FACULTE DES LETTRES ET SCIENCES HUMAINES

(FLESH)

DEPARTEMENT D’ANGLAIS

COURS DE:

THEATRE MODERNE AMERICAIN

MODERN AMERICAN DRAMA

NIVEAU D’ETUDE: SEMESTRE VI

o Nombre de crédits : 4
o Volume horaire : 48 heures
o Langue d’enseignement: Anglais

CHARGE DU COURS: ANNEE ACADEMIQUE: 2019-2020

Dr. Manzama-Esso THON ACOHIN
Tel: (+228) 90 85 78 70
Email: thon_david@yahoo.fr

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GENERAL OBJECTIVE:

This lecture aims at studying the Modern American Drama. Three plays will be studied,
namely Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape (1922), Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949)
and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959).

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:
The lecture aims at:
- helping students be familiar with Modern American Drama and
- enhancing their linguistic competence at the same time.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents Page
GENERAL OBJECTIVE…………………………………………………………….………...1
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES…………………………………………………………….………..1
TABLE OF CONTENTS………..……………………………………………………………..1
INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………...………...2
PART I: DEFINITIONS………………………………………………………………………………2
PART II: HISTORICAL AND LITERARY REVIEW OF MODERN AMERICAN
DRAMA………………………………………………………………………………………………..4
2.1 THE MOST PROMINENT MODERNIST FIGURES OF AMERICAN DRAMA…........5
2.1.1 JOHN STEINBECK (1902-1968) ………………………………………………………5
2.1.2 EUGENE O’NEILL (1888-1953) ……………………………………………………….6
2.1.3 TENNESSEE WILLIAMS (1911-1983) ……………………………………………..…7
2.1.4 ARTHUR MILLER (1915-2005) …………………………………………………….…8
2.1.5 LORRAINE HANSBERRY (1930-)…………………………………………………...10
2.2 LITERARY MOVEMENTS AND THEATRE ORGANIZATION……………………..12
PART III: STUDY OF SOME SELECTED PLAYS ………………………..........................13
3.1 EUGENE O’NEILL’S THE HAIRY APE (1922)………………………………………...13
3.2 ARTHUR MILLER’S DEATH OF A SALESMAN (1949)……………………………….16
3.3 LORRAINE HANSBERRY’S A RAISIN IN THE SUN (1959) …………………......…..24
CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………………………27
GLOSSARY……….………………………………….………………………………………27
BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………….....28

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INTRODUCTION
This lecture entitled “Modern American Drama” is destined to students measuring in
American Literature. It will present some of the concepts and words that are often used in
relation to theatre and drama. Thereafter, a historical and literary review of Modern
American Drama will introduce us to the study of selected plays, namely John Steinbeck’s
The Moon Is Down (1942), Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949) and Lorraine
Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959).

In order to help students contribute to the understanding and criticism on the selected plays,
they will form groups of work and deal with assigned topics.
In the conclusion of this lecture, a recapitulation will be made on the key words, names and
titles that should be essentially kept in mind.

PART I: DEFINITIONS

Creative literature falls into 3 main shapes: poetry (poems), prose (novels), and drama
(plays).

The word Drama refers to a play. (Eg: to perform a drama on stage or on screen). The word
drama also epitomizes works that are written for performance on the stage, radio, or
television, considered as a literary genre. (Eg: 17th century French drama).

The word “Theatre” (US “theater”) can take different meanings. Firstly, it refers to the
writing and production of plays (Eg: American theatre). Secondly, it stands for a play or other
activity considered in terms of its dramatic quality (a piece of literary work). Thirdly, theatre
is also a building in which plays and other dramatic performances are given (Eg: to go to the
Theatre of Paris).

American Drama can be defined as the plays that are written by Americans for performance
either on stage or on screen.

The expression Modern American Drama refers to plays written at a period that concerns
the 20th century and which are characterized by a refusal of conventional forms of writing, of
plot and character and the traditional view of the world.

Closet drama: a play or plays written to be read rather than performed.

A play is a dramatic work for a stage or to be broadcast. Plays form a literary genre or style.

An actor/ actress is a character in a play. It is a player of a drama.

A playwright is a writer of plays.

An act is one of the main sections of a play or other dramatic performances.

A scene is a division of an act of a play, which presents continuous actions in one place.

A synopsis: a condensed version of a text. (E.g. a summary of the plot of a book, play, film,
or television program).

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A part is an actor’s role, or a role in a dramatic performance (e.g. I play the part of Helmet in
the School play). A part is also a subdivision of a play (e.g. a play in two parts).

The cast in a play means all the actors that have performed it.

A stage: an area in theatre where actors perform a play.

To go offstage/backstage: to go outside the acting area, that is away from the stage used for a
performance, usually out of view of the audience (e.g. in the dressing room or the area where
stage technicians work)

Upstage: the back or the rear part of stage

Downstage: the front half of a theatre stage.

Stage direction: instruction for an actor in the script of a play.

Stage door: an outside door (on the side or back) into theatre backstage used by performers

Stage effect: a special visual or auditory effect created on theatrical stage by lighting, scenery
or sound

Stage fright: fear or nervousness felt by a person before speaking or performing in front of an
audience

Stage left: the part of stage that is to a performer’s left when facing the audience (side of
stage on an actor’s left)

Stage right: the part of stage that is to a performer’s right when facing the audience (side of
stage on an actor’s right

Stage manager: an assistant of the director of a play who supervises backstage activities

Stage name: the name a performer uses for professional purposes, as opposed to his real
name

Prompter: a person in theatre who reminds actors their missing words or lines

Audience: a group of people assembled to watch and listen to a show, concert, film or speech

Screenplay: a script or scenario for a film.

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PART II: HISTORICAL AND LITERARY REVIEW OF MODERN AMERICAN
DRAMA

The evolution of the American Drama throughout the 20 th century is varied and extremely
complex. It would take a whole book to make an exhaustive account of the different stages
American Drama has gone through in the 20th century. Let us try to sum up as tensely as
possible the key-stages of the development of American Drama in that period.

The American theatre lagged behind that of the Continent, or even of England. In 1900 or
thereabouts there was little indication that the United States would make any significant
contribution to world theatre. One had to wait until after World War One to see the rise of
movements across the nation that consisted of groups of amateurs eager to try out new plays,
notably in Provincetown (the Provincetown Players) and New York (the Washington
Square Players). These having no box office obligations, many young and virtually unknown
American playwrights saw their plays staged, and a great deal of experimentalism was soon
under way. The 1920s are thus regarded as the years when American drama really “took off”
and began discovering for itself the techniques and innovations evidenced in Ibsen and Brecht
some two decades earlier in Norway and Germany, for instance. Thus, one may designate the
1920s as the era of “expressionism” in the realm of the American theatre. By expressionism
is meant here a shift from facile stage effects, rather artificial plots and sophisticated trickery
rather than depth of social and psychological analysis, those having characterized the
melodramas and minstrel shows popular in American until at least the turn of the century.
Expressionism is a theatrical technique which uses the stage to create a scene symbolic of the
workings of a character’s mind. The main concern with expressionism was the creation of
images of the “inner self”- a concept that was developed by psychologist Sigmund Freud in
the early 20th century. Employing the expressionist theatrical technique allows the audience
to focus on the psychology of the piece, on the workings of characters, rather than just on
the social conditions of the play. Expressionist devices include:
- montage and flashback,
- staging and set design,
- sound/musical motifs,
- lighting,
- costume.
From the 1930s onward, a new kind of theatre seems to have emerged, with such troops as
The Theatre Group (1930s), which staged social plays with a heavily leftist point of view,
and which may be regarded as the inheritor of an earlier theatrical society called The Theatre
Guild (1918), whose purpose was to produce high quality American and foreign plays. All of
these initiatives took place in New York City, by all means the Mecca of American drama.

Let us have a glance at some of the most prominent Modernist figures of American
Drama, namely John Steinbeck, Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and
Lorraine Hansberry.

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2.1 THE MOST PROMINENT MODERNIST FIGURES OF AMERICAN DRAMA

2.1.1 JOHN STEINBECK (1902-1968)

John Steinbeck in 1962.

John Ernest Steinbeck is one the most influential American novelist and playwrights. Born on
27th February 1902 in Salinas (California, USA), he died on 20th December 1968 in New
York, USA. Novelist, playwright, journalist, he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. Another
distinction he got is the Nobel Prize of literature (1962). Steinbeck’s genre is part of what is
called the Lost Generation movement. Another distinction he got is the Presidential Medal of
Liberty (1964). His principal works include Tortilla Flat (1935) which gave him his first
literary distinction (The Gold Medal of the best novel written by a Californian), The Grapes
of Wrath (1939) which brought him the Pulitzer Prize, Of Mice and Men (1937) and his
controversial play The Moon Is Down (1942) which is diversely appreciated as propaganda
for the Allied Forces during the World War II, but also as a genuine art work that lays bare
human force and weaknesses.

John Steinbeck’s works are known to deal with his natal California, the Great Depression and
its impacts on the lower classes.

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 John Steinbeck’s grave in Salinas.

2.1.2 EUGENE O’NEILL (1888-1953)

The first great American playwright is unmistakably Eugene O’Neill. His plays, which are
now rather difficult to read because of their density, show the influence of realism, and even
naturalism. He was from the first an experimental Modernist who was, not unlike the second
generation of naturalist writers, interested in the relations between self and society and the
ways in which the latter hampers human choices. He, however, went one step further than
Dreiser, Sinclair or London, in dramatizing the inner struggles that attend the search for
existential meaning through the use of symbols and dramaturgic experiments (masks, stage
motifs, flashbacks, single characters played by two different actors). O’Neill’s plots are
generally unromantic and linguistically and psychologically realistic; they are also informed
by his thorough-going knowledge and reading of the psychoanalysts Freud and Jung, which
often shows through in his plays (he uses interior monologues as well as other devices that
hark back to ancient tragedy, such as choruses or the use of masks). The tragic element is
foregrounded in virtually all of his plays, which are sometimes lengthy. Many of his
characters are isolated dreamers who are dissatisfied with their lives and the materialism that
goes along with it. Most of his plays exhibit a constant attempt to suggest deeper meanings
that underlie everyday life and thus connect sometimes very unsophisticated characters with
metaphysical realities that lie beyond their grasp, hence the tragic element. Most of them have
no way of coming to terms with the conflict between dream and reality, which leads to failure.

His most successful plays are The Hairy Ape (1922), Desire under the Elms (1924), the
trilogy Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), The Iceman Cometh (1939), and Long Day’s
Journey into Night (1940).

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2.1.3 TENNESSEE WILLIAMS (1911-1983)

If Eugene O’Neill embodies the chief dramatic voice in 1930s’ America, the nation’s most
discussed playwrights since the war have been Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. We
will here cast a look at Tennessee Williams.

T. W. was born in Mississippi and went to graduate in Iowa. His reputation was established
by The Glass Menagerie (1944) and further enhanced by A Streetcar Named Desire (1947).
Both plays show the playwright’s sympathy for the lost and self-punishing individual, a
characteristic shared by many of his subsequent dramas. After a few experimental plays, such
as The Rose Tattoo (1951) and Camino Real (1953), he returned to the more familiar themes
of the intricacies of Southern families and Southern culture with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
(1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1956) and The Night of the Iguana (1959).
Here is what Françoise Grellet has to say about his plays:
Their mixture of fantasy and violence reflects the Southern Gothic influence. Set in the
South of New Orleans and the old plantations, they bring the audience face to face with
brutality and sensationalism—rape, murder, drug addiction, homosexuality—which expose
the frustrated and perverted desires of their characters. These are often outsiders, isolated
beings, neurotic and sordid misfits. There is no serious attempt at realism in the plays of
Williams: drama stops time and opens up a distorted world of poetry, violence and fear.
Many of the characters are thus exaggerated and more like those of ancient myths, or Christ-
like figures embodying sacrifice or redemption. This is underlined by an extensive use of
symbolism, in the setting, the music and the words, a symbolism which should help the
spectators to see beyond the superficialities of life.
The attempt to escape from one’s decaying life is at the core of Tennessee Williams’s
plays. The Glass Menagerie show the struggles of an American family for social and spiritual
survival: Amanda, a genteel southern lady, wants to marry her crippled daughter Laura to a
“nice young man”, but this turns into an obsession which condemns her daughter to a world
of illusion and seclusion. In A Streetcar Named Desire, the beautiful, decadent, and corrupt
seductress Blanche upsets the balance of her sister’s home where she has taken refuge.
Stanley, her brother-in-law, will finally defeat her by exposing her deceit and her shady past,
finally driving her to a mental home. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is set in a large Southern
plantation. While the head of the family, Big Daddy, is dying, the other members offer us a
spectacle of lust, greed and violence.
Far from being written for the sake of sensationalism, Tennessee Williams’s plays, by
showing us chaos and depravity, teach us the value of dignity and decency.

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 AMERICAN THEATRE IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY:
ARTHUR MILLER AND LORRAINE HANSBERRY.

2.1.4 ARTHUR MILLER (1915-2005)

Tennessee Williams is not the only significant playwright active in the second half of the
twentieth century. Whereas Tennessee William’s stage is full of characters who try to ravel
out their neuroses in dark and tormented human contexts, another dramatist who started
writing his most successful plays just after World War Two, that is to say at the very start of
the Cold War, offers situations in which characters’ lives are essentially determined by
history; his name is Arthur Miller (1915-2005).

http://www.biography.com/people/arthur-miller-9408335

Born in New York City in 1915, he became famous almost overnight with the production of
Death of a Salesman, a play that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1949. It was at college that he
actually began writing plays, during the Great Depression, which was still blighting
employment prospects when he left, and which made a deep impression on him: certainly
because he had to scrape a living doing all sorts of poorly-paid jobs, he developed a
compassionate understanding of struggling people and the underprivileged, and this attitude
fostered his dramatic inspiration. Besides, the Federal Theatre Project, a program sponsored
by the New Deal (in the late 1930s) and whose goal consisted in funding the staging of plays
and other artistic activities to promote drama whilst giving actors, authors, managers and
producers job opportunities, encouraged the kind of social drama that dealt with the economic
and social problems of contemporary society; so this dovetailed with Miller’s interests and
concerns.
Death of a Salesman presents the spectator with a tragic central character named Willy
Loman, who, faced with failure on many scores, eventually commits suicide so that his sons
may cash his life insurance.
The Crucible, written in 1953, and probably the play that made him famous, is a famous
historical allegory: it is based upon the notorious witch trials that took place in Salem at the
end of the 17th century (and in which Cotton Mather, Samuel Sewall and other New England
divines were involved; see File 1), thus obliquely satirizing and denouncing the current anti-
Communist persecution (also called “witch-hunts”) launched by Senator McCarthy.
The central character in the play is John Proctor, who was accused of practicing witchcraft,
then asked to « recant », but who steadily refused to play into the system and was eventually
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hanged for this imaginary guilt. Miller himself was suspected of communist sympathies and
was summoned to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956.
All of his plays usually revolve on the issue of the individual human being who, from being
rather colorless, eventually turns into a hero when he decides to assert himself against the
social group to which he had hitherto belonged, doing this at his own risk, incurring ostracism
and often death as a result. In 1961 he also wrote a screenplay entitled The Misfits for a
famous film by John Huston in which his recently divorced wife, Marilyn Monroe starred in
the main role.
Miller’s plays often explore the inevitable conflicts between generations, the way politics
encroach on private lives, and the origins and consequences of shameful actions. Here is an
excerpt from Death of a Salesman:

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Salesman-Dustin-Hoffman/dp/B00007ELDP

SUMMARY OF THE CRUCIBLE

Miller is no historian and did not mean to stick to the sheer facts of the actual trials of
1692 anyway, so what he presents in his play is an interweaving of fact and fiction to give us
as vivid an impression as possible of the panic that struck the little town of Salem,
Massachusetts, in 1692, when the inhabitants were convinced that there had been an outbreak
of witchcraft in their community and the village and county officials took steps to identify it
and stamp it out.
So witchcraft is suspected when two young girls, Betty and Abigail, are taken ill after
having participated in some childish magic games with Tituba, a black slave, in the woods at
night. The father of one of the children is Reverend Parris, the other is Goodman Putnam, a
rich landowner, greedy for more land. After another minister examines them, the two girls are
credited with the power to identify witches, so that all whom they denounced are arrested and
then brought to trial, including upright elderly women and Goody Proctor, the wife of a local
farmer, John Proctor, who happens to have been seduced by one of the girls (Abigail), who is
in love with him, but whose further overtures he subsequently turned down. Proctor begins to
understand that she wishes Elizabeth hanged as a witch so that she may marry him, and he
rants and raves against the whole mania until he manages to wrest from another of the girls

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the confession that it is all make-believe and no witchcraft was ever practiced. But the girl is
so overawed by the others that she withdraws her confession, and Proctor is arrested.
Meanwhile so many innocent men and women have been arrested that one of the
ministers, Reverend Hale, starts having misgivings about the reasonableness of the whole
procedure, and advises people to “confess” their “guilt” so as to be pardoned. But honest
Rebecca, the elderly woman, or gruff but righteous Giles Corey refuse to be inveigled in
“confessing” untruths, and they are condemned to die, as is John Proctor, who, at the very last
moment, backtracks on his recantation (he had “confessed” to save his and his wife’s lives),
and thus prepares for the gallows, while Goody Proctor ends her prison sentence, having
forfeited her estate in the process.

The title

A crucible is a sort of pot in which metals are melted down, especially to be made “pure”
by burning away baser elements that may have become mixed with them;
Of course it may also advert to the witches’ cauldron;
A third interpretation may be that out of the madness, cruelty and fanaticism of excessive
Puritanism in New England, a new American regime, a sort of stepping-stone to democracy
was emerging. It is well-known that these infamous trials sounded the death toll of the fanatic
Calvinistic theocracy that had prevailed in the northern colonies for many decades.

2.1.5 LORRAINE HANSBERRY (1930-)

Lorraine Hansberry has now become one of the icons of “gender studies” or “black studies” in
the United States, but she is still scarcely known in Europe, which may be accounted for,
sadly, by the fact of her untimely death at the age of 34 from cancer. She only left us a
handful of. As you may have realized, she had, so to speak “an agenda”, and no matter how
outmoded the phrase may now sound: she was one of the first successful black females
playwrights in the United States, and the period when she did become famous is all the more
relevant as it saw the beginning of what would later be called the civil rights movement. This
period is the late 1950s, and the year, more precisely, is 1959. The play which made her
famous, A Raisin in the Sun, was first performed in March 1959, and the result was amazing;
not only did it trigger rave reviews, but it also earned its author the very prestigious Drama
Circle Critic Award, an unprecedented distinction in Lorraine Hansberry’s situation (black,
young, and female). When the play was first produced, the momentous Brown V Topeka
Supreme Court decision of 1954 (that repealed the “separate but equal” ruling of 1986) had
only been there for 5 years, and the notorious Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas,
had only been desegregated two years before. In other words, the issues of racial integration,
the vote, and more generally, equality between the races were being hotly debated across the
nation. Against this background, A Raisin in the Sun was bound to achieve a powerful effect,
by using, as it did, art and literature as a weapon in the pursuit of political and social goals.

Lorraine Hansberry was born in 1930 in Chicago to a family that had achieved a respected
status in the city’s black community. They were middle-class, Republican, well-to-do, and
keenly aware of black people’s condition as well as of the necessity to commit themselves
politically for the progress of their race. Her own father was a realtor who was so involved,
politically, that he actually ran for Congress in 1940. In other words, they were a prominent
family, because they were wealthy, had connections, and were willing to contribute whatever
means they had toward promoting the social advancement of their own race. Until she was

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seven she and her parents lived in a Southside black neighborhood, then they moved out into a
white suburb, thereby violating the city’s “covenant laws” that countenanced housing
discrimination.
(Broadway cast; aired on ABC in Feb. 2008)

https://sites.google.com/a/apps.edina.k12.mn.us/american-lit-drama-unit/home/1st-hour-
raisin-1/story-of-a-raisin-in-the-sun-hansberry-s-motivation
The play is to a large extent inspired by this event: it makes us acquainted with a
black ‘matriarchal’ family living in cramped quarters in a rented flat on Chicago’s South side
in the 1950s. Three generations of women are seen trying to come to terms with the economic
difficulties that the household has to contend with, the most spirited and optimistic of them all
being the old « mama », full of soul and inspiration. She wants to use part of some insurance
money left by her deceased husband as down payment for a nice house in a better
neighborhood; but everything seems to go wrong: her son Walter uses part of the money to
buy a liquor store, only to be swindled out of the money by a dishonest partner. Finally, when
Mama goes ahead with her plan nonetheless, they are made to understand by the spokesman
for a residents’ association that their presence in the neighborhood is unwanted...

The title A Raisin in the Sun is an intertextual reference to a poem by Langston Hughes, about
black people’s hopes, which go dry and shrivel like a “raisin in the sun”.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+raisin+in+the+snu&FORM=HDRSC3#view=deta
il&mid=3E73B64EBE261BDFA6E83E73B64EBE261BDFA6E8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Raisin_in_the_Sun_2008.jpg
Broadway cast; aired on ABC in Feb. 2008

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2.2 LITERARY MOVEMENTS AND THEATRE ORGANIZATION

American Theatre Wing

The American Theatre Wing (Wing) is an organization which developed in New-York and
aimed at promoting excellence and education in drama. They created the Tony Awards,
which celebrates achievements in the domain of theatre and musical productions in
Broadway.

Context

Originally, in 1939, a group of women under the leadership of Rachel Crothers and Antoinette
Perry found the Wing in Manhattan. All the members were active in the Theatre of Broadway,
either as leaders or actors. Many persons had sustained "Stage Women's War Relief Fund" for
some time. Before the engagement of the USA in the World War II, the Wing created the
Stage Door Canteen in order to entertain the American soldiers.

At the end of the war, the Wing founded the Community Players in order to help the ex-
soldiers and their families at their return home. The Community Players was co-lead by
Katherine Cornell, who was very active in the Stage Door Canteen. The Wing continued its
action by organizing seminars on American Drama and financing scholarships. It sponsored
the First American Congress of Theatre or FACT), in 1974. It also created the Antoinette
Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre" or "Tony Awards", from the name of its co-founder.

The first representations of Tony Awards on radio and on screen were done locally, in New-
York. In 1967, they get associated with the League of American Theatres and Producers,
known today as The Broadway League in order to present this ceremony nationwide. From
1965 to 1998, Isabelle Stevenson had been the president of the American Theatre Wing. A
Tony Awards of Honor, which rewards humanitarian and charitable work, was nominated in
to honor her (Isabelle Stevenson Award).

Apart from the Tony awards, the American Theatre Wing works on many programs and
projects such as “Working In The Theatre", "Downstage Center", a weekly radio program
broadcast on XM Satellite Radio, free radio and video records on theatre, the program
Jonathan Larson Grants as a help to emerging creators of musical theatre, Springboard NYC
or the Theatre Intern Group, a social and professional network organization for theatre
trainees in New-York.

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PART III: STUDY OF SOME SELECTED PLAYS

3.1 EUGENE O’NEILL’S THE HAIRY APE (1922)

A SYNOPSIS OF THE HAIRY APE (1922)

SCENE 1
The play opens in the firemen's forecastle inside a transatlantic liner leaving New York City.
We are introduced to Yank who stands out as the leader of the men, a man who believes he is
not just fueling the ship in his job, but the world. Long has socialist views that Yank finds
cowardly, while elder fireman Paddy dreams of days gone by when the sailing ships used the
wind to power them across vast seas.
SCENE 2
We meet Mildred Douglas, the daughter of the steel tycoon who owns Nazareth Steel. She is
sitting with her Aunt sunbathing on the deck of the same transatlantic liner. Mildred and her
Aunt argue over Mildred's desire to do social work, which has led her to demand the Captain
allow her to visit the stokehole on the ship accompanied by the Second Engineer. Mildred
uses her family name to get what she wants from the Captain and demands that the Second
Engineer let her wear her white dress into the dirty depths of the ship's bowels as she will
throw it into the sea after her tour and wear one of the other 50 dresses she has on board just
like it.
SCENE 3
Mildred and the Second and Fourth Engineers have descended into the stokehole where Yank
and the other men are stoking the furnace that feeds the ship's motion. All of the men take
notice of and are stunned by the sight of Mildred, except for Yank. Yank meanwhile has been
savagely cursing the engineers whom he has his back turned to; when he turns around, he is
shocked to see Mildred, as is Mildred by him.
SCENE 4
Yank is found in the firemen's forecastle going over and over what has just happened in the
stokehole. The men believe he is in love, but Yank says he is in “hate” with Mildred for what
she has just made him to feel. He attempts to charge toward Mildred to get revenge, but all of
the men pile on him to stop him.
SCENE 5
Three weeks later, Yank and Long are found on Fifth Avenue in New York after the liner has
returned to the States. The men argue about how to go after and attack the upper class, and
Yank is still set on getting Mildred back. Churchgoers begin to come out onto the street and
Yank begins to forcefully try to speak to them. Long leaves, and Yank punches a gentleman
in the face. He is then arrested.
SCENE 6
The night of the following day, Yank is in prison on Blackwell Island. Yank compares the
prison to a zoo. One of the other prisoners tells Yank about the International Workers of the
World (IWW) after hearing how Yank got into jail, and tells Yank he should join if he wants
to get his revenge. Yank becomes enraged once again about Mildred and her father the steel
magnate and begins to bend the bars to his cell in an attempt to escape, but the guards hose
him.
SCENE 7
After being released from prison, Yank visits the IWW office to become a member. When he
mentions his plans to blow up the steel factory, the group suspects him of being a government

13
agent and throws him out onto the street. Yank now feels abandoned by all groups. A
policeman shows up and tells Yank to move on or he'll crack him over the head.
SCENE 8
The next night, Yank is at the Zoo. He sympathizes with a caged gorilla as he believes they
are the same. Yank releases the gorilla from behind its bars and approaches the animal to
shake its hand. The gorilla then attacks Yank, crushing his ribs. The gorilla tosses Yank into
its cage where Yank dies behind bars.

CHARACTERS AND CHARACTERIZATION

Robert “Yank” Smith

Born on the Brooklyn waterfront to a longshoreman father, Yank ran away from home to
escape beatings and his parents' fighting. He also worked on the waterfront until he shipped
off as a stoker, thus beginning the only life he has ever known. He is proud as the strongest
among the stokers, but his encounter with Mildred sends him into a spiral of doubt and rage.

Paddy
An Irish stoker on the ocean liner who seems to have lost hope in the world and wishes for the
more glorious days of sailing when the love of the sea was what drove a man. He alone is able
to exert some sort of influence over the stubborn Yank.

Long
A stoker on the ocean liner who tries to convince Yank, as well as the other stokers, to believe
in the Socialist cause, stressing to Yank that it is not a solution found by brute force but by
persuasion and the peaceful uprising of the working class. He takes Yank to Fifth Avenue to
try to awaken class consciousness in him, but finds that Yank only goes straight for violence.

Mildred Douglas
The daughter of the president of the Steel Trust, she expresses a desire to “know how the
other half lives” by witnessing the working class in its element. In this way, she desires to find
her place in the world and give herself a purpose somehow by helping the less fortunate,
though, despite this, O’Neill describes her as insincere and pretentious. She is ultimately
disgusted and terrified by Yank’s composure and outburst, calling him a “filthy beast” and
sending him on his quest to avenge his honor throughout the play.

Mildred's Aunt
Mildred's very reluctant chaperone on her trip to England, she finds her niece to be a poser.

Second Engineer
He takes Mildred down to the stokehole, though he is clearly very uncomfortable with her
excursion. He feels intimidated by her higher class.

Guard
A prison guard at Blackwell prison, he tells the prisoners to keep quiet, and when Yank starts
yelling, he hoses him.
Secretary of the I.W.W.
He is the primary representative for the International Workers of the World, O’Neill’s general
example of a worker’s union. As he listens to Yank’s understanding of what the organization
does, he becomes convinced rivals, in an attempt to mock or else spy on the union, have sent
Yank rather than Yank coming of his own volition.

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Stokers/Firemen
Workers in the stokehole on the ocean liner, they seem to be sheep easily led by whoever is
the strongest leader of the pack, usually Yank. They often tease other members of their crew
in unison, which makes their voices take on a “brazen, metallic quality” as if their throats
were gramophones.

Ladies and Gentlemen of Fifth Avenue

Citizens of the Upper Class, they are consumed by their own greed and materialism,
completely blocking out anything that is not of their kind, like Yank. They only notice Yank
when he becomes an obstacle to them living the life they are accustomed and are quick to
remove him forcibly when this happens.

 THEMES
Existentialism: Throughout the play, Yank is proud as the strongest among the stokers till he
is called a “filthy beast” by Mildred in scene three; he begins to rebel against the upper class
that he believes relies solely on him. After the insult, it became evident to Yank just what
little worth he was to them, thus inciting his rebellion against them. But he soon notices that,
his existence is unnoticeable to the upper class. His fight ends before he has even started it.
He gives the ultimate sacrifice, his life, to nothing. His liberation derives from the futility of
his existence. The liberation is seen in the final scene with the gorilla. Yank goes and meets
his symbolic equal in that to the upper class, they are nothing but beasts to exploit. Yank
comes to terms with his position in the world again and dies knowing that he belongs
somewhere.

Class conflict: As the socialist stoker, Long tells his fellow workers in a brief soapbox
speech, and Yank personally when the two visit Madison Avenue in New York, that he
believes they should realize the terrible state of their living and working conditions, and
realize the societal forces that determine them. According to Long, who is portrayed by
O'Neill as a one-dimensional, ideology-defined character, everything that is wrong in the lives
of the workers is the fault of the capitalist class, whom they should therefore overthrow.
Yank—and one senses O'Neill himself—is averse by disposition to any view that accepts that
there are forces outside of oneself that one cannot overcome by blunt force, but because of
this he comes up with a truly bizarre idea: "I mean blow up de factory, de woiks, where he
makes de steel. Dat's what I'm after—to blow up de steel, knock all de steel in de woild up to
de moon. Dat'll fix tings" (82). As the Wobblies who throw him out on to the street after
hearing this know, this sort of thinking is almost a parody of the socialist work they do.

Industrialization and dehumanization: At the end of his long elegy to the past age of
sailing, Paddy levels a challenge to the machine-loving Yank, posing against the latter's
modernist faith in the empowering potential of the machine a romantic respect for a kind of
essential humanity. Yank contemptuously rejects Paddy's ideas at first, but then throughout
the rest of the play he comes to realize that machine civilization in fact deprives him of his
power and furthermore of his humanity. Yank is only able to see the truth of the importance
Paddy places on basic humanity when he has already lost it himself; by that point Yank thinks
despairing that he has had none to begin with.

Social Darwinism: Notion of natural selection and fitness that Charles Darwin introduced in
his On the Origin of Species (1859), Herbert Spencer and others saw evolution as a life-or-

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death competition of strength in which only the strong would survive; significant is the
secularism of this worldview, in which everything is reduced to natural phenomena and no
higher ideals remain. For Yank, so long as he feels like the top dog, his world seems to
function perfectly; however, once he finds himself in a position of impotence—the sort of
situation for which he would have mercilessly criticized another—he implicitly senses the
emptiness of the way he looks at life.

Other themes include masculinity, the search for belonging, revenge, etc.

Topics:
1. Discuss oppression and class conflict in The Hairy Ape.
2. To what extent can we say that O’Neill dramatizes the Darwinist concept of the
natural selection in his The Hairy Ape?
3. The Hairy Ape is the “search for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the
rich.” Do you agree with this statement? Sustain your point of view with relevant
arguments.

3.2 ARTHUR MILLER’S DEATH OF A SALESMAN (1949)

 A SYNOPSIS OF DEATH OF A SALESMAN (1949)

“Death of a Salesman, Miller has said, is a ‘love story’ between a man and his son, and
in a crazy way between both of them and America.” (Bigsby 1992:86)

Act I

Initially, we are introduced to Willy Loman returning home, worn out, from an unsuccessful
attempt at driving to a business meeting. Linda, his wife, is worried and blames his inability
to drive on his poor health, whereas Willy confesses it is due to having strange thoughts.
Linda urges Willy to contact Howard Wagner (his boss) and ask for a transfer closer to
home (in New York). The couple discuss their sons Happy and Biff and Linda acknowledges
how she enjoys the atmosphere they create in the house. The sons overhear Willy downstairs
reminiscing and apprehensively discuss how unusual his behavior is. Willy’s memories reveal
how he idealized Biff, taking great pride in his athletic achievements and dismissing his
weaknesses. His unfailing admiration towards Biff frequently ignores Happy’s need for
attention. Willy even goes so far as to justify Biff’s bad behavior when Linda and Bernard
(Biff’s friend next door) criticize him.

Willy boasts to Linda the amount he sold on his latest trip, but is quickly forced to admit to
exaggerating, as well as revealing to his wife his self-doubt over his appearance and abilities.
Linda immediately reassures him whilst we hear The Woman laughing whilst Willy
continues to speak to his wife. The Woman dominates the conversation as it is made clear that
she is his lover. Linda begins to mend her stockings which angers Willy as it is a guilty
reminder of his betrayal. Happy hears Willy’s ramblings and goes downstairs to find a very
confused Willy talking of his dead brother Ben (similar to The Woman, Ben is only ever seen
by Willy). Happy surrenders trying to speak to him and leaves him to his daydreaming.

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Bernard’s father Charley who lives next-door overhears Willy and goes to visit him to have a
game of cards. Willy’s distress is evident when he addresses both Charley and Ben in
conversation. Supportively, Charley offers Willy a job, which is immediately refused. Willy
ignores Charley and remembers Ben’s visit where his brother told him of his great success. To
try and compete, Willy shows off his sons and encourages Biff to steal sand to rebuild the
front step. Willy and Ben are highly amused by Linda and Charley’s worries of Biff being
caught. Willy is thrown back to reality by Linda when she stops him leaving the house in his
pajamas.

Biff and Happy come to investigate what is going on, and Linda tells them about their
financial struggle and how their Father has become so worried, he has been attempting
suicide. Happy curses Willy, but Willy’s optimism is heightened as he hears Biff vowing to
find a job and stay at home. Happy suggests that the brothers start a sporting goods line and
they discuss asking Biff’s former boss Bill Oliver for some financial backing.

Act II
The next morning, Willy is still optimistic and decides to ask his boss for a non-traveling job
whilst Happy and Biff arrange a family meal to celebrate the launch of their new business.
Willy’s request is unsuccessful, despite an emotional plea. Willy reminisces about when he
was younger and refused the opportunity to go to Alaska, because he was convinced that
selling was the career for him. He also remembers Dave Singleman who inspired Willy to
become a salesman. Ben becomes impatient and fades, so Willy goes to see Charley.

Bernard is now a successful lawyer and father of two boys, Willy congratulates him and
wonders why Biff never succeeded. Bernard hints it could be connected to when Biff visited
him in Boston. Willy admits to Charley that he has been fired and Charley gives Willy some
money and offers him a job, to which he again refuses.

Biff tells Happy that he saw Bill briefly but didn’t speak as they wait in the restaurant for
Willy, he also realizes that he was never more than a shipping clerk for Bill. Biff recollects all
the lies that his family have told one another, Happy does not want to listen and so flirts with
a girl and arranges a double date. Later, Willy also refuses to listen to Biff, there is a call for
Happy which interrupts them, sending Willy to the washroom and his mind back to the past.
Willy remembers Biff’s horror at finding him in the hotel with The Woman in Boston and
how soon after he gave up college. Happy and Biff leave their father in the restaurant, leaving
Stanley (the waiter) to ensure that Willy gets home.

Linda is awaiting the boys return and has pieced together the evening’s events. She wants
them to leave as they insist on tormenting Willy. Biff is adamant that he wishes to see his
father and convinces him that he does in fact love him. Willy is overjoyed and seeks Ben’s
approval to his insurance scheme that will pay Biff $20,000 if he dies. Convinced that his
death will make Biff’s fortune, Willy kills himself.

Requiem
Happy is angered by his father’s death and refuses to admit that his own dreams of success
were as misguided as Willy’s were. Linda is both shattered and confused by his death as she
always depended on Willy’s dreams. Upon standing over his grave, Linda tells him that their
mortgage on the house is paid and that they are finally free for the first time. Charley and Biff
seem to understand the suicide, Charley recognizes Willy as a salesman in the truest sense of

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the word, whereas Biff forgives him and surrenders any further belief in his father’s beliefs
and can is now free to be himself.

 CHARACTERS AND CHARACTERIZATION

Willy Loman:
Willy Loman is a 61-year-old salesman living in Brooklyn with his wife and two sons.
Despite his age and the hardships that he has endured, he dreams of having his own business.
Willy lives by his faith in the American Dream, which he never achieves, but his dreams,
however misplaced they appear, have sustained him enough to bring up his family. Willy is
struggling financially, his work pays commission only and he is left wondering how he going
to afford the next bill. He has unrealistic ideas of his own and his families’ importance and
seems egotistical when he claims his popularity with the clients. Despite this self-confidence,
he lacks self-awareness, he is confused and frightened. He wants to secure his personal
dignity, something that Miller relates to the depression bearing its mark on Willy. He
perceives himself as a failure; he is growing old, is less productive and truly regrets his
unfaithfulness to his wife. By nature, he is contradictory; there is a clear disparity between
what he says and what he does. He is a salesman and lives by his ability to engage and make
people believe him; he focuses on personal details over quantifiable measures of success
believing that personality over figures garner success in the business world. Willy refuses to
face reality and so appears to be living in his own world failing to distinguish between the
past and the present. Nevertheless, many of Willy’s qualities are inspirational; there is a sheer
courage and nobility in Willy’s struggle – notably by his refusal to give up.

Linda Loman:
In many ways Linda is the strongest character in the play, both emotionally and through her
perseverance in supporting her husband. She is loving and loyal, acting submissively when
appropriate and decisively when it matters. She is a defender of everything that Willy stands
for, yet at the same time she is extremely aware of his nature. This puts Linda in an awkward
situation, she knows that he is irrational and difficult to deal with, yet goes along with his
fantasies in order to protect him from self-criticism and from criticism of others.
Occasionally, Linda appears to be taken in by Willy’s dreams for future success and glory, but
at other times retains a sense of realism. Despite everything she knows about Willy and what
he is doing, she does nothing to aggravate her husband. She supports his morale and protects
him at all costs, loving him and accepting all of his shortcomings. Linda is the negotiator of
peace in the family, keeping the family together and staying by Willy’s side until the end.

Biff Loman:
Biff is Willy’s 34-year-old number one son. Biff led an enchanted school life, he was the star
of the football team, had scholarship prospects, good friends and a following of admiring
females. Biff adored his father, believed his stories and accepted his philosophy on life – that
a person will be successful, providing that he is ‘well-liked.’ Biff never questioned Willy,
even when he was doing wrong. So unsurprisingly, Biff grew up disregarding social rules and
expectations. Biff perceived Willy as the perfect father, until he discovered his affair in
Boston. Biff failed math and so did not have enough credits to graduate, since then he has had
20/30 jobs every one of which he has been dismissed from. He dreams of a life in Golden
West (the frontier of civilisation, freedom and opportunities) but in reality, he is lost and
troubled. “I tell ya, Hap, I don’t know what the future is. I don’t know what I’m supposed to
want.” (Miller 2000:16) This indecisiveness and inability to settle causes further tension
between Biff and his father, but Biff has already rendered his father a ‘fake’ and despises

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everything he is and represents, but Biff, being his son, has incorporated a few of Willy’s
traits, notably his tendency to exaggerate and manipulate reality to his favour.

Happy Loman:
Happy is Willy’s 32-year-old son, he lives in his own apartment in New York, but during the
course of the play he is staying with his parent’s. All throughout childhood into adulthood,
Happy has always been in Biff’s shadow, he has always been Willy’s ‘second son,’ and has
become motivated to acquire attention from his family through showing off. He also tries to
constantly be on Willy’s good side and keep him happy, even if this does mean perpetuating
the lies and illusions that Willy lives in. Happy grew up listening to his father embellish the
truth, so it is not surprising that he has acquired this from him. Happy oozes confidence and
finds seducing women easy, he believes that ‘respectable’ women cannot resist him
(especially those engaged to his executives) and finds that having relationships with women is
a vengeful means of getting back at the men who have passed him on the career ladder. He
thrives on sexual gratification and the knowledge that he has ‘ruined’ so many women. “I hate
myself for it. Because I don’t want the girl, and, still, I take it and—I love it!” (Miller
2000:19) Happy is of a low moral character, he is always trying to find his way in life - even
when he is confident that he is on the right track. At the end of the play, he cannot see reality,
and like his father is adamant to continue in search of the dream.

Ben Loman:
Ben is Willy’s brother and is a symbolic figment of Willy’s imagination. Ben is self-assured,
rich and adventurous and Willy believes he is the epitome of all he desires. Ben represents his
idealist view of prosperity; he is symbolic of the American Dream and of his competitive
nature allowed him to succeed in a capitalist society. Willy has imaginary conversations with
Ben, where he continually misleads Willy with his talk of grandeur success and illusions.

Bernard:
Bernard is Biff’s cautious and studious friend, he is not as sporty or strong as the Loman
brothers and Willy dismisses him as ’not well liked.’ In many ways, Bernard possesses the
opposite characteristics Biff is taught makes a man great. He helps Biff academically; he is a
successful student and later becomes a successful lawyer. It feels almost as if Bernard
partially fulfils the role of Biff’s dad or is present to illustrate how successful Biff could have
been without Willy’s influence. “Just because he printed University of Virginia on his
sneakers doesn’t mean they’ve got to graduate him, Uncle Willy.” (Miller 2000:25) This
illustrates how in tune Bernard is with reality, in comparison to the other characters. Once
again, this illustrates Bernard is the one of the only characters in tune with reality. He cares
for Biff and wants to see him graduate. As Bernard matures, he retains a modest, responsible
and law-abiding attitude towards life; he has become a great man, without being well-liked or
extremely handsome.

Charley:
Charley is Bernard’s father and is the closest person that Willy has to a friend. He is content
with his life, a successful businessman and is an example of how you make a relative success
of your own life. Like his son, Charley too lacks the skills Willy associates with being
masculine.
He tries to make Willy face the reality of working life and is shocked at Willy’s lack of
respect for him, his ideals and his inability to distinguish reality from fantasy. Charley
becomes Willy’s sole financial support and even offers Willy a job, to which Willy refuses on
the basis of pride.

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The Woman & Miss Forsythe
The Woman is Willy’s out of town mistress, at first she makes Willy feel wanted, almost like
the salesman he imagines himself being. However, she is portrayed as being rather cold and
unemotional, merely seeing her encounter with Willy as being “Good for me” (Miller
2000:30). Thus, indicating that she is there to have a good time and benefit from the affair.
She picks Willy as he makes her laugh, and her laughter is heard many times throughout the
play reminding us of the frivolity and meaninglessness of what happened. Happy and Biff
meet Miss Forsythe and Letta at Frank’s Chop House and seems to be charmed by Happy’s
humour. It is suggested that they are prostitutes, although Miss Forsythe claims to be a cover
girl.

Howard:
Howard is Willy’s boss - a successful business man of 36, (not much older than Willy’s sons)
whose sole function in the play is to tell Willy that he longer has a job. Howard represents
what Willy can expect from the average member of the business society, somebody without
Charley’s kindness, he may symbolize the nature of a capitalist society. Nevertheless, he is a
reasonable man whom doesn’t allow emotion to affect his decision. Even at the end of the
scene, Howard should not be judged too harshly; his motto being “business is business.”

Letta & Jenny

Letta is with Miss Forsythe when they meet Happy and Biff at Frank’s Chop House and may
be comparable to The Woman whom Willy meets in his hotel in Boston. Jenny is Charley’s
secretary.

 THEMES
Man in society / Identity
Death of a Salesman addresses the loss of identity within a man in society, a man who cannot
accept change within himself or society – although at times Willy does acknowledge that he is
discovering new things about himself. Essentially, the play may be about identity and human
nature, and a common theme that runs throughout the play is that of the blurring between man
and society and how we cannot disentangle man from society, or society from man. Changes
are being made all around Willy for example, the advancement of technology. Willy Loman
represents a man in America who is struggling to move with the times, who is experiencing
feelings of mistrust towards consumerism and desperately trying to cling on to his old school
values and the promise of the American Dream – the idea that he is ‘well-liked’ and an
attractive man will enable him to acquire the material possessions and success promised in the
American Dream.

Topic: What do you think that Willy Loman represents as an American at that time?

Reality vs. Illusion

There are many references in the play to the idea of reality and illusion, for example Willy’s
fragile grip on reality is illustrated in his imagined conversations with his dead brother and his
denial and refusal to admit to the truth and face reality. Willy is struggling in a capitalist
world; he doesn’t own anything of material value and his work as a salesman does not pay the
bills. He is working on commission only at the beginning of the play, and towards the end we
see him lose his job. He develops the theory that his personality will automatically guarantee
him success, and this is a theory that all the characters disillusion themselves with at some

20
point during the play. In order for Willy to live by his ideals he has to build a fictitious reality
for himself that involves telling lies or exaggerating the truth for his own gain – for example,
he tells his sons how he can park anywhere in Boston and the police will look after it, and also
how vital he is to New England and to his clients. These exaggerations of the truth start to
replace reality in Willy’s mind. When Biff found out about Willy’s unfaithfulness he starts to
see his father as a fake, he begins to see reality as it is and abandons his father’s dreams. As a
result Willy’s life to start falling apart around him, he has nothing to live for except his
illusions and dreams of the past, before this secret was unearthed.

Topic: Why do you think that Miller allows us to see Willy drifting from reality into illusion
and what impact does this have on the play?

Family, Betrayal and Abandonment

There are many frequent emotions that dominate this play; for example: those of guilt,
innocence, truth and lies are all explored through the lens of the family and the character’s
role that they play in the family. Willy loves his family very much, but has become obsessed
with raising the ‘perfect’ son which highlights his inability to understand reality or to
communicate and listen to his sons own dreams and desires. In Willy’s mind, Biff is the
embodiment of promise; he is attempting to live his life through Biff. However, when Biff
discovers the affair, he is very quick to abandon his father’s ambitions for him. In Willy’s
eyes this was abandonment, and we can chart Willy’s life throughout the play as being
punctuated by rejection after rejection, each time leaving Willy in a greater state of distress.
Willy becomes fearful of abandonment and this fuels his desire to make sure he and his
family conforms to the American Dream.
We can pinpoint Willy’s stages of abandonment throughout the following stages in the play:
• His father left Willy and his brother Ben when they were very young leaving them no
financial or historical legacy on his departure. This made Willy determined that he was going
to make sure he left something for his sons.
• Ben departed to Alaska, leaving Willy with a warped vision of the American Dream.
• Willy was sacked from his job leaving Willy feeling unproductive, old and worthless.
• Willy was at the stage in believing that Biff was almost ready to succeed but Biff got fed up
with his father not listening to what he had to say and he and his brother left Willy in the
washroom. This reflects Willy’s inability to sell on the American Dream, the one product that
Willy believes in wholeheartedly. Willy feels that Biff has betrayed him and his way of life
whereas Biff feels that his father is a fake and has betrayed him with his endless stream of
lies.

Topics: As a director how would you present the relationship on stage between Willy, Biff
and Happy to illustrate the tension that lies between father and sons?

Daniel E. Schneider in Play of Dreams states that the play is really about a man and his sons.
Do you agree that the primary theme of Death of a Salesman is the conflict between father
and son and between first-born and second-born sons? Support your opinion.

Theatrical techniques
In his attempt to expose the real motives of Willy Loman, Miller resorts to theatrical
techniques that enable us to have a “privileged glimpse into his mind.” In exploring the
internal and external views of Willy’s motives, it is important to look at the theatrical
techniques that Miller employed to expose this.

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Naturalism
Naturalism is “a style of writing that aims to reproduce real life exactly on stage.” (Schiach
1995:144). In trying to replicate life on stage as it really is, naturalistic plays do not use
theatrical devices or conventions, but instead aims to convince the audience that they are
looking at an exact representation of real life on stage.
Death of a Salesman represents a naturalistic form in many ways; for example – Miller uses a
style of language that generally reflects the way in which American people did speak at that
time. In addition, there is a sense of naturalism in the content of the play – Willy is
representative of an American man in this period and the financial struggle Willy endures, the
relationships in the family unit and the general content is very characteristic of individuals
both then and now.
However, Death of a Salesman is not entirely naturalistic because if Miller wished to purely
represent real life on stage, we would not have characters drifting through walls meandering
from their past to the present, however he does seem to strive towards a notion of
psychological truth in the way in which our past ultimately affects our future. If Miller had
“restricted himself to showing everyday behavior, then some of the relationships he wanted to
expose could never be revealed. This is the reason why Arthur Miller mixes the changes in
time with the entirely realistic sequences, in order to show relationships which we could not
otherwise see.”

Symbolism
Miller uses symbolism where “language or even montage cannot convey meaning accurately
or economically.” Symbolism, in a sense, is a reaction against naturalistic techniques, it
allows a meaning to be conveyed without being to explicit.
In Death of a Salesman Miller uses certain elements in the play which become symbolic, for
example:-
Stockings: The stockings which Linda mends, but Willy gives his lover acquire a symbolic
significance. They acquire double meanings such as emotions of self-indulgence and
household drudgery. Stockings, at this time, where highly sought after but hard to obtain,
therefore Willy’s gift to his lover implies a complete lack of regard for his wife.
Hose: The hose acquires a symbolic reference to failure. The hose in Willy’s house is
attached to the gas main and allows him to sniff the gas, an action which confirms Willy’s
suicide wish and his desire to escape the realities of life – such as the loss of his job and his
failure to achieve the American Dream. In many ways, it also symbolizes a sense of grief and
deception – the grief Linda feels when she finds the hose, and the deception Willy possesses
when he denies its existence to Biff.
Tape recorder: This appears to signify change, a change in Willy’s life through the
advancement into modern technology. This highlights the end of Willy’s career. When
Howard sacks Willy from him job, there is a tape recorder in the room, which Howard seems
to be more interested playing with than talking to Willy.
Seeds: Willy feels he must leave something behind for Biff, as his father never did. Willy
wants Biff to succeed so symbolically plants seeds in the garden. This action is doomed to fail
as it is evident that no light will fall on Willy’s garden. This highlights Willy’s persistence to
seek reconciliation, but in reality it being doomed to fail, just like his dreams.

Topic: How does Arthur Miller use symbolism in his play as a language to expose the
workings of Willy’s mind?

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Expressionism
Expressionism is a theatrical technique which uses the stage to “create a scene symbolic of the
workings of a characters mind.” The main concern with expressionism was the creation of
images of the ‘inner self’ – a concept that was developed by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud in
the early twentieth century. Employing the expressionist theatrical technique allows the
audience to focus on the psychology of the piece, on the workings inside Willy Loman’s head,
rather than just on the social conditions of the play.
Expressionist devices include the following: -
· Montage and flashback
· Staging and set design
· Sound/musical motifs
· Lighting
· Costume

Sound / Musical motifs

When analyzing a live performance, it is important to take into account the sound qualities of
the piece. It is important that the production of Death of a Salesman also has an aural sense of
what is going on inside Willy’s head. Voices from the past cut into the present with echoes of
memories floating around at different points waiting to land with more solidity in a scene –
for example, The Woman’s laughter. Employing sound and musical motifs can help the
audience get a sense of the two different lives that Willy is leading, inside and outside of his
head. Miller uses music and sound to express the emotions of the characters in the play, there
are also many musical motifs
that are sounded, once established, they evoke certain time frames, values and competing
influences in Willy Loman’s mind. A few examples are:

The Flute
Arthur Miller instructs that the flute be played five times in Act 1, the precise melody is not
specified, but the music is integral to the action. We can notice the recurrence of the flute
music and we can see how it signifies to different things and various times. The first time we
hear it is at the very beginning of the play, as it says in the stage directions that "A melody is
heard, played upon a flute It is small and fine, telling of grass and trees and the horizon”
(Miller 2000:11) for Willy it conjures up notions of past references. For example – his father
made and sold flutes as a travelling salesman, this reveals something of Willy’s past desires
and dreams and a time when everything seemed possible. This evokes a mood of sadness, lost
dreams and sorrow; it may also symbolize Willy’s futile pursuit of the American Dream.

The lighting
Shifts in lighting register through direct sensory experience the cohering of time, and is often
used to make a smooth transition. Expressionism had done more than any other movement to
develop the expressive powers of stage lighting and without these sensory clues; the audience
may fail to appreciate the desperation of Willy’s state of mind.

Topic: Compare Miller’s expressionist design of drama with that of some Igbo film you
know. What is the role of the music and lighting in the context of the expressionist staging of
Death of Salesman?

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  SOCIOPOLITICAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS

Death of a Salesman was written at a period when America experienced some of its most
profound and affecting changes either politically, socially or culturally. In 1948, the election
of Harry Truman who defeated the republican Thomas Dewey despite the prediction by public
opinion polls that put the latter ahead showed a certain mistrust of some American citizens.
Besides, we have the event of the Cold War and the Great Depression of the 1930s during
which businesses went bankrupt thus sending individuals and families into financial burden.

3.3 LORRAINE HANSBERRY’S A RAISIN IN THE SUN (1959)

The title comes from the poem "Harlem" (also known as “A Dream Deferred”, 1951 by
Langston Hughes.

A SYNOPSIS OF A RAISIN IN THE SUN (1959)

At the beginning of the play, we are introduced to a black family poorly living in Chicago
Southside. Walter Younger, a man in his middle thirties, and his wife Ruth, his son Travis, his
sister Beneatha and his mother Lena (Mama) expect impatiently to take the S 10,000
insurance money after the death of Mama’s husband. Each member of the family is eager to
see his deferred dream come into reality. Thus, for Walter, what is needed is a liquor store.
Mama dreams of a house with a beautiful garden in the white neighborhood. Bennie would
like to study and become a doctor.

Eventually, Mama chooses to put some of the money down on the house in a white
neighborhood. Later, she gives the rest of the money to Walter for him to invest in his liquor
store despite her religious position against alcohol. She asks him to reserve S 3,000 for
Beneatha’s education. Clumsily, Walter gets into a foolery act, gives the money to his naïve
companion Bobo, who handles the money to Willy, Walter’s street-smart acquaintance. Willy
disappears with the money depriving Walter and Beneatha of the achievement of their
dreams.

Karl Lindner, a white representative generously offers to the Youngers to buy them out in
order to avoid interracial conflicts in the neighborhood. To the amazement of the three women
Mama, Ruth and Beneatha, Walter was about to accept the offer, while Mama reminds them
that they also as a black family were qualified to aspire to and live like their white neighbors.
Meanwhile, Beneatha’s life is being led by two men, namely her wealthy and educated
boyfriend George Murchison and Joseph Asagai. George epitomizes the “fully assimilated
black man” who, denies his African heritage with a “smarter than thou” attitude, which
Beneatha finds disgusting. Asagai, rather teaches Beneatha about her African heritage, gives
her thoughtfully useful gifts from Africa, while pointing out she is unwittingly assimilating
herself into the White ways. For example, she straightens her hair, which Asagai characterizes
as “mutilation.”

Joseph accuses Beneatha of materialism as she becomes distraught at the loss of money. He
asks her to marry him and move to Nigeria where she could get a new life and practice
medicine.

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Walter is caught in a conflictual appeal for identity — he thinks that his poverty would not
come to an end if he is still linked to Joseph’s culture and thus perceives George’s as a way
out to salvation; however, he finally redeems himself by changing his mind and advocating
black pride on the part of himself and his family. The play closes as the family moves to their
new home, but uncertain future.

The character Mrs. Johnson and a few scenes are often cut in reproductions. Mrs.
Johnson is the Younger family's neighbor. She is nosy and loud, and cannot understand
how the family can consider moving to a white neighborhood. Her lines are employed as
comic relief, but Hansberry also uses this scene to mock those who are too scared to
stand up for their rights.

 CHARACTERS AND CHARACTERIZATION

Ruth Younger: Travis’s mother, about thirty, known among her people as a “settled woman.”
Travis Younger: Ruth’s son (about 10), sturdy and handsome
Walter Lee Younger: a 35-year-old young man, lean and intense, inclined to quick nervous
movements, and erratic speech habit”, Ruth’s husband. He dreams of a liquor store for the
family.
Lena Younger (Mama): Walter’s and Beneatha’s mother, Travis’s grandmother, a beautiful
woman in her sixties, full bodied and strong.
Beneatha Younger: a slim, intense and educated woman of about twenty, wants to study and
become a doctor
Willy Harry: a street-smart companion of Walter, plans to do business with Walter but
absconds with the money
Bobo: Willy’s naïve sidekick, gives the money to Willy who disappear with it.
Joseph Asagai: a young black man, apparently focused despite his poverty, proud to be
himself, interested by Beneatha.
Karl Lindner: a white representative of the white neighborhood, asks the Youngers to buy
their house. His philosophy is “Separated, but equal.”
George Murchison: Beneatha's wealthy and educated boyfriend, epitomizes very well the
assimilated black individual
Mrs. Johnson: Younger family's neighbor, surprised at the idea of the Youngers’ leaving for
the white suburb.

Habibi Shabaz:

Moving Men:

 THEMES

Dream: Dreams are important in the play. It opens with the expectance of money that could
achieve the dream of each member of the family.
Racial discrimination, segregation: consider the characterization of Karl Lindner and his
idea of separation from the colored people.
Racial pride: Asagai (proud of his African heritage) vs George Murchison who is rather an
assimilationist.
Assimilationism: George Murchison rejecting his Africanism and associating with Western
culture.
Social injustice: Differences in employment, housing, education due to racism.

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  SOCIOPOLITICAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS

The play has been written in 1959, which corresponds to the time of conflicts between the
Assimilationists and Exclusionists. Thus, the 1950s are considered as the period of a debate
on Assimilationism.

A decade later, black people fight for the recognition of their rights and culture. They
advocate pride in their African heritage. The 1960s in the American context are known as the
period of the Civil Rights Movements accompanied with the Black Art Movement which is a
kind of affirmation of black American culture different from the mainstream culture. (Black
people want to be considered as part of America; they have their hopes for better life and want
to live as their fellows, the white people).

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CONCLUSION

From the study of the selected plays, it is an evidence that the discussed themes are up-to-
date. Then, the hope remains that an interest for further reading from the student has been
raised. Modern American drama offers an immensity of literary productions. As a major in
American literature, it is a paramount duty to get interested for further research. This will
surely nourish an elevated spirit.

GLOSSARY

1950s Assimilationism – policy and attitude of abandoning one’s former cultural heritage and
integrate a greater one.

1960s Civil Rights Movements ( - the 1954 Brown Vs Board of Education case, the Supreme
Court declares unconstitutional racial separation in public schools. – The 1955 Montgomery
Bus Boycott in Alabama; Martin Luther King is considered as the leader of the Civil Rights
Movements).

Black Art Movement- affirmation of black culture different from the mainstream American
culture.

Capitalism: profit, best societal model is the society of consumption, business is business.

Gender – Role and place of women in relation to men. Sex is biological, gender is cultural.

Naturalism- artistic and literary movement advocating realistic representation of life in art
and literature.

Realism – artistic and literary movement advocating objectivity, trustful facts in art and
literature.

Symbolism – beyond the superficiality of life, decipher meaning behind symbols.

The 1920s to 1930s Harlem Renaissance - This term is used to designate a period of cultural
activity by black American artists from the early 1920s through to the early 1930s. The
movement was marked by an emphasis on the African heritage of American blacks.

The American Dream – from rags to riches idea, America as the land of freedom and
opportunity. “Be a king in your dreams. Say to yourself: my place is at the top.” That
was what Andrew Carnegie always advised young Americans to do.

The Great Depression – 1930s financial crisis, banks went bankrupt, deeply weakened
families.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Bigsby, C. (1992). Modern American Drama 1945-1990: Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.
 Bloom, C. (1995). The American Drama. London: The Editorial Board.
 Dicos Encarta 2009. 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation
 Hansberry, L. (1959). A Raisin in the Sun. Bloomsbury.
 http://www.wikipedia.org.
 Hughes, L. (1951). “Harlem” or A Dream Deferred.
 Krasner, D. (2002) A Beautiful Pageant: African American Theatre, Drama and
Performance in the Harlem Renaissance, 1910-1927. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
 Miller, A. (1998). Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts
and a Requiem. New York: Penguin Books. First published in the USA by the Viking
Press 1949.
 Newbold, S. (2008). The Teacher Resource Pack: Arthur Miller’s Death of a
Salesman. York Theatre Royal in collaboration with The Central School of Speech
and Drama. London: University of London.
 O’Neill, E. (1922). The Hairy Ape. New York: Pantianos Classics.
 Soanes, C. and A. Stevenson, eds. (2009). Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th
edition, revised. Oxford, New York, U.S.A: Oxford University Press.

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