It has officially been a month since the last time I have uploaded. Oops. I have been incredibly busy with numerous things. It is nearing the end of the semester, and I have had to complete my last assignments and when I do have free time — I nap. I also have my SATs coming up which I have been preparing for regularly. Apart from me being gone for a significant amount of time, I recently finished reading Death of a Salesman for my Advanced English class at my local community college, and — to say the least — it was intriguing.My first impressions of the play were that it was going to be boring and probably not interesting; however; this was not the case. The play was fascinating, and although the plot wasn't tremendously thick, it kept me captivated. When my professor first mentioned the writing style Arthur Miller had adapted for the play I was intrigued. If you haven't already read it (which you should) the main character, Willy Loman seems to be a falling to the deterioration of his youth and into old age. He expresses many moments of lostness and misunderstandings because he is hallucinating of things that are not actually occurring. This addition that Miller included, to have characters fade in and out with Willy's conscious was ingenious and is without a doubt what perpetuated Death of a Salesman to its well-knowingness.
Having different characters fade in and out throughout the story really helped give context to some of the characters such as Biff. It's unclear why Biff acts the way he does after high school; however, with Willy's flashbacks we see that Biff was indeed affected by what his father had done years ago and just before summer after he was supposed to graduate. It was instances such as this that I genuinely appreciated the literary choice Arthur Miller chose to write the Death of a Salesman.
Overall, I thought the play was fascinating and tragic. During both, the play and live-action play, I became emotional, because Willy was very much an "Everyman" and everything he was going through was all so severe. Of all the characters, however, my favorite had to be Linda Loman, both in the play and the movie. Linda, the stereotypical woman at the time, dedicated her entire life for Willy because she loved him so much; even after he had placed the rubber tubing down in the basement, Linda stuck through it with him. Linda was a committed partner, and when Willy died, I had no other feeling but to feel sad for her because she had done so much out of love for him and she was there and witnessed his well-being deteriorate. As for the Happy and Biff, I'll probably go more into depth with their characters in the movie review I am going to do for the written play. As for this review, I thought the play was undeniably touching and emotional and certainly earned its reputation as one of the most iconic American plays.
