Topic: Reader Response Approach - Drama Analysis
Topic: Reader Response Approach - Drama Analysis
Format: MLA. Access the Purdue OWL MLA Formatting and Style Guide here - https://owl(dot)english(dot)purdue(dot)edu/owl/resource/747/01/
Include proper in-text citations of quotes from the play
Length Requirement: 750-1000 words
All sources must be cited
Your Process:
Read Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. You may also listen to the audio recording, but doing so is purely optional. Read the play carefully, and be sure to develop a mental picture of the setting and of the characters as they appear. Reading a play is an excellent exercise for one's imagination, so let your mind help you to enter the play as it materializes before you.
As you read the play, pay close attention to how you are reacting to it. Keep a pencil and paper close by and jot down notes to keep a record of those places in the play wherein your response is active.
For example, you might find that you are reacting more emotionally to a particular character or that a particular relationship between two characters is of great interest to you. Or, it could be that the story itself has gripped you so powerfully that you are enthralled by it. It could be that the conflict within the play—or the ethical and moral considerations—are sustaining your interest in it.
The nature of your response will be as personal as you choose to make it. In addition, your response will be like no other in the class because the reader response approach allows for an unbridled and truly spontaneous reaction to the play. Overall, you merely need to discuss openly and specifically about how the play has affected you and why. If you did not like the play, tell us the reasons that you did not like it. If you liked only a certain aspect of the play---a particular character perhaps, or the time period of the play, or the fact that it included the story of a family---then spend some time discussing these elements. In other words, the response is up to you.
The assignment should be what Aristotle termed a cathartic experience, a purging and purifying of the emotions. In addition, the assignment should remind you that all of us are involved in our daily dramatic performances. In this regard we recall what Shakespeare declares through the melancholy character Jacques in the comedy As You Like It. Jacques says in Act II, scene vii,
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
With these words in mind, you should face your work as one among fellows, and you should view Miller's play as a snippet of life taken from the ongoing drama that we carry out every day in our own lives.
Guidelines:
Use first-person, the pronoun "I" at times
Keep your response focused on specific elements of the play, and try to organize your essay around those elements
Include quotations from the play and details to support your comments. Here is a helpful resource - http://libguides(dot)pstcc(dot)edu/content.php?pid=24540&sid=1751573
Do not include a highly detailed summary of the play in your essay; you are writing to people who are familiar with the play; instead, keep your comments focused on your response to the play. However, you may include some summary as a means to drive your discussion.
Write with an engaged voice. Remember that you are recording your emotional response or perhaps a response to a moral issue, so do not be concerned about writing with an impassioned voice if you need to do so.
Use some literary analysis if you would like to approach part or all of the play on an academic level
Remember to include at the end of your essay some comments about your overall response to the work.
Recap:
Read the play.
Write a response to it.
Formatting and Style
Be sure to maintain an appropriate academic tone (no slang, second-person, contractions, etc.)
Your essay should be typed, double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font, with one-inch margins, and numbered pages. Include your name, my name, the title of the class, and the date in the upper left hand corner of the first page. Center your title (you do not need to underline or italicize it) and place it above the body of the essay. Do not include a title page.
Instructor
Course
Date
Willy Loman’s Character Flaw and its Cathartic Effect in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman
Having gone through the first act of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, I’m gripped by strong interest and curiosity to find out how Willy Loman’s obsession for success affects him and his family in the end. In particular, my interest is pricked by the fact that Willy is a salesman, but the author does not specify what it is he actually sells. As I realize later, Willy is trying to sell to his sons the philosophy that one can be successful if he is “well-liked” by others. What makes this assumption curious is the idea that he thinks that although his neighbor’s son Bernard is smart in school, he will not be successful because he is not well-liked. To me, this belief in being well-liked, together with his obsession with the American Dream, is the tragic flaws that foreshadow Will’s destruction. Like Oedipus, Willy is obsessed with proving something about himself. Just as Oedipus wanted to show the people of Thebes that he can help them avoid a crisis by solving the murder of their late king, Willy Loman wants to prove to his sons, especially the critical Biff, that he is a successful salesman. His deception, however, is clearly evident because he is not the faithful husband or successful salesman he wants everyone to believe he is. He is only slightly successful, but he doesn’t want to accept the reality that he is a failure.
The cathartic effect of Willy’s fate results from the fact that like any ambitious person, I can identify with his dreams and frustrations after failing to achieve them. One can easily sympathize with Willy not just because of his failures and tragic end (he commits suicide eventually) (Sinclair and Miller 64), but more so because he is a victim of the same kind of world we are all struggling to find success in; cut-throat competitive capitalism. While Willy believed that being well-liked is enough to earn a person success in life, we are also driven by the same motivation in the popular belief that getting a good education can open doors to career success. But is it enough? Just as being well-liked is not enough to earn Willy’s sons success, it is possible that earning a Harvard degree may not be enough to earn one success. Soon I’m going to graduate, and naturally, I dream of landing a big job, buying a fancy car, marrying well, raising a lovely family, and living happily ever after. But will I? Like Willy, I long for the good life; I want to live the American Dream. While this longing and ambition is certainly not a tragic character flaw on my part, Willy’s obsession with something as unreliable as being well-liked compared to getting a good education certainly portrays his character flaw. Realizing from the play’s beginning that Willy is headed for...