scholarly journals Study on the Changing Connotation of the American Dream in Death of a Salesman

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. p56
Author(s):  
Shuaiqi Chen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
American Dream ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Revolutionary War ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Arthur Miller ◽  
Death Of A Salesman

Arthur Miller is considered one of the greatest American playwrights of the twentieth century. His masterpiece—Death of a Salesman—tells a tragic story about an ordinary American and chronicles the changing connotation of the American dream. The American dream originates from the puritan spirit, develops in the Revolutionary war and distorts as society changed. The essay attempts to reveal the changing connotation of the American dream reflected in this play by analyzing the representative character portrayed by Miller. On the basis of a better understanding of the play, the great influence of values in different time, such as the American dream, on ordinary people are expected to be learned.

scholarly journals The Idea of Tragedy in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and A View from the Bridge

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Hanyue Li
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Arthur Miller ◽  
The Times ◽  
Twentieth Century America ◽  
Death Of A Salesman

Arthur Miller is acknowledged as a heavyweight in portraying ordinary life’s tragedy in twentieth-century America. He believes that tragedy is no longer confined to the kingly man placed aloofness from others; he denies rigid definitions of traditional Greek tragedy and enriches them to keep abreast of the times in modern society. Most Miller scholars, unfortunately, are still preoccupying themselves with Death of a Salesman. Available criticism of these two plays is scant and not extensive. This paper studies both the ostensible structures of standardized Greek tragedy and the hidden ideas of modern tragedy as they are intertwiningly applied to the two texts to see how Miller expresses his idea of modern tragedy behind the shield of Greek tragedy and how it gives a new lease on the life of antiquated classical tragedy in modern society.

scholarly journals Dysfunctional american dream reflected in arthur miller’s death of a salesman

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivana Nabilah Qoriroh Mujahidah ◽  
Agista Nidya Wardani
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
American Dream ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Research Paradigm ◽  
Arthur Miller ◽  
Mimetic Theory ◽  
Death Of A Salesman ◽  
Descriptive Qualitative

The research aims to find the dysfunctional American Dreams; the causes of dysfunctional American Dreams and the effects of dysfunctional American Dreams experienced by the main character, Willy Lowman, as a representation of American society.This paper is examined by applying descriptive qualitative research paradigm which is naturally interpretative. Thus, the key instrument is the researcher herself who has the authority in managing and analyzing the data, and certainly producing meaning in the process of discussion and interpretations. Moreover, to facilitate her in collecting and identifying the data, she used supporting instrument in the form of table. This study, theoretically, applied the mimetic theory as the research approach.The researcher found that Arthur Miller uses the character of Willy Loman to represent the failure of the American Dream. Willy’s quest for the American Dream leads to his failure because throughout his life he pursues the illusion of the American Dream and not the reality of it. The unachievable part of Willy’s view of the American Dream is perfection. He has subordinated by the capitalism in which Willy belongs to the proletariat where his dream is a utopia.  HIGHLIGHTS: The character of Willy Lowman represented the failure of American Dream because throughout his life he pursues the illusion of American Dream. Some misperceptions of American Dream have made Willy living in utopia and committing a suicide. The study represented that not all Americans or immigrants have the same perception of the American Dreams and not all of them can reach the dreams

The Evolution of American Dramatic Realism

2019 ◽  
pp. 505-526
Author(s):  
Eileen J. Herrmann
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Tennessee Williams ◽  
Arthur Miller ◽  
American Drama ◽  
August Wilson ◽  
David Mamet ◽  
Sam Shepard ◽  
Rachel Crothers ◽  
Susan Glaspell

Realism in American drama has proved its resiliency from its inception at the end of the nineteenth century to its transformation into modern theater in the twentieth century. This chapter delineates the evolution of American realistic drama from the influence of European theater and its adaptation by American artists such as James A. Herne and Rachel Crothers. Flexible enough to admit the expressionistic techniques crafted by Susan Glaspell and Eugene O’Neill and leading to the “subjective realism” of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, realism has provided a wide foundation for subsequent playwrights such as David Mamet, August Wilson, and Sam Shepard to experiment with its form and language.

scholarly journals The Capitalized society subjugates the weak: Perspectives; Death of a Salesman

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 114-120
Author(s):  
Azmi Azam
Keyword(s):  
American Dream ◽  
Capitalist Society ◽  
The Family ◽  
Great Pain ◽  
Death Of A Salesman

Death of a Salesman is centered on one man trying to reach the American dream and taking his family along for the ride. Loman's life from beginning to end is a troubling story based on trying to become successful, or at least happy. Throughout their lives, the family encounters many problems and the end result is a tragic death caused by stupidity and the need to succeed. During his life, Willy Loman caused his wife great pain by living a life not realizing what he could and couldn't do. Linda lived sad and pathetic days supporting Willy's unreachable goals. Being brought up in this world caused his children to lose their identity and put their futures in jeopardy. At the end, we certainly realize what are the forces that led Loman towards his death. His society enforces him to embrace death as the possible solution, and society helps him to act like a brute. His family is brutally treated to its doom and uncertainty though he sacrifices himself in the alter of a capitalist society that brutally holds the oppressive guillotine of manipulation, exploitation and profit-making attitude.

Excessive Profits

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wuthnow
Keyword(s):  
American Dream ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Economic Crises

This chapter discusses how the wealthy provided a contrasting category—an “other”—that offered ordinary, nonwealthy Americans ways to think about who we were by discussing who we were not. The wealthy had what everyone else presumably wanted: money, power, lavish homes, the wherewithal to live in luxury. They could be the standard to which ordinary people aspired, the best evidence that the American Dream could be attained. However, popular discussions frequently set them apart negatively. Their wealth and power seemed excessive, undemocratic, perhaps immoral, and at times harmful to the well-being of society. Criticism increased during economic crises and when concentrated wealth seemed to be accumulating at everyone else's expense. Critics said the wealthy were greedy, shallow, unfair, manipulative, perhaps guilty of fraud, and on occasion guilty of profiteering. The criticisms also reflected ideals to which ordinary people were expected to adhere.

Coming to Everyman

2019 ◽  
pp. 119-142
Author(s):  
Steven J. Osterlind
Keyword(s):  
Probability Theory ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Calculus Of Variations ◽  
Celestial Mechanics ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Morality Play

This chapter focuses on how quantification began to increase in the everyday life of ordinary people, who are represented in this chapter by the allegorical figure “Everyman” (from the fifteenth-century anonymous morality play Everyman). It discusses the invention of the chronometer and explores the effect that the increasing availability of luxury items such as sugar, as well as the quantifying ideas that were coming into use at that time, had on the general populace. The chapter then introduces Pierre-Simon Laplace, who assiduously worked to bring the newly formed probability theory to Everyman, especially through his efforts on the orthodrome problem in Traité de mécanique céleste (Celestial Mechanics), his ideas on scientific determinism (symbolized by “Laplace’s demon”), and his General Principles for the Calculus of Probabilities. The chapter also introduces Joseph-Louis Lagrange, whose work on the calculus of variations had a great influence on Laplace.

Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas (1804–72)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Martin Sass
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Religious Orientation ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Radical Critique ◽  
I And Thou ◽  
God's Love ◽  
The Future ◽  
Moral System

Ludwig Feuerbach, one of the critical Young Hegelian intellectuals of the nineteenth century, has become famous for his radical critique of religious belief. In Das Wesen des Christentums (Essence of Christianity) (1841) he develops the idea that God does not exist in reality but as a human projection only, and that the Christian principles of love and solidarity should be applied directly to fellow humans rather than being regarded as an indirect reflection of God’s love. In religion, the believer ‘projects his being into objectivity, and then again makes himself an object of an object, another being than himself’. Religious orientation is an illusion and is unhealthy, as it deprives and alienates the believer from true autonomy, virtue and community, ‘for even love, in itself the deepest, truest emotion, becomes by means of religiousness merely ostensible, illusory, since religious love gives itself to man only for God’s sake, so that it is given only in appearance to man, but in reality to God’ (Feuerbach 1841: 44, 48). In Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft (Principles of the Philosophy of the Future) (1843) he extends his criticism to all forms of metaphysics and religion: ‘True Dialectics is not the Monologue of the sole Thinker, rather the Dialogue between I and Thou’, he writes in paragraph 62 (1846–66 II: 345), criticizing in particular his former teacher Hegel. The philosophy of the future has to be both sensual and communal, equally based on theory and practice and among individuals. In an anonymous encyclopedia article (1847) he defines his position: ‘the principle from which Feuerbach derives everything and towards which he targets everything is "the human being on the ground and foundation of nature"’, a principle which ‘bases truth on sensuous experience and thus replaces previous particular and abstract philosophical and religious principles’ (1964– III: 331). Feuerbach’s sensualism and communalism had great influence on the young Karl Marx’s development of an anthropological humanism, and on his contemporaries in providing a cultural and moral system of reference for humanism outside of religious orientation and rationalistic psychology. In the twentieth century, Feuerbach influenced existential theology (Martin Buber, Karl Barth) as well as existentialist and phenomenological thought.

Neumann, John von (1903–57)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Rosmaita
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Computer Architecture ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Computer Architectures ◽  
Von Neumann ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

Von Neumann was one of the great mathematical minds of the twentieth century. His work has affected philosophy on several fronts, including logic and the philosophy of science. He also had great influence upon developments in the philosophy of mind: the computer model of mind employed during the middle-to-late twentieth century was explicitly based upon the von Neumann computer architecture. Although late twentieth-century philosophy of mind has largely rejected the von Neumann machine as a model of brain activity, his pioneering work in cellular automata has provided a basis for subsequent development in ‘distributed’ or ‘connectionist’ computer architectures.

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