...that he was driving. At his wife’s suggestion, Willy decides to ask his boss tomorrow for a sales job in NY so he can stop traveling. Willy and Linda discuss their grown sons, Biff and Happy, who are sleeping upstairs. Willy’s relationship with Biff is rocky because his son is thirty-four and can’t hold a steady job. In his mind, Willy relives happy times when he and his teenage boys are celebrating their own supposed popularity. Biff tells his father that he’s stolen a football (although he uses the term "borrowed") in order to practice his game. Willy tells his son to return it, but he obviously doesn’t care about the theft. Willy goes into advice/bragging mode and tells his sons how great American towns are, and how welcome he is made to feel in all of the cities he sells in. Linda enters and Willy can’t help but brag some more. He tells her he’s extremely well liked, that he made a killing on his recent trip. In actuality, he didn’t do well, he’s insecure, and they’re in debt. Willy suddenly gets worked up at his failure in business and says people just don’t like him very much. His next pubic announcement is that he’s struggling because he’s ugly and fat. Willy’s troubled mind flashes to a lady in his life . . . and it’s not Linda. This other woman is dressing and they are joking in a sexually suggestive way. Willy has given her some stockings, which really should have gone to his wife. Willy’s mind flashes back to his conversation with Linda about his recent trip. Willy notices...
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...flattened by them. What causes these wrong decisions? Some may blame pride, lust, fear, anger, ignorance, stubborness, or even love. All of these are valid reasons, and unfortunately these are all abundant qualities in every human being. Because of this, writers like Arthur Miller and William Shakespeare have showed us that these tragedies can occur to anyone, from salesmen to soldiers. And although they are horrible to live through, they can also be timelessly entertaining to read about. Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is the story of a man, Willy Loman, gone deaf to the outside world. Though many try to help him, he shuts them out and creates his own reality in which he is successful and loved by everyone. In Death of a Salesman, Willy has many influences, both good and bad, attempting to direct his life. But ultimately it is his refusal to accept helpful advice that ultimately leads to his tragic downfall. One negative aspect in Willy's life is the inability of his friends to confront him about his...
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...accepts nor admits to his faults. Willy loses his dignity and one of his biggest faults is his failure to be a good father. Willy’s problems come from his own delusions, the American Dream and his misunderstandings of his job and family. All of this tells the story of everyday people in American Society. His environment is changing faster than his beliefs which are why he is in the dilemma that he is in. Willy Loman delusions are a result of his father to succeed in life. At age 63, He still believes he is a popular, respected and good looking, which is not the case. Willy s delusion was that there would be many people from across the country at his funeral. Nobody liked him that much and very few people attended his funeral. In the moments where he would realize the truth, his wife would support his delusions in attempt to make him feel better about himself. A tragic hero is someone who dies for personal dignity. Willy dies for his sons dignity . In act two, Willy reveals his desires to win back Biff’s respect by committing suicide. During one of his illusions, Willy says “Ben that funeral will be massive...that boy will be thunderstruck, because he never realized I am known”. In trying to persuade Biff that their father is a great man, Willy will not accept any challenge to his dignity. He refused to realize that the ideas he set for himself and Biff are false and he in fact is not loved by all. When Biff tries to tell him this, he will not listen to his son. If he accepts...
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...Thomas Gibson. There father was a farmer who later entered farm mortgaging as farming which did not provide enough money to provide for his family. During Sam’s childhood him and his family moved frequently. “He was a good student” and he became the youngest Eagle Scout in Missouri’s history while studying in the eighth grade in Shelbina, Missouri. His family finally settled in Columbia, Missouri. He grew up during the Great Depression and “took up numerous small jobs in order to help his family which was struggling...
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...In “Death of a Salesman: by Arthur Miller. The play produced and published in 1949. The story portrays a family in late 1940’s who is trying to keep up with times. America was becoming a consumer culture. People wanted bigger cars and bigger TV’s. The main character Willy Loman wants a piece of that American dream. Willy is an unsuccessful traveling salesman. He is married to Linda and they have two sons Biff, and Happy. Willy slowly starts to lose his mind. There multiple reasons for him to become depressed and suicidal. The first reason is Willy is older man, and knows that change in him becoming rich is slim. Second, reason is the disappointments from his sons Biff and Happy. Willy is trying to keep up with the times. The industry of car...
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...Mason Brown (Brown 207) The Two Sides of America and Willy Loman America is a madman. America became a man who fell off his rocker and is free to roam the earth to disturb the minds of those who inhabit it. The American dream is often considered a fantasy by those who criticize it. Capitalism sometimes may not be all that it is cracked up to be when you get down in the dirt and start building. Even when you begin to believe you are moving forward you can be eternally unsure of the direction you are moving. At this point, the race to the top can drive you crazy. In Arthur Miller’s play A Death of a Salesman, the central character Willy Loman embodies the American dream and he is certainly mad. In the story, Willy works as a growing salesman who is getting older and tiring from travelling for work for small returns. His hard work goes unrewarded as each paycheck goes right into the house which always needs to be serviced and mended. This house as it gets to be paid off after 25 years finally becomes owned by the family who ironically may soon not live in the house together. Willy’s family consists of his humble and caring wife, Linda, and his two handsome and able-bodied sons Happy and Biff. The story centers around the external conflict of Willy pushing Biff to be what he wants him to be and Biff’s internal conflict of what it is he would like to do with his life. Death of a Salesman is considered by many to be a tragedy as the play’s events lead to the ultimate suicide of its...
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...was the head of the house and his life’s works were passed down to his sons. A strong relationship between a man and his sons was crucial to maintaining a healthy household. Once the relationship began to deteriorate, the entire family unraveled. Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman displays how the relationship between Willy and his two sons creates the downfall of the Loman family. The relationship is constantly changing throughout the story. Biff and Happy idolize and have nothing but love for their father when they are children, but when they grow up they realize how their father failed to prepare them for the real world. Willy Loman is portrayed as an un-fit father. Willy never really had a father when he was growing up. He lost his father when he was very young. Because Willy was deprived of affection as a child, he smothers his sons with love and oppresses them with the nakedness of his hopes for their success. (Carson pg. 92) His older brother Ben stepped in and served as a substitute father. (Carson pg. 90) As a result of not having a true father figure in his childhood, Willy struggled with fatherhood because had no example to base his parenting on. When Ben passed away, Willy lost his last connection to his father. (Carson pg. 91) Willy’s lack of a real father has left him as an insecure person. He has been trying his whole life to compensate for his loss. Willy is constantly unsure of himself and the way he raises his boys. This can be seen in the...
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...difference. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon also play great lead and supporting roles where we can see the characters grow and have a great motivational connection with one another. Both films give a great theme, with support, family and relationships being a main focus. Each movie has characters going through struggles and later in the end overcoming them. A lot of lessons can be learned in each film, and many people can relate to them. Good Will Hunting has characters who deal with loss, abuse, and lack of self-confidence. Mrs. Doubtfire has family troubles, separation, and trust issues involved as well. Both movies are easily relatable and comparable to each other as well. In both films family and relationships seems to play an important role. In Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon struggles with life and commitment, due to abandonment by the people who were supposed to love him the most. He was severely abused and in adoptive homes, he then preferred to stay as a manual laborer living in a dilapidated house in the Boston neighborhood. Throughout the movie he struggles to find his place in the world by first finding out who he is. He is a genius and could solve math problems that the smartest teacher couldn’t. He never wanted to be noticed though. He was comfortable being the janitor and hanging out with his buddies, including Ben Affleck. He never had a sense of belonging due his is lack of parental guidance and being with his buddies was the closest thing he had to it. Ben Affleck...
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...the patriarch of his family, and as was the norm at the time, he feels he alone has to provide for his family. In the 1950’s the traditional version of the ‘American Dream’ was being altered by newfound consumerism, and therefore Willy is caught between two worlds, unable to provide for his family as well as he would like. Therefore, Willy feels he doesn’t live up to what he should be doing as a man. Throughout the play, Willy demonstrates the intense social pressures felt by men during this time. At the beginning of the play, Willy’s career as a salesman is coming to a bitter end. With his mind and body deteriorating from age and years of disappointment, Willy is in denial of his continued failure which he has been attempting to cover up for many years, for instance when he vastly exaggerates how much he made on his trip in his first flashback, initially claiming to have made “five hundred gross in Providence and seven hundred gross in Boston”, before conceding that he actually only made “roughly two hundred gross on the whole trip”. In this instance, and indeed throughout the play, Willy is trying to preserve his waning sense of masculinity, which has taken a devastating blow at the hands of drastic economic changes in the 1950’s. With the rise of catalogues and shopping malls, success has come to mean something entirely different for Willy and the rest of America, and whether or not he is able to achieve it for his family is, to him, the ultimate test of his masculinity. Unfortunately...
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...Part I. Basin Information Title: Windmills of the Gods Author: Sidney Sheldon * (February 11, 1917 – January 30, 2007) was an Academy Award-winning American writer who won award in three careers—a Broadway playwright, a Hollywood TV and movie screenwriter, and a best selling novelist. He is the author of The Other Side of Midnight, Bloodline, A stranger in the Mirror, Rage of Angels , If tomorrow comes and Master of the Fame. All have been number one international bestsellers. His first and only other book, The Naked Facem was acclaimed by the New York Times as “the best first mystery of the year”. * Copyright ©1987 by Sheldon Literary Trust All rights reserved * This Warner Books Edition id published by arrangement with William Morrow and Company, Inc., 105 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y 10016 * Cover illustration by Stanislaw Fernandes * Warner Books, Inc. 666 Fifth Avenue New York, N.Y 10103 * Printed in the United States of America On November, 1987 with 434 pages. Part II. Characters A.Major Characters * MARY ASHLEY – A loving mother of Beth and Tim from America’s hearltland, Kansas City. She’s grieving for her lost husband. She’s a brilliant professor learning how to become a tope diplomat and the one person the President is relying on to reform U.S relations with the communist block. * STANTON ROGERs – the presidential foreign affairs adviser...
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...There are SEVEN questions on the paper. Candidates are permitted to refer to an unannotated copy of any Criminal Law Statutes book or unmarked photocopied extracts from relevant statutes, during the examination 1. Mehmet, Lily and Keith agreed to burgle a warehouse that stored powerful industrial chemicals. They believed that security was lax and that a large wages payment would be in the safe. They knew that Nigel (an elderly caretaker) and Ozzy (a security guard) would be present. Nigel suffered from a severe stress-related illness which often resulted in panic attacks. Mehmet knew this fact, but Lily and Keith did not. Shortly after entering the warehouse, they were disturbed by Nigel and Ozzy. Despite signs of his obvious distress, Nigel was locked in an unlit storeroom by the three burglars. They then forced Ozzy to the manager’s office which contained the safe. When it became apparent that Ozzy had no access to the safe, they tied him up in frustration and left him lying in the corner. Keith said that he was going to try to force the safe with a hammer and chisel. Whilst he was working on the safe, Mehmet and Lily went to look at the basement below. Whilst rummaging around, they knocked over a large barrel marked ‘dangerous’. The contents began to leak out. In fact, the chemicals in the barrel were highly poisonous, and strong fumes began to drift upwards. Realising how strong the chemicals were, Mehmet and Lily fled from the warehouse in panic...
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...Here is a list of the top Broadway shows of the season: Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, A • Walter Kerr Theatre • Tony Award winner Jefferson Mays (I Am My Own Wife) plays eight roles in this frisky musical romp set in Edwardian England about a line of heirs, family money — and homicide. • When Monty Navarro finds out he is eighth in line to inherit a dukedom, he decides to eliminate the other seven heirs standing in his way — all played by one incredible actor. This witty music-hall comedy explores how low we'll go to make it to the top. BEAUTIFUL: THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL • Theatre: Stephen Sondheim • Here's how the creators bill the musical: "Her voice would define a generation, but first she had to find it. Long before she was Carole King: chart-topping music legend, she was Carol Klein: Brooklyn girl with passion and chutzpah. She fought her way into the record business as a teenager and, by the time she reached her twenties, had the husband of her dreams and a flourishing career writing hits for the biggest acts in rock 'n' roll. But it wasn't until her fairytale life began to crack that she finally managed to find her true voice. Beautiful tells the inspiring true story of King's rise to stardom, alongside husband and co-writer Gerry Goffin and fellow song writers Barry Mann, and Cynthia Weil, set to the music that made her one of the recording industry’s most enduring icon." IT'S ONLY A PLAY • Theatre: Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre • Written by...
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...guides created for Death of a Salesman: Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis, MN; Kennedy Center, Washington, DC; Lyric Theatre, London; Royal Lyceum Theatre Company, Edinburgh; Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven, CT. © 2010 Weston Playhouse Theatre Company, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational and cultural institution. WPTC Performance Guides may be duplicated at no charge for educational purposes only. They may not be sold or used in other publications without the express written consent of the Weston Playhouse Theatre Company. Weston Playhouse Theatre Company Weston Playhouse Theatre Company DEATH OF A SALESMAN Study Guide for Teachers TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Interview with Director Steve Stettler The Playwright Arthur Miller in his own words Inspiration for Death of a Salesman Writing Death of a Salesman The Characters Synopsis The Setting Themes Motifs...
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...true, and when the Board belatedly found out who the real John Bundy was, he resigned on the spot. The bespectacled, apparently respectable 45-year-old businessman who entrusted with the care of the 200-odd patients at St Luke’s in Potts Point and its adjacent nursing home turned out to be a man with a history of business failure, a high-living pilot and part-time racing car driver who was two-timing his wife in Melbourne with a mistress. Not only that, a routine check with a credit agency would have revealed that Bundy and his legal wife had court judgements for more than $6000 worth of debts outstanding against them, some involving the operation of a business in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn, known as the Hotham City Diner and Bar, and others relating to his red-striped Beechcraft Duke, a six-seater twin-engine executive plane. When Bundy told the Board in 1990 that he had ‘an impressive background in general management’ he was, in fact, telling the truth-though not perhaps in the way those leading Anglicans imagined. For much of the 1980’s he was general manager of two companies which between them lost more than 30 million. He claimed in his resume to hold the degree of Bachelor of Commerce from Melbourne University, and was a CPA. If the Board or the search consultant they had hired had checked they would...
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...Derrida I. Life a. Born July 15, 1930 in El-Biar, Algiers to Jewish Parents in a time of heightened Anti-Semitism b. Expelled from Lycee de Ben Aknoun on his first day of school as enrollment of Jews could not exceed 7 percent. Quit Lycee Emile-Maupas due to intolerance of Jews. c. He dreamt of becoming a professional football player d. His parents never read any of his books e. Failed his first entrance exam into Ecole Normale Superieure but eventually earned his Philosophy degree in 1956 f. He is arrested for transporting drugs in Prague, Czech Rep. but it is later discovered that the drugs were planted on him by the police. g. He had two siblings die. One older brother died in infancy just a year before his birth. h. Met his wife Marguerite Aucouturier in the snow while on holiday with schoolmates in 1957. They have two sons, Pierre and Jean. i. Died in Paris of Pancreatic Cancer on October 8 2004 II. Influences a. Nietzsche, Husserl, Freud, Heidegger, Saussure, Rousseau, and Gide were all early influences for Derrida b. “Derrida said that for Gide, he had a fetish and that he knew several of his books by heart (Derrida 1995b, 341). The effects of Rousseau and Nietzsche in forming a mentality composed of key religious and atheistic concepts such as Nature, God, and Writing are incalculable” (Powell) c. Nietzsche’s skepticism influences...
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