1990. Choose a novel or play that depicts a conflict between a parent (or a parental figure) and a son or daughter. Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of the conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid plot summary.
In Arthur Millers, "Death Of a Salesman", the main character, Willy Loman, is a poor business man who is constantly striving to simply be "well-liked", for he believes this will be the key to his success. His first born son, Biff Loman, is equally unsuccessful, but disagrees with his father on most things, leading to conflict between the two throughout the play. In "Death of a Salesman", Arthur Miller uses the father-son relationship between these two lead roles to present the American Dream in a negative light.
The first conflict that started years of fighting occurs at the end of Biff's high school career, when Biff fails to graduate from High school because of failing a math class. When Biff realizes what is about to happen, he goes to see Willy, and ends up catching him in the middle of an affair Willy is having with another woman in a hotel room. Biff sees his father completely differently after this incident and wonders whether he can trust him about anything. All his life Willy has filled his son with "hot air", constantly praising him and creating the ideal, perfect world in his head. This is why it was so devastating when Biff caught him in the hotel room.
Willy pushes superficial ideas on Biff as he is growing up, telling him that being well-liked will get him far in life, when in fact, Biff finds out this is not at all true. Because of Willy's unsuccessful business success and mistakes in parenting and his marriage, Biff is able to see the falsity of the American dream.
I think you picked a really good work for this prompt; Death of a Salesman applies perfectly. Again, you have some minor mechanics errors, so I'd suggest that you reread through things before you post them. I also think that you summarized a little too much; you analyzed the work as you were summarizing, but I think you could have done a little more analyzation and less summarization. Other than that, I think you backed up the prompt well with really good evidence, and did a good job relating it to the work as a whole.
ReplyDeleteWatch your punctuation around quotes; commas always go inside and no comma is needed after "Arthur Miller" at the start. And then apostrophes and whatnot as well.
ReplyDeleteYour essay is a good summary of the problem, but I feel you could get more specific to allow you to include more, and you wait until the end to really relate it to the question. Your ideas are solid but currently you summarize the plot and only talk about the affair. You could mention that he failed the math class because until that point Willy told him to cheat off Bernard. Or about how Willy taught Biff stealing was alright. He made poor decisions all through Biff's childhood in addition to the "be well-liked" stuff. And in the present, you could analyze the fights we see them having.
And all through the paper, make sure it's clear we're still talking about how Miller is using this relationship to examine the American Dream.
I think this needs more depth to it. You definitely need more detail and maybe embed some quotes to enhance your points. Also the mechanical errors, but those are an easy fix! You picked a very good piece to do. It definitely is a father son comparison!
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