In Class Notes

What is a family?

o  Intergenerational pain relating to and expectations between family members.

o  What is hidden behind the picket fence?

o  They relate to each other through their ideals.

o  This is a dysfunctional family desperately trying to not be.

o  No one is quite sure who they are in the family.

o  The sons try so hard to please him in hope of getting approval and live but hate him because they see that as they only way to get approval.

The death of the dream that any man can achieve anything.

·      Willy is the anti-Gatsby.

·      Gatsby becomes everything America represents: self-made, rich, from a poor background, upward mobility.

·      Willy is stuck in the middle class. He never gets to achieve what he was told is achievable by living the life he led. Acknowledging failure.

·      Willy was well liked in his profession and now that is taken away.

·      We never get a real sense of who he was. Everything is so blurred between real and fantasy.

Fear of change.

·      The house in a changing landscape. The house as symbolic of life in America. The world is literally changing around him.

Old play with modern worries.

o  Romans also wrote this worry. There was concern with how the family and society will be washed away by changing times.

o  The salesman as the oldest profession. 

o  How does the aging man bow out of his role as provider and leader?

Coming to terms with being obsolete. The fantasy that lived beneath their function. And when you take his functionality all that is left is the dream. Which is not real.

Linda as a character.

Biff is older 34 and is on a downside. Father hold out hope for him. Disenchanted. Silly adores him but also thinks he's lazy. Is nothing because he doesn't have the American Dream.

Happy is more coming of age. More like Linda and want Willy's approval.