is squeezed by modern American society to a nervous breakdown. He struggles to survive his psychological crisis but in vain. Gradually, he gets lost in this jungle-liked modern world. He cannot distinguish the present and the past as well as illusion and reality. Ultimately, he has no other solution but to die.
II. Willy Gets Lost in the Boundary of the Past and the Present
Much of the action actually just occurred inside Willy’s disturbed and faltering brain. Now, Willy is an old salesman, tired physically and psychologically. He is often lost in his recollections. His thought hovers between the past and the present. He sometimes talks about things happening yesterday, sometimes recalls events occurring 20 years ago. In his memory, he sees he drove in New England to expand his selling business and is proud of his throwing himself into the sales career(马可云38).
Several years ago, he brought lucrative profit for his boss and built the faithful sales network for himself, and now he plans to open his own company independently at a certain time or at least become a partner of his employer company. But the reality is that he is fired by his new boss, and deprived of a steady salary. And at this time, he urgently needs a sum of money to cover the insurance premium, repairs and the home mortgage payment.
His failure life spontaneously makes him get psychological comfort from his son’s success. So in Willy’s head emerges Biff’s image of childhood. He muses the happier past, back in 1928, popular Biff used to polish expertly their red old Chevrolet. Praising Biff’s work on the car, he gave Biff a new punching bag. Biff, in return, displayed a new football, stolen from the locker room. Willy commended on his daring. Biff prided in his father, and he pledged a special touchdown in the football game for Willy. Willy also had great hope on Biff.
However, the son to whom he holds too much expectation, eventually turns out to be a quitter and loser. He, drifting from job to job, now 34 year-old, resigned from a temporary farm. And he loses the golden job chance because he steals the boss’s pen in the interview. Biff is jobless and gets so perplexed. Willy cannot understand how the once so promising high school team captain can be so hopeless and worries about the relationship with him.
“Whenever Willy contrasts the present situation of Biff with the past, the emphasis is on his attractiveness, furthering the contrast between the grey present and the green past”(Paine 2). Yet however Willy attempts to make the present into the past and live there , it is just a chimerical struggle.
III. Willy Gets Lost in the Mixture of Illusion and Reality
Willy cannot distinguish illusion and reality. He is actually schizophrenic. In his illusion, his elder brother Ben and the old salesman Dave Singleman are his models. But the two men both died many years ago. The fact that Willy is unable to extricate himself from illusion indicates his uncontrollable consciousness and his delusive imagination, from which we can see the intensification of his ambivalence.
The sense of failure brings him into the illusion of Ben. As to Willy, Ben represents another choice of destiny: adventures, fortune and success, which are reflected in the forest in Alaska and the diamond in Africa. Willy regrets for his not following Ben to establish a business in Alaska. The image of Ben frequently rises in Willy’s frustrated head. When Willy who falls into illusion converses with the sober person in reality, he is always absent of mind and gives an irrelevant answer. Willy lives in his illusion and dreams that he can be a rich person like Ben. He imagines that he can exploit his “gold mine” in his sales career. Virtually, Ben is just the other side of Willy, and the figment of Ben is the concrete embodiment of Willy’s loss.
The main reason why Willy does not follow Ben to go to Alaska and choosesselling as his lifelong career may be the influence of Dave Singleman. His dream of success takes shape when he came across Dave. Dave is his idol. “Even he was 84, he had drummed merchandise in 31 states. And old Dave, he’d go up to his room, put on his green velvet slippers and picked up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of 84, he made his living.”(Miller 512) Willy realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want. “Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go into 20 or 30 different cities, and picked up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many people? When he died — by the way he died the death of a salesman, hundreds of salesmen and buyers were at his funeral.”(Miller 513)
Dave’s funeral touches Willy much and affects him deeply. Willy dreams of being a Dave-typed salesman that when he is alive, he can achieve success in his career and when he is dead, people holds a grant memorial ceremony to commemorate his performance and conduct. However, the reality is that Willy is fired when he is 61, and after his death, only Linda, her sons, Charley and Bernard are present at his grave. His dream of success like Dave is just an illusion. “Willy is such a poor man that he is stimulated by the success dream but never savors the taste of real success”.(刘继新 99)
IV. Willy Gets Lost in the Choice of Life and Death
Willy’s agitation during his last days stems from a two-fold sense of failure that he no longer satisfies the demands of his own selling job, and he is unable to make his beloved son Biff succeed in his career. He is strongly concerned about the once magnificent young football star who is now at 34 drifting from one temporary ranch job to the next. Willy cannot walk away from Biff’s problem as Bernard suggests, nor can he accept Linda’s view that “Life is a casting off.” Being over 60, Willy is doubtless tired physically. The sample cases are heavy. The 700 drives are arduous. And many business contacts, developed over the years, are vanishing as the men of his era die or retire(Nourse 115).
Life seems meaningless. At this time, suicide is like a diamond shining in the dark. To live or to die, that is a question which hovers in Willy’s head all the time. Willy loses himself in the choice of life and death. “Willy cannot easily accept his dream is broken. He prefers to kill himself to realize his dream and to maintain his dignity.”(李万钧389)
Willy is emotionally involved with Biff because his son’s success or failure is also his. “why cannot I give him something,” he asks Ben,” and not let him hate me?” “Since he does not achieve success of competition when he is alive, he would rather commit suicide to earn $20,000 premium. Or at least, it can relive his guilt that the Boston affair left Biff bitterly disillusioned.”(Roudance 60) And his great final moment of joy and triumph occurs when he exclaims,“ Isn’t that remarkable? Biff—he likes me!”(Miller 699)
Compared with life, Willy would rather choose death. It is the last chance that Willy attempts to realize his twisted ambition and the American Dream in the modern society. On the one hand, he hopes that he can use his life to purchase success for Biff. On the other hand, he wants to restore his dignity and self-value by death.
V. Conclusion
Arthur Miller developed the modern tragedy, and he chose the common people as the material of his play. Death of a Salesman discloses the existing plight of the unimportant man Willy Loman. Willy follows his faith blindly, pursues the realization of the American Dream and lives in his self-designed ideals throughout the life, which are all out of tune with reality. The conflict of reality and dream tortures Willy and makes him disturbed and perplexed.
Willy lives under tremendous pressure from familial and social realms of the American life, and he cannot survive his frustrated psychology. He is gradually lost in the boundary of the present and the past, in the mixture of illusion and reality, and in the choice of life and death. He cannot find the orientation of the road and the outlet of life. His death is unavoidable. His tragedy reminds us to wake up from memories and fantasies, and establish the correct values.
参考文献：
[1]Mi11er,Arthur.Death of a Salesman[M].Scott:Foresman Company,1989.
[2]Nourse,Joan Thellusson.Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and All My Sons[M]. New York:Simon&Schuster Inc,1997.
[3]Paine,Thomas.Illusion Versus Reality in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.Las Vegas:Art and Humanities Literature Helium Inc.
[4]Roudane,Matthew C.Death of a Salesman and the Poetics of Arthur Miller[J]. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,1997.
[5]李万钧.欧美名剧探魅[M].福州:海峡文艺出版社,1987.
[6]刘继新.文化透视下的美国梦[J].西安外国语学院学报,1999,7,(4).
[7]马云可.一位普通美国人的悲剧原型[J].四川外国语学院学报,2005,21,(2).
关键词：Death of a Salesman；Willy；loss；tragedy
中图分类号：H31 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1009-0118（2011）-03-0-02
I. Introduction
The story of Death of a Salesman describes the last twenty-four hours of the life of Willy Loman, a diligent elderly traveling salesman, whose values, ideals and vanity are smashed into pieces by the fact that he is a total failure both in his family and the society.
Applying the writing technique of stream of consciousness, Arthur Miller portrayed the typical psychological characteristic of the unimportant man Willy who is squeezed by modern American society to a nervous breakdown. He struggles to survive his psychological crisis but in vain. Gradually, he gets lost in this jungle-liked modern world. He cannot distinguish the present and the past as well as illusion and reality. Ultimately, he has no other solution but to die.
II. Willy Gets Lost in the Boundary of the Past and the Present
Much of the action actually just occurred inside Willy’s disturbed and faltering brain. Now, Willy is an old salesman, tired physically and psychologically. He is often lost in his recollections. His thought hovers between the past and the present. He sometimes talks about things happening yesterday, sometimes recalls events occurring 20 years ago. In his memory, he sees he drove in New England to expand his selling business and is proud of his throwing himself into the sales career(马可云38).
Several years ago, he brought lucrative profit for his boss and built the faithful sales network for himself, and now he plans to open his own company independently at a certain time or at least become a partner of his employer company. But the reality is that he is fired by his new boss, and deprived of a steady salary. And at this time, he urgently needs a sum of money to cover the insurance premium, repairs and the home mortgage payment.
His failure life spontaneously makes him get psychological comfort from his son’s success. So in Willy’s head emerges Biff’s image of childhood. He muses the happier past, back in 1928, popular Biff used to polish expertly their red old Chevrolet. Praising Biff’s work on the car, he gave Biff a new punching bag. Biff, in return, displayed a new football, stolen from the locker room. Willy commended on his daring. Biff prided in his father, and he pledged a special touchdown in the football game for Willy. Willy also had great hope on Biff.
However, the son to whom he holds too much expectation, eventually turns out to be a quitter and loser. He, drifting from job to job, now 34 year-old, resigned from a temporary farm. And he loses the golden job chance because he steals the boss’s pen in the interview. Biff is jobless and gets so perplexed. Willy cannot understand how the once so promising high school team captain can be so hopeless and worries about the relationship with him.
“Whenever Willy contrasts the present situation of Biff with the past, the emphasis is on his attractiveness, furthering the contrast between the grey present and the green past”(Paine 2). Yet however Willy attempts to make the present into the past and live there , it is just a chimerical struggle.
III. Willy Gets Lost in the Mixture of Illusion and Reality
Willy cannot distinguish illusion and reality. He is actually schizophrenic. In his illusion, his elder brother Ben and the old salesman Dave Singleman are his models. But the two men both died many years ago. The fact that Willy is unable to extricate himself from illusion indicates his uncontrollable consciousness and his delusive imagination, from which we can see the intensification of his ambivalence.
The sense of failure brings him into the illusion of Ben. As to Willy, Ben represents another choice of destiny: adventures, fortune and success, which are reflected in the forest in Alaska and the diamond in Africa. Willy regrets for his not following Ben to establish a business in Alaska. The image of Ben frequently rises in Willy’s frustrated head. When Willy who falls into illusion converses with the sober person in reality, he is always absent of mind and gives an irrelevant answer. Willy lives in his illusion and dreams that he can be a rich person like Ben. He imagines that he can exploit his “gold mine” in his sales career. Virtually, Ben is just the other side of Willy, and the figment of Ben is the concrete embodiment of Willy’s loss.
The main reason why Willy does not follow Ben to go to Alaska and choosesselling as his lifelong career may be the influence of Dave Singleman. His dream of success takes shape when he came across Dave. Dave is his idol. “Even he was 84, he had drummed merchandise in 31 states. And old Dave, he’d go up to his room, put on his green velvet slippers and picked up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of 84, he made his living.”(Miller 512) Willy realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want. “Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go into 20 or 30 different cities, and picked up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many people? When he died — by the way he died the death of a salesman, hundreds of salesmen and buyers were at his funeral.”(Miller 513)
Dave’s funeral touches Willy much and affects him deeply. Willy dreams of being a Dave-typed salesman that when he is alive, he can achieve success in his career and when he is dead, people holds a grant memorial ceremony to commemorate his performance and conduct. However, the reality is that Willy is fired when he is 61, and after his death, only Linda, her sons, Charley and Bernard are present at his grave. His dream of success like Dave is just an illusion. “Willy is such a poor man that he is stimulated by the success dream but never savors the taste of real success”.(刘继新 99)
IV. Willy Gets Lost in the Choice of Life and Death
Willy’s agitation during his last days stems from a two-fold sense of failure that he no longer satisfies the demands of his own selling job, and he is unable to make his beloved son Biff succeed in his career. He is strongly concerned about the once magnificent young football star who is now at 34 drifting from one temporary ranch job to the next. Willy cannot walk away from Biff’s problem as Bernard suggests, nor can he accept Linda’s view that “Life is a casting off.” Being over 60, Willy is doubtless tired physically. The sample cases are heavy. The 700 drives are arduous. And many business contacts, developed over the years, are vanishing as the men of his era die or retire(Nourse 115).
Life seems meaningless. At this time, suicide is like a diamond shining in the dark. To live or to die, that is a question which hovers in Willy’s head all the time. Willy loses himself in the choice of life and death. “Willy cannot easily accept his dream is broken. He prefers to kill himself to realize his dream and to maintain his dignity.”(李万钧389)
Willy is emotionally involved with Biff because his son’s success or failure is also his. “why cannot I give him something,” he asks Ben,” and not let him hate me?” “Since he does not achieve success of competition when he is alive, he would rather commit suicide to earn $20,000 premium. Or at least, it can relive his guilt that the Boston affair left Biff bitterly disillusioned.”(Roudance 60) And his great final moment of joy and triumph occurs when he exclaims,“ Isn’t that remarkable? Biff—he likes me!”(Miller 699)
Compared with life, Willy would rather choose death. It is the last chance that Willy attempts to realize his twisted ambition and the American Dream in the modern society. On the one hand, he hopes that he can use his life to purchase success for Biff. On the other hand, he wants to restore his dignity and self-value by death.
V. Conclusion
Arthur Miller developed the modern tragedy, and he chose the common people as the material of his play. Death of a Salesman discloses the existing plight of the unimportant man Willy Loman. Willy follows his faith blindly, pursues the realization of the American Dream and lives in his self-designed ideals throughout the life, which are all out of tune with reality. The conflict of reality and dream tortures Willy and makes him disturbed and perplexed.
Willy lives under tremendous pressure from familial and social realms of the American life, and he cannot survive his frustrated psychology. He is gradually lost in the boundary of the present and the past, in the mixture of illusion and reality, and in the choice of life and death. He cannot find the orientation of the road and the outlet of life. His death is unavoidable. His tragedy reminds us to wake up from memories and fantasies, and establish the correct values.
参考文献：
[1]Mi11er,Arthur.Death of a Salesman[M].Scott:Foresman Company,1989.
[2]Nourse,Joan Thellusson.Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and All My Sons[M]. New York:Simon&Schuster Inc,1997.
[3]Paine,Thomas.Illusion Versus Reality in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.Las Vegas:Art and Humanities Literature Helium Inc.
[4]Roudane,Matthew C.Death of a Salesman and the Poetics of Arthur Miller[J]. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,1997.
[5]李万钧.欧美名剧探魅[M].福州:海峡文艺出版社,1987.
[6]刘继新.文化透视下的美国梦[J].西安外国语学院学报,1999,7,(4).
[7]马云可.一位普通美国人的悲剧原型[J].四川外国语学院学报,2005,21,(2).