Inner Conflict in Death of a Salesman Essay -- Death Salesman essays

Inner Conflict in Death of a Salesman The main conflict in Death of a Salesman deals with the confusion and frustration of Willy Lowman. These feelings are caused by his inability to face the realities of modern society. Willy's most prominent delusion is that success is dependant upon popularity and having personal attractiveness. Willy builds his entire life around this idea and teaches it to his children. When Willy was young, he had met a man named Dave Singleman who was so well-liked that he was able to make a living simply by staying in his hotel room and telephoning buyers. When Dave Singleman died, buyers and salesmen from all over the country came to his funeral. This is what Willy has been trying to emulate his entire life. Willy's need to feel well-liked is so strong that he often makes up lies about his popularity and success. At times, Willy even believes these lies himself. At one point in the play, Willy tells his family of how well-liked he is in all of his towns and how vital he is to New England. Later, however, he tells Linda that no one remembers him and that the people laugh at him behind his back. As this demonstrates, Willy's need to feel well-liked also causes him to become intensely paranoid. When his son, Biff, for example, is trying to explain why he cannot become successful, Willy believes that Biff is just trying to spite him. Unfortunately, Willy never reali zes that his values are flawed. As Biff points out at the end of the play, "he had the wrong dreams." In many ways Biff is similar to his father. In the beginning of the play we see that Biff shares many of the same ideas as Willy. He values being well-liked above everything else and sees little value in being smart or honest. One of ... ...ually loves him. Death of a Salesman deals with the frustration of Willy Lowman and his inability to face the realities of modern society. Willy believes that success is dependant upon popularity and having personal attractiveness. Willy builds his entire life around this idea and teaches it to his children. He learns to late that he has built his life around an illusion. Â   Works Consulted Eisinger, Chester E. "Focus on Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman': The Wrong Dreams," in American Dreams, American Nightmares, (1970 rpt In clc. Detroit: Gale Research. 1976 vol. 6:331 Foster, Richard J. (Confusion and Tragedy: The Failure of Miller's 'Salesman' (1959) rpt in clc. Detroit: Gale Research. 1983 vol. 26:316 Gardner, R. H. "Tragedy of the Lowest Man," in his Splintered Stage: (1965) rpt in clc. Detroit: Gale Research. 1983 vol. 2l6:320 Â  

Discuss the Importance of Dreams in Of Mice and Men Essay

The book ‘Of Mice and Men’ was published in September, 1937 and was set in the depression of the 1930s in California at the location of Soledad. Steinbeck uses ‘Soledad’ because it translates as loneliness which arises the point that the time in which this book was set was a time of loneliness where it was very unusual to have a companion or family with you which led to the existence of dreams; to look forward to more pleasant and happier times. At this time: 1930s America, most Americans had the so-called American Dream. This was to own their own piece of land as well as being the boss of it. This was the common dream amongst ranch workers to have something to live for and aid them with their loneliness. The dream came into existence in the 1800s when land was more readily available. By the 1930s, when this novella was set, it was almost impossible to make their dreams a reality due to the 1929 Wall Street stock market collapse which had resulted in prices increasing drastically, and more importantly; there was a desperate act of poverty making people sell what they had and live on the streets. This is what led to the rugged individualism of each person. As well as this, it was made even more difficult as most land had been bought beforehand. It is due to the Wall Street Crash that many went to California for work. President Roosevelt at that time had the job of directing workers such as George and Lennie to ranches or farms where there was work. Steinbeck uses Lennie and George to personify the dream of the migrant worker; own their own land along with giving the opportunity to settle in the ‘promised land (California)’. Migrant workers are labourers who work on ranches as harvesters involving lifting heavy materials; hard work for little wages. They have no family or friends as they continuously travel to different ranches in California in order to keep work. This is how workers had to get jobs and was the way of life for migrant workers. In relation to this, work card were important as it gave them a work permit which ranch owners required when recruiting. In comparison to modern day working conditions, workers such as George and Lennie would not receive holidays, sickness payments or old age pensions from their ranch. Therefore, futures for most men looked bleak. Without dreams, no-one would have reason to keep going. An example of this is Lennie wanting his own animals in the future to ‘pet.’ There is symbolism within the book that refers to the Garden of Eden. He sets the scene of this by using description such as â€Å"Willows fresh and green with every spring† which could be interpreted as referring to the Garden of Eden. I believe Steinbeck is trying to put across the imperfectness of humans along with temptation and results of doing a â€Å"bad thing† (said by Lennie). Lennie shows that temptation causes him to lose his way and represents the imperfection of humans. His desire to pet soft objects without foreseeing the consequences puts him on a collision course with others. Also, the girl in Weed and Curley’s wife are both temptations that made his curiosity grow and he could not resist. Curley’s wife could be seen as the serpent in the garden; a liar, a temptation, a manipulator of men to get her way. Like Eve, she is curious, in this case about Lennie. Her actions are innocent but the outcomes are bad, (telling Lennie to touch her soft hair in the barn which leads to her death) just as Eve’s actions caused them and human beings to be sent of the ‘perfect place.’ Curley’s wife’s actions tempt Lennie whose actions cause him along with the others to lose their dream of a little farm. Lastly, Adam and Eve were thrown out of Eden for going against God; therefore mankind is in loneliness and wandering. Steinbeck shows this when George asks who used to live on his bunk with Candy replying that he had just left: â€Å"gimme my time one might like any guy would.† After this, George then brings Lennie along which creates suspicion because two men didn’t travel together; â€Å"Hardly none of the guys ever travel together.† There was a big contrast in the timeless rural vision of America and what was to all but end this: the 1930s Depression. The vision was that workers will move up the ranks of working to eventually own their individual land; however this would never be when the 1930s Depression occurred. There was a big drop in every economic growth along with very high unemployment. It also resulted in countries leaving the gold standard in order to recover. These reasons helped the American Dream to not be a successful one for so many. Steinbeck is effective and does well to imply that there is another world other then the perfect one that was envisaged by everyone by saying: â€Å"beaten hard by the boys coming down from the ranches† and â€Å"beaten hard by tramps who come wearily down from the highway.† Words such as â€Å"beaten hard† and â€Å"tramps† suggest this other world and show the stark contrast between dreams and reality. The main characters include George, who is a small, quick man with well-defined features. He is a migrant ranch worker who dreams of one day saving enough money to buy his own place and being his own boss, many men in the Depression dreamed of this. His only set back is his mentally handicapped friend Lennie whom he travels with and has been since he promised Lennie’s Aunt Clara he would look after him after she died. Looking after Lennie stops George from working towards his dream and even prevent him from having a normal life of a rancher, because of this, George and Lennie regularly fight. George yearns for companionship as can be told by the metaphor of him playing solitaire. The tension of having to look after Lennie and himself shows in George and he shows a wide variety of emotions during the novella, from anger to patience to sadness. Lennie is mentally slow, he’s enormous. He is George’s companion and he is the source of the all the novel’s conflict. He is George’s opposite both mentally and physically. Lennie’s innocence and helplessness, his childish actions, such is his desire to pet soft things makes him likeable to the readers of the novella. George and Lennie’s dream is more materialistic than to just own land and be their own boss, as they envision a place where â€Å"nobody gona get hurt nor steal from them.† The friendship between the two is firmly rooted in their dream. Candy and Crooks along with others are also caught up in the dream. Curly’s wife also had a dream which was to become a movie star. But in one way or another, all the dreams of these workers are smashed.

Language Slang

Language is one of those spheres of human activity that are the first to bring reaction to social and other kinds of changes in human life and activities. Language may even not only follow or accompany these changes but also cause them. Every social or political change, revolution, innovation, introduction of new words and terms is reflected in newspaper publications. A great number of people, over 70%, read newspapers everyday[1 5]. Andto keep such a large number of people reading, the newspaper must be easy to read and understand. Using a type of speech that people se everyday is an easy way to accomplish that.Using colloquial speech should also be used depending on the audience that is reading a newspaper article[1 1,125-126]. Colloquial speech should also be used if an article is written for children or teenagers. A teenager would better relate to â€Å"Hey, what's up? † than â€Å"Greetings. How are you this fine September afternoon? † Because they can relate to it , they are more likely to understand the text and keep on reading. Not only teenagers and children use this type of language. Many adults still use words like â€Å"radar† and â€Å"e-mail†; either of them are formal English[1 5].That is why the theme of this term paper is of a great importance. The relevance of the term paper iscaused bypermanent development of language. While doing our research we will take into account the works of such scientists as Arnold I. V. , Galperin I. R. , Rayevska N. M, Kukharenko V. A. , Antrushyna H. B. and other scholars, who have already made a great contribution to investigating colloquial vocabulary and newspaper style. The task of this term paper is to present the use of colloquial words in British and American newspapers. The aim of the term paper is to analyze the colloquial vocabulary in English newspapers.To achieve the above mentioned purpose the following objectives are established: to study the theoretical material which is r elated to the topic of the term paper; -to analyze the newspapers of Great Britain and USA with the aim of selecting special colloquial words; -to define the dominant part of colloquial vocabulary prevailing among the newspapers. The object of the term paper is lexical units representing colloquial English vocabulary. The subject of the term paper is the study of the eculiarities of colloquial vocabulary of English newspapers.The material for the study is taken from different newspaper articles in the following British and American newspapers: The Gurdian, The New York Times, The Daily mirror, The Sun. In this term paper thefollowing methods of research have been used: -the method of analysis and synthesis; -descriptive method. The method of analysis is used to break a complex topic into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it. The method of synthesis is used to combine separate elements of research in order to form a coherent whole. Descriptive method is used o present t he picture of a phenomena under study.