       Welcome to the Death of A Salesman Assignment: Have Patience!

       I have changed the Due Date for the Essay to May 08, 1996, cpb
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                                                                    [Image]

                      George C. Scott as Willy Loman,
                           returning from Yonkers
                  (Circle in the Square Production, 1975)

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General Instructions: As advertised above (change from the Reading Syllabus
for En 07,) by class time on May 08 I am to receive a critical essay of
about four pages on Arthur Miller's famous playDeath of a Salesman. The
essay must reach me both as a traditional paper copy and as a Macintosh
document in Microsoft Word 5.1. I have developed a Style Sheet, outlining
the specific document conventions you need to observe when producing a
printed, not typed, document, for your convenience. Be forewarned, you'll
probably have to forget a few of the rules your old typing teacher taught
you. the Mac is not a typewriter, and we should take advantage of its
ability to reproduce the standards of the traditional print shop! Failure
to meet all terms will result in a penalty, unless I can be persuaded to
modify the terms. For additional information on revising papers, my grading
policies, etc., click here.

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The Issue in Descriptive Form: Arthur Miller, as his famous essay attests,
thought of Willy Loman, the protagonist of his Death of a Salesman, as a
tragic hero. According to Miller, Willy Loman's social status (or lack
thereof) is inconsequential. I agree; however, I wish to object to Miller's
central assertion on the grounds that Willy Loman fails to meet the
critical requirement for a tragic protagonist, a requirement recognized
since the days of Aristotle: he is not somebody I could possibly look up
to. I can't think of Willy Loman as somebody I could possibly call "noble."
As I see it, Willy Loman lacks "nobility"--which has nothing to do with
social status and other such externals. I find him a "pathetic" character.
Willy Loman never achieves the kind of insight into himself I "demand" of a
would-be tragic protagonist. Instead of searching for the truth, including
the truth about himself, Willy Loman tells Biff he does not wish to hear
it, preferring to persist in his silly notion of what matters in life and
ending it all by avoiding to face the consequences of a life spent in
pursuit of phoney values and filling his sons with hot air. I don't believe
that "attention must be paid" to Miller's protagonist. I see hope in Biff,
though, and I pity Linda. Even his suicide, far from being of the kind of
awful act we see Othello commit, turns out to be another escape from
reality: Linda won't even get the life insurance premium, as far as I can
tell, and Willy Loman ought to have known that.

In your essay of circa four pages (usual technical stipulations) try to
respond to my challenge; it does not matter where you come down, so long as
you provide sufficient, specific support from the text of Miller's popular
play for your conclusions. If you have ideas or a draft you want to have me
respond to, stop by my office with everything you want me to review on
paper. Good Luck

New Due Date: May 08, 1996.

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