August Wilson wrote the play “Jitney” about a group of African-American men working in a Jitney cab station in Pittsburg during 1977. The play explores the lives of the characters, each dealing with a different quarrel in their lives. They are all brought together by the Jitney station in which we are able to explore their characters through Wilson’s expertly written dialogue. The play explores racism, economic anxiety, gender roles amongst other things; however, one of the main concepts of the play, and the one this paper will focus on is on the patriarchal role. There is an emphasis on the dominant male figure in the play in several of the relationships. There are different types of patriarchs shown; Becker as a head of the Jitney station, Becker as Boosters father and Youngblood’s relationship with Rena portray the most apparent patriarchal roles.…
In the playwrite Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, Thomson Highway focuses on the life style of seven native men in the Wasachigan Hill Indian Reserve in Ontario. In this play, there are six important male characters. Characters such as Big Joey, Spooky Lacroix Creature Nataways and Pierre St. Pierre adopt Christianity and the English language. While the characters Simon Starblanket, Zachary Jeremiah Keechigeesik try to revive the native culture, language and medicine. As the play begins Thomson Highway introduces the reader to this native community (that seems to be tight knit group of people, perhaps for all the wrong reasons). As the play progresses we realize that the Native figure of the Trickster is a predominantly female character named Nanabush. She is hard at work as she slips in and out of the realm of reality as the male characters begin to expose the complicated and dysfunctional relationships that are at the core of this Native community. Because the females are absent throughout the play, Nanabush always reappears as various female figures, helping to develop different situations as they arise and give a voice to the females in the play.…
In both Tennessee Williams movie entitled “A Street Car Named Desire” and Lorraine Hansberry’s play entitled A Raising In the Sun, the women in both works although similar in their portal of weak counterparts to men both physically and mentally, both authors William’s and Hansberry portray their leading ladies uniquely. In Williams’s rendition of “A Street Car Named Desire” his leading ladies Blanch, who is portrayed as a weak women who does not understand and is portrayed as a failure in what a true southern belle and wife are; whereas, her sister Stella is the epitome…
In this literary analysis piece I will be breaking down the popular play by Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman. Death of a Salesman, is a very riveting story that follows Willy Loman, a retiree-aged working class business man living in New York. Who deals with troublesome denial, and uses the events of the past to deal with his problems of the present, this begins to create more problems for Willy as he becomes unable to separate past events with current events. Along with intense financial strain as an ageing business man in a new era of business. Willy feels pressured to be very financially successful and well liked person by himself, and the people around him like his brother, Ben, and his neighbor, Charley, who has a very successful son who is a lawyer. Willy, along with many people in the real world, suffers…
Plays, “Fences” and “A Raisin in the Sun” share similar plots. They take place in the mid-western United States in the 1950’s and explore the family dynamics of the African-American Family and the paradigmatic shift it experienced between two generations. The older generation, who could remember slavery by first-hand experience or by being born during a time when success for the average African-Americans was systematically stifled by racist and unconstitutional laws that were put in place when slavery was legal, and the young generation that began to show some sense of entitlement, had begun to overcome institutional barriers to succeed and empower themselves with knowledge and education, but who without the proper guidance and support, were willing to compromise their honor and family for monetary or superficial gain. Throughout both plays, conceived notions of masculinity and femininity with their respective roles are simultaneously intertwined with intergenerational conflicts. In “A Raisin in the Sun,” Walter Younger is at odds with his mother, Lena Younger, over his plans to use his father’s life insurance money to invest in a liquor store. By her values, a dishonorable business in itself for its profit from alcoholism, but using his father’s life insurance money, which see considers in a way to be the sum of his life, the price given to what the value of his life was, would be an abomination. And Walter just doesn’t get it until the very end. In “Fences,” Troy Maxson, is a middle-aged, African-American man who was born and grew up under extremely oppressed circumstances, has been in prison, played baseball but couldn’t play professionally because of the baseball commission’s ban of black players before Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Troy refuses to let his son, Cory, to go to college on a football scholarship possibly out of bitterness for not…
The play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a tragedy written by Tennessee Williams. The play takes place in the summer of the mid 1950’s in the bed room of a Mississippi plantation owned by one of the characters named Big Daddy. There are three major characters in the play: Big Daddy, his son Brick, and Brick’s wife Maggie. The rest of the family is present in the play but don’t play such important roles. The major theme of the play is mendacity and its effects on its subjects.…
Tim Miller’s play Rooted discusses a controversial topic about marriage equality and when a social change is finally achieved. His solo performance displays a serious, yet comical tone about the struggles his husband and him were faced with in order to get to where they are today. Miller gives his audience great detail on riots he participated in and his thoughts on the government. He also shares his family history and the important role it has on his life today. Miller’s solo performance of Rooted makes a comfortable atmosphere to talk openly about controversial topics.…
Thomas Foster's book, How to Read Literature like a Professor, is perfect for trying to analyze Arthur Miller’s Play, Death of a Salesman. This play has many layers that are difficult to catch on a first reading/watching. In essence, the play tells the story of Willy Loman, a salesman who struggles with the american dream and its ideals. The chapters in Foster's book on violence, symbolism, and setting all are helpful for understanding the play. The violence helps us understand the themes, the symbols convey various messages, and the setting influences the characters.…
The “Dutchman” metaphorically relates the Flying Dutchman, a ship that sails at sea with no destination, which symbolizes how “white” America ceases to recognize blacks as apart of the human race. Clay’s suit represents invisibility and alienation as it portrays how he attempts to assimilate into the white world, blending in and fitting in to it’s stereotype of who African Americans are. At the same time, Clay expresses his anger toward the same white culture he is attempting to assimilate into that is expressed when Lula judges Clay’s character. The theory behind the Flying Dutchman identifies with Lula, the white woman who seems to travel the subway preying on African-American males. Throughout the course of the play, Clay struggles with trying to blend in with the white people, internally knowing he is still a black man. In addition to the internal struggle Clay goes through, there is an external struggle with Lula, who represents white culture. Clay’s suit portrays that he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself in this white crowd, but merely blend in, even though he is the black man of which isn’t recognized to be of human as a white person.…
In the road of life, the right path may not always be where the road signs lead. The road to self-discovery is found by following one 's heart and mind and to wherever they may lead them. Within the plays Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, and Our Town by Thornton Wilder, parallel pathways and contrary connections can be established between the characters coinciding in both. In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is the portrait of a sixty year old man reflecting upon his past, one of lies and hopelessness. Upon coming about his past, he finally and fatally, discovers himself at the end of his life. Mr. Webb from Our Town plays the figure of an editor of Grover 's Corner Sentinel and loving father of Emily. Early in the play, he displays knowledge over his own self-discovery, which he hopes to tell others. The self-discovered Mr. Webb raised Emily coherently as a woman who in the end recognized the value of life. Married to George Gibbs, her life was very much comparable to Linda Loman, married to Willy Loman. Linda Loman was a woman dedicated to the needs of her spouse, but also therefore blind to the real needs that Willy desired. In the end, she still was left wondering why or what had gone wrong. Interlocked by protruding parallel traits of progressive self-awareness, these characters promoted the two plays to a higher level of understanding.…
Although Arthur Miller’s play is thematically rich, the movie form would not have been as interesting if not for the actors and actresses who accurately represented the characters as members of the community who were widely affected by guilt,…
The hero in the play had fatal flaws that caused his downfall. Because of the wrong definition of success, fact’s denial, jealousy and stubbornness, Willy was failed in his life and committed suicide. The play evoked the pity and fear in audiences afterward. In addition, there were hopes in the play that audiences could feel but all of them get dashed because of the play’s parameter. Even Willy Loman already passed away, the image of a tragic hero still stay in his family’s mind and especially in the audience’s. “So Miller does offer us a way to go back to those familiar or less familiar ideas he presents in his play—by his near-faultless blending of the social, political, moral, and personal questions presented directly or indirectly through his characters.” (Robert A.…
Sometimes we see more in a person, a story, a character, or a situation than what is presented forth to us. Joseph A. Hynes argues that Charley’s character from Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, is contradicted when he gives a speech in the Requiem. Hynes argues that it, “pulls Charley out of shape,” and, “ends the play by committing Charley to a mellow defense of Willy’s wildest misconception,” but it does not. Charley speaks up in Willy’s defense in a way that is not mellow, nor out of character because he serves as the one person in this play that views Willy from greater angles; who views Willy in depth and realistically. As a man who isn’t loudly spoken as a character, he sees much more to Willy than his family and colleagues, he sees that Willy is a broken man with identity issues but does want to do the right thing and what’s best for his family, so his defense of Willy serves his role as a character.…
Betrayal and abandonment are themes that many have encountered within their lives; but nobody can perhaps relate as much to these themes as Willy Loman, the main character in Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller. This play encompasses the life of Willy Loman, albeit not in any particular order when reviewing his younger years. The man’s memories are prompted by various seemingly insignificant moments in his life. Willy is a failed salesman, clinging onto his fabric of lies he has built up throughout his life, and attempting to pull his broken family relationships back together, all while slipping in and out of trances within his life. The man invests everything into his sons, Biff and Happy, and is constantly wondering…
Arthur Miller’s drama Death of a Salesman is highly regarded as one of the best examples of a modern American play. Following the “certain private conversations” of the Loman family in New York, Death of a Salesman analyzes the detrimental aspects of pursuing the American dream while still retaining enough sentimental emotion to deliver a strong, heartfelt message on redemption. These and many other aspects of Miller’s play all culminate inside the main character, Willy Loman, in a way that makes him seem to some like a rendition of the modern tragic hero. Now viewed by many as a modern American tragedy, Death of a Salesman continues to connect with audiences but on a more emotionally established, dramatic level.…