Pulitzer Prize for Drama

highly material culture inflicts. (Martin 4) While there is some disagreement as to what the effect of Willy’s actions ultimately will be on Biff after the curtain goes down, it is clear that Willy’s behavior destroyed the family unit as the Loman’s knew it and destroyed Willy as well. The play does, however, end with the focus on the remaining member of the Loman family. They are still a societal unit, and they must continue to live in the material modern world as best they can. Works Cited Baym, Franklin, Gottesman, Holland, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 4th ed. New York: Norton, 1994. Costello, Donald P. “Arthur Miller’s Circles of Responsibility: A View From a Bridgeand Beyond.” Modern Drama. 36 (1993): 443-453. Martin, Robert A., ed. Arthur Miller. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982. ---. Eight Plays. New York: Nelson Doubleday, 1981.…

Is Success Tangible? Arthur Miller’s 1949 play Death of a Salesman is a very powerful play that discusses not only the slow demise of Willy Loman, the aging salesman with two unsuccessful sons, but also highlights the different views that people can have regarding success. Willy Loman, the father of Biff Loman and brother of Ben, is a salesman who has dedicated his life to building up his reputation. His son Biff has spent much of his life trying to find a job he truly loves to do, but has…

Death of A Salesman, written by Arthur Miller in 1949, follows an aged salesman, Willy Loman, as he struggles to accept the reality of his failing career and misguided life principles. In this essay, I will examine the structure of the play and how Miller has used time and space to reveal character, present Willy’s faulty ideals, and foreshadow. The play is broken into two acts and a requiem: each segment takes place on a different day in the present day, within the world of the play. For the…

Does your family have any traditions or heirlooms that have a great significance? Maybe a great-great grandmother’s ring or an instrument that has been in the family for years. These parts of your history help shape who you are and who your family is. In August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, Berniece Charles denies and avoids her family’s history by not playing the piano and rejecting the existence of the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog. This reveals how embracing the past can be beneficial to present and…

Truth can only be obtained through multiple versions that support the claim. Just like theories can only become factual unless they go through experiments that support the hypothesis. The certainty of anything is a figment of the imagination derived from the truth and is closer to “an emotion” than anything concrete (Shanley pp 49). The problem with truth is that it is subjective to the eye of the beholder and everyone sees truth in a different light. The truth is tainted. Therefore the idea of…

Willy’s Recognition of his Failures In the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Willy struggles to get through while constantly having to deal with his failures that he has experienced in his life. Although Willy Loman is a good person in some extent, it is still evident that he knows that he has failed but the thoughts Willy plants in his head stops him from recognizing some of his failures. Throughout the play Willy’s failures are seen by his job, by recognizing that he has failed…

“Death of a Salesman.” The Bedford Introduction to Drama 6th Edition. Lee A. Jacobus. Boston: Bedford, 2009. 1070-1106. Print. "requiem, n.1." OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2015. Web. 26 June…

August Wilson in his play The Piano Lesson writes an enthralling drama surrounded in conflict, family history, and questioning the importance of the past versus future legacy. At the center of the conflict is Boy Willie and his sister Berniece as they clash over what to do with a family piano that used to belong to a slave owner of their ancestors. Berniece wishes to keep the piano and hang on to the history of their family’s ancestors. Boy Willie, on the other hand, wishes to sell the piano and…

A fallacy is a mistaken belief and today we see them all over the place. In the beginning of the movie, Sister Aloysius Beauvier thought that there was going to be a problem with Father Brendan Flynn and the little boy in the class (Donald Millers). The Father seemed to favorite the little boy and give him special treatment. The Sister thought that there was going to be an issue because of the Father that she had when was in school. After the boy had a meeting with the Father, the teacher smelt…

A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorrain Hansberry and Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, both demonstrate how the protagonists’, Walter Lee Younger and Willy Loman, strive for wealth and happiness within their families, but the distinction between the two characters is evident when Hansberry reveals how Walter Younger is able to overcome his struggles by standing up for himself and his family, while Miller exposes how Willy Loman’s mind is destroyed by the obstacles he faces. Both characters…