The Death of A Salesman (Author's Argument)

In the iconic play, "Death of A Salesman," (1949), Author Miller evidently introduces the American Dream, abandonment, and betrayal in the play, Miller portrays to his readers that the play takes place in one of America's most difficult time period, the Great Depression. The Great Depression consist of crisis and struggles that led to many American families suffering and unemployment. First the setting of the play begins with Willy insisting that his son Biff gets a job, by doing so Willy creates some type of suspense through using telegraphic sentences, and technical details to emphasize on what Biff should try to do to portray the American Dream by finding a job. Through the struggles and crisis Willy and his father faced by finding a job its difficult because both of them don't recognize that they are exactly similar and they distress one another because of that. Willy may taunt his son Biff because he wants the best for him in the future, he doesn't want Biff to face the reality he had faced in the past with his father, Willy's dad abandoned him when he was only three years old. Miller illustrated this by creating an personal anecdote and understatement to explain the reality of what Willy endured. There was quite a betrayal Willy played, his poor wife Linda thought he was very ill and too innocent but Biff knew the truth calling him a "phony" throughout the novel. In the play Willy’s preoccupation with Linda’s stockings foreshadows his affair with The Woman some type of person he known in the past. Miller foretells his affairs with the women by using dramatic and situational irony. However, these three following events led to misleading relationship with his son, emptiness in his heart of loneliness, and distance from his wife in the end which eventually followed to his death. The purpose of the play was to represents a democratization of the ancient form of tragedy; achieving greatness, the tone ranges from sincere to parodying, but at times the treatment is tender, and sometimes brutally honest to Willy's truthfulness, which leaves the audience being readers prone to intellectual curiosity and mystery.

• Indignantly: Characterized by or filled with indignation.
• Simonizing: to shine or polish to a high sheen, especially with wax.
• evasively: Inclined or intended to evade.
• resentment: Indignation or ill will felt as a result of a real or imagined grievance. 
• Saccharine: of the nature of or resembling that of sugar.

Tone: Sincere, Brutally honest, Parodying.

Strategies: 

• Preposition: "I wish you'd have a good talk with him." (15)
• Allusion: "I think the fact that you're not settled, that you're still kind of up in the air..."(10)
• Simile: "Maybe I oughta get stuck into something. Maybe that's my trouble. I'm like a boy. I'm not married. I'm not in business, I just-I'm just like a boy."(11)
• Dialogue: "You're a poet, you know that Biff? You're an idealist!"(11)
• Personification: "But you didn't rest your mind. Your mind is overactive, and the mind is what counts, dear."(3)

Questions:

- Compare the way Biff treats his father with the way Happy does. Why is it hard for Biff to tell Willy the truth? Why doesn’t Happy want him to?

- Discuss the symbolism of the two heavy sample cases and the stockings. How does Miller use the characters’ names as symbols? What do they mean? What is the significance of Loman? Why Willy instead of Bill? What other symbols does Miller use and to convey his purpose in the play?

- Can the American Dream to its civilians cause tragedy or prosperity?Explain?

Memorable Quote: "In the greatest country in the world a young man with such-personal attractiveness, gets lost. And such a hard worker."(6)

The Death of A Salesman (FinalThoughts)

The Death of A Salesman was an astonishing play that really captivated me through this spring break! The novel was full of drama and action that can entirely affect a person willfully in so many ways. At first when reading the play I though it would be some type of play that would not be interesting, but I was wrong it was better than interesting it was magnificent...the answers that I was yearning for to find out what was going to happen next between Biff and Willy. It was so much more than that, learning about these two characters and their development through the play really seemed amusing, Biff as lazy as a bum tried so hard to succeed in ther end to make his father Willy proud that only in the end he had to make himself proud. Willy taunted his son Biff so much that he didn't really have the decency to think his son was good enough for him. In the end these two characters learned a valuable lesson that they both loved each other deeply, and even animosity was transpired between the two their action within the play led to a family connection. Willy on the other hand died as a known  salesman but still in the play it left me wondering because if Willy was such in distress why didn't he try to kill himself so many times and what type of sickness did he have? Still a mystery to me.

The Death of A Salesman

 When first encountering the novel or play  "The Death of A Salesman," my  first impression of the book was I hope this book is fascinating I hope its not boring like all the other classical books. But after reading summaries of the book and reading a few pages into the book I really think im going to enjoy the book. The setting of the time period is in the 1920's which makes the book more intriguing to me because of its born classics in that era. The book reminds me of "The Great Gatsby," itself the crazy and while decade with a lot of drama that transpired. In the beginning of the first few pages is a man named Willy a sixty-three-year old traveling salesman who returns home from an exhausting trip. In the beginning the play starts off to be a mystery to me because Willy just came back from a trip and he has lost some sense of his memory he cannot really reminisce anything that happened from the past, so he returns home to his wife Linda where she greets him and where he meets both his sons Biff and Happy. What's so interesting is that both his two sons are the total opposites Biff is anything but lazy, and Happy who is thirty-two is more confident and successful in his work. Although Will has some sought of memory loss he stills favors Happy who is more of a workaholic than Biff. So far the book seems to be more and more interesting when reading it, but Willy himself seems to be a mystery, seems like we'll have to find out!

First Light-The Search For the Edge of the Universe

In Richard Preston's First Light (1996), Preston introduces many types of different gadgets such as the 4-shooter, CCD( Charged Coupled Drive), radio telescopes and many other technological chips that are used in such ways to help improve on the establishment of the Hale's telescope to track down the quasars and Preston explains the many trials and scientific errors the astronomers go through in order to complete their tasks in finding the farthest quasar in the universe. Preston claims that the 4-shooter is a electronic camera attached to the base of the Hale's telescope and its used to capture photos of objects faraway, he explains the characteristics of the instrument by using facts and statistics, he then asserts that that the CCD is the most sensitive photographic film that can see light, and the radio telescopes can hear an event that occurred about 250,000 years ago after the Big Bang( a universal explosion), he clarifies this by using technical details and imagery, he then concludes that astronomer Maarteen Schmidt and his team found a radiostar (3C 48) which contained a redshift similar to a quasar he does this by using scientific details. His purpose is to convey to readers that Science is not what it seems  and that there is more to it than meets the eyes, behind the truth of what Science really is. Preston seems to have an audience prone to intellectual curiosity and again his tone is informative.

• Spectrograph-s an instrument that separates an incoming wave into a frequency spectrum.
• Photon- is an elementary particle, the quantum of the electromagnetic interaction and the basic unit of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation.
• oscilloscope- a type of electronic test instrument that allows observation of constantly varying signal voltages.
• impinge-to make an impression; have an effect or impact

Tone: Logical, informative, honest.

• Listing: He saw colored stars green, yellow, blue, and orange.(159)
• Statistics: Radio telescopes can collect a signal from an event that occurred about 250,000 years ago after the Big Bang, when the universe consisted of a dense, hot gas.(143)
• Denotation: According to the theory, at the moment of the Big Bang, the observable universe-all of the matter that makes all of the galaxies-occupied a volume smaller than a quark, which is the smallest known subatomic particle.(143)
• Simile: This orange light is now so deeply redshifted- coming from so far away- that it appears as the microwave background radiation, a surface of microwave emission visible all over the sky.(143)
• Colloquialism: "All of us standing and gaping."(142)

What are going to be the difficulties the astronomers are going to face in finding a quasar since their are other astronomical stars similar to it? 

Does Preston uses more of a listing or statistical approach through his writings?

Is Science still identified as how it used to be 40 yrs ago or is it more advanced now?

Quotation: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."(186)

First Light-The Search For the Edge of the Universe.(#2)

In Richard Preston's nonfiction First Light (1996), in section two of the novel Preston presents the couple the Shoemakers who are deeply involved in the search of the asteroids and comets and also how many astronomers did indepth studies in researching galaxies for the asteroids but they easily gave up in completing their tasks. Preston describes how the geologists astronomers Eugene Shoemaker and Carolyn Shoemaker are captivated by the science of the asteroids and comets so they go to Palomar Mountain to  discover asteroids and comets by using facts and statistics through critiquing answers through research and validating unresolved scientific research that hasn't been prove to be true. Preston asserts that the Shoemakers use a different type of telescope, not the Hale's telescope, they use a faster telescope called the Schmidt telescope to observe asteroids and comets that passes through Earth's Orbit by using imagery, he then describes the historical background behind the different asteroids and their given names by using mathematical and scientific statistics, and to conclude he presents the reader of how the Schmidt telescope came into creation and he deeply reveals his experiences working as a side helper with the telescope. Preston's purpose is to evoke in readers that each new telescope used on Palomar mountain has to have some type of deep meaning to it. He seems to have again an audience prone to intellectual curiosity and his tone again is informative.

• emulsion- a fine dispersion of minute droplets of one liquid in another in which it is not soluble or miscible.
• creosate bushes- a shrub native to arid parts of Mexico and the western U.S. Its leaves smell of creosote and when steeped in boiling water, they yield an antiseptic lotion. 
• celestial- positioned in or relating to the sky, or outer space as observed in astronomy.

Tone: informative, logical, straight-forward.

1) Statistics: Another 65,800 planets have been seen once or twice, not often enough to have their orbits plotted with certainty and thus to be eligible for numbering.(96)

2) Denotation: A supernova is the heatcomb of a star.(97)

3) Listing: It was titled "Known Trojans," and it contained a list of heroes from the Trojan War- Achilles, Patroclus, Hektor, Nestor, Priam. (68)

4) Personification: A flash of blue sparks danced around the telescope's mounting.(85)

5) Simile: I remarked to her that it felt as though we were in free-fall.(87)

• Why does Preston use the location of every telescope being used on Palomar Mountain to be the first greatest telecope?
•  In what structure does Preston use listing in the sentence?
• What impact will the Earth have if it is hit by an asteroid?

Quotation: " Darkness had triggered the death of much singled-celled life in the sea, dynamiting the pyramid of life at its base, causing mass extinction to ripple upward." (128)

First Light-The Search For the Edge of the Universe.

In Richard Preston's novel, "First Light- The Search For the Edge of the Universe,"(1987), Richard Preston claims that First Light is classified as a moment in history when stars and galaxies are first formed out of a dark universe and it revolves around astronauts who are searching for light in the end of the universe using the Hales telescope. Preston supports his claims by using facts and staisctics through astronomical mesaurements and reaserch data that the scientists use to prove their theories, Preston describes that the astronomers Jim Gunn, Maarten Schmidt(team leader), Donald Schneider(assistant) Barbara Zimmerman are deeply involved in the astronominical research at Polamar Observatory for the "First Light" by using imagery, and he describes history of the First Light by using technical details, and to conclude he describes that the discoveries of Quasars are to be evidently reaserched by the astronomers by using listings(dashes/hyphens) and definition. Prestron's purpose is to prove to readers that there is such existence in the galaxies and universe to be uncovered. Preston seems to have an audience prone to intellectual curiousity or perhaps a nerdy audience, his tone is informative.

• spectrum- an ordered array of the components of an emission or wave.
• spectroscopy- is the use of light, sound or particle emission to study of matter.
• quasars-is a very energetic and distant active galactic nucleus.

Tone: philosophical,informative,straight-forward.

1. Statistics: Light moves at a speed of 186,282 miles per second through space-a snail's pace by the measure of cosmic distance.(24)
2. Definition: Spectroscopy-the division of light into its component wavelengths.(23)
3. Listings(dashes/hyphens/commas)-Quasars disgorge opulent, multitdinous colors all at once-gamma rays, X rays, ultraviolets, blues, greens, yellows, reds, infrareds, microwaves,and, in the case of some quasers, radio waves, all of which are forms of light at different wavelengths.(24)
4. Personification: The sky could also be imagined as a book, bound into chapters that tell a story.(25)
5. Imagery: The quasars are brilliant pinpoints of light that seem to surround the earth on all sides, shining out of deep time.(25)

• Why does Richard empahsize on the "Quasars" as being the first of all lights?
• In what structure does Preston use the dashes in his sentences?
• Once you get to the edge of how far the universe has expanded, what does the border look like? What is on the other side of that border?

Quotation: "The Milky Way lay in mist along the eastern ridge of Palomar Mountain."

The Scarlett Letter

"Throughout all, however, there was a trait of passion, a certain depth of hue....The child could not be made amenable to rules....The mother's impassioned state had been the medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral life; and, however white and clear originally, they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery lustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light of the intervening substance. Above all, the warfare of Hester's spirit, at that epoch, was perpetuated in Pearl." Chapter 6, pg. 83

-Pearl from this description is known to be the wild child. Her mother doesn’t not have full control over the feeling of Pearl. However, only Pearl bring any kind of joy to the Hester, giving her a will to live.


1) Would the townspeople hold a grudge against Pearl as she is the daughter of Hester Prynne?


2) Would Pearl blame her mother for her being an outcast because of her committing adultery?


3) Why does Hester think of her daughter being ruthless. Explain.