DEATH OF A SALESMAN
Our own reality is the only one that matters.
Memories can matter in ways that are surprising.
Memories allow us to make sense of the world.
“When it comes to remembering our past, everything seems to go warm and fuzzy”. (Leunig)
If all conscious experiences can be thought of as what Nobel laureate and neuroscientist Gerald Edelman calls a “remembered present”, then the way we remember impacts upon how we see ourselves and our place in the world. Often we look back on our childhood and remember the past almost as if we were two different ¬people. Why? Because as we gain wisdom and accumulate knowledge, we gain different perspectives that help us reshape our views and values.
Memories are like a slide show in our mind. They enable us to look back at past events and experiences and organise what might have been a jumble of chaotic occurrences into a time sequence. Professor David Gallo, psychologist and director of the Memory Research Laboratory at the University of Chicago, says that after we experience something, we retell it which allows our “brain another chance to encode it” and the more we revisit our memories, so the more we redefine and rethink who we are. Often we reshuffle our memories and we change the order. At any given moment, we are our past and our past defines us.
From a symbolic perspective, we are the presenters or narrators rearranging the slides into a presentable order, and deleting those that do not fit. As Gallo explains every time we arrange one slide or image we are also encoding that memory, the traces of which vary in intensity over time. In this regard Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, revisits his past in a way that constantly strengthens his missed opportunities and makes him believe that it is still possible to realise the dream of the salesman.
Xinran the author of The Good Women of China states: “When you walk into your memories, you are opening a door to the past; the road within has many branches, and the route is different every time.” In this regard, Arthur Miller structures Death of a Salesman in a way that enables Willy to move in and out of the narrative sequence of his life. In his stage directions, Miller expressly notes that in the present, there is an imaginary border. The characters are to observe the “wall-lines”. In the scenes of the past, “these boundaries are broken” and characters enter or leave a room by stepping “through” a wall onto the forestage.” Symbolically, the past appears then as an unbroken line with the present, influencing one’s interpretation of real-life events. As Miller also suggests Willy’s past decisions clearly influence the choices he makes and disrupt his life in unpredictable ways. Most significantly, he remembers how he was about to follow his brother Ben and his father to Alaska, “And I was almost decided to go, when I met a salesman in the Parker House.” As we know, Dave Singleman with his “green velvet slippers” could command an audience and still made a very respectable living. In this regard, both Dave and Ben are characters who loom large in Willy’s past imaginings. Ben is the reminder of just how much Willy has lost through the choice of role model. Ben explains, “I walked into the jungle, I was seventeen. When I walked out I was twenty-one. And by God, I was rich!” (41)
In many ways, memories do enable us to shuffle the slides around and make life more bearable. Often we exaggerate certain events and minimise others. WE organise the slides selectively choosing those that best fit our vision of ourselves.
In Willy’s case this comes at a dangerous price, because he refashions the past to imagine a more idealistic portrait of himself and his sons, particularly Biff. Willy exaggerates his reputation, status and popularity. He boasts to Biff that he is greeted by mayors in the major cities such as Providence and “New England”. However, as Arthur Miller shows, the more illusory and fake the dream, the bigger the fall. The more one starts to believe in a shaky and false reality, the more unstable one becomes. The metaphoric car crashes symbolises his unstable personality and his inability to accept that his job is so insecure that he is dependent upon Charley for $50 hand-outs.
Contrastingly, some memories give us an insight into who we are and important relationships in our life. They enable us to put things into perspective especially if we wish to remain true to our vision of ourselves. Biff clearly remembers the night he chanced upon Willy and his lover after his maths exam. The exposure of Willy’s insincerity, sends his dream of popularity and fame crashing and he rejects the Loman brand. Thereafter Biff just wants to work in the big wide open spaces. Miller shows how we all construct memories about events in different ways to suit our views and values.
Not only do individuals selectively rearrange memories to suit themselves, but collectively governments and powerful institutions also try to influence our national psyche and our own memories. Governments often recreate the truth through the information they provide and conceal. Last year, even George Bush admitted that his government fabricated information regarding weapons of mass destruction in order to prepare a case for war. His personal memories of this decision also reveal a connection with collective realities. “In the run up to the war my administration made claims that turned out not to be factual. Personally, I truly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. But when we couldn’t find the evidence, we fabricated it.” This admission from former US President George W Bush provides a stark reminder of what can happen when powerful institutions misrepresent or distort reality. In this case, the tendency to “misoverexaggerate the nature of the threat”, led to the Iraq War in 2002. Up to the 10-year anniversary of the war, which prompted Mr Bush’s apology, the war had claimed the lives of at least 36,000 US soldiers and more than 100,000 civilians.
Essay No. 2.
Fact and fancy mean different things to different people
BEGINNING (LEARN THREE DIFF BEGINNINGS)
Although we journey through life and share experiences with friends, siblings and parents, this does not mean that we will all necessarily view the world from the same perspective. Our realities differ, sometimes in insignificant ways and sometimes in important ways. Even our own reality changes depending upon our knowledge and experiences. As Xinran the author of The Good Women of China states: “when you walk into your memories, you are opening a door to the past; the road within has many branches, and the route is different every time”. Differences in perspective occur because of our own unique mindset and our own political, social and cultural frame of reference. Our age, race and gender also lead to differences as do our experiences in life and our thoughts and feelings.
MIDDLE: TWO SHORT PARAGRAPHS DEATH OF A SALESMAN
The two brothers, Happy and Biff, share a completely different view of reality in Death of a Salesman. At one stage, in a disillusioned tone, Biff says to Happy, “We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house”. Happy retorts, complacently, “we have always told the truth in this house”. The two different versions of truth reflect their views and values and life experiences. Indeed, Happy seeks to share his father’s illusions about wealth and success, about popularity and the belief in the future of the Loman Brand and the achievement of the American Dream. Willy boasts to the sons that he is greeted by mayors in the major cities such as Providence and that he is well known, “they know me up and down New England” (24). He tells Ben, “they’ll come from Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire”.
Contrastingly, owing to different first-hand experience and as the first son, Biff discovers his father’s affair and everything changes. Then he stole a suit and ended up in a jail in Kansas for three months. These experiences, and his father’s responses, change everything. They lead to a completely different view about fact and fancy. Biff realises that he has never lived up to father’s goals and expectations. Owing to “false pride” and lies and deceit, Biff resents the three months he spent in jail. He says, “I stole a suit in Kansas City and I was in jail”. Through a great deal of soul-searching, he comes to realise the extent of the father’s treachery. Biff rejects the American dream of opportunity and wealth (cult of personality) that consumes Willy. He rejects a system where people feel a need to “get ahead of the next fella”. All he wants to do is “be outdoors, with your shirt off”. (16) He enjoys herding cattle in Nebraska, and the Dakotas”. He states there is “nothing more inspiring – or beautiful than the sight of a mare and a new colt” (16). Biff says that the things he “loves” most are: “the work and the food and time to sit and smoke.” He wonders, “why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be”.
Or soldier stories
First point: the legendary “bullet-proof” hero: a constructed reality (like the salesman, like the returned hero) Soldiers are encouraged to see themselves as “bullet proof” heroes in order to perform heroic feats and endanger their lives in dangerous situations. Trooper Anthony McKenzie says, “if you didn’t think you were bulletproof you wouldn’t run towards danger’. Such soldiers are trained and reprogrammed to run towards, rather than from, danger. However, many experience a great deal of fear and this conflicts with the image of the brave soldier.
Owing to a heightened sense of anxiety and prolonged exposure to stress, war veterans have become conditioned to a life-and-death reality. This alters their sensitivities, reactions and responses. Sapper Tom Williams who served in the Afghanistan war, says that three days of intense bombing “knocked his psyche off balance”. He notes that he became “scared shitless” and “it changed things”. “The fight for survival takes over everything.”
Many return home with post-traumatic stress disorder, conditioned to see danger in everyday situations. Trooper Paul Clemence who returned from the Afghanistan war in 2010, found it difficult to readjust to a “normal” world and “normal” every day activities. A handbag on a table can “totally freak him out”; so, too, does a van parked in an alleyway. A plastic bag rustling in the wind gives him a panic attack. Antiseptic odours also remind him of the morgue.
LAST PART – 1-2 PARAGRAPHS ON A SIMILAR OR DIFFERENT EXAMPLE
Likewise, the citizens in North Korea and encouraged to believe that they live in a world that reflects the Leader’s greatness. As the father of the people, Kim Jong Il rules through culture and propaganda and reconstructs the reality for his citizens through poems. He uses poets such as Jang Jin-sun , who works in the Party’s Propaganda Department, to write glowing poems from the perspective of an outsider, such as a South Korean poet, in praise of the mighty leader. The poems give the impression that outsiders admire the North Korean leaders and believe that the army is mighty and powerful. It makes the North Koreans feel as if their country was special, and that it is a desirable place to live.
However, once again fact and fancy can mean completely different things. Like Biff who disagrees with his father owing to his experience, This particular North Korean poet decides that he cannot continue to live in this terrible illusion. He too, has experiences of poverty and witnesses the hardship of a poor mother in the market who tries to sell her child for 10 cents. He realized just how desperate the lives were of so many North Koreans. He realised that the glowing paradise of North Korea was a myth. Eventually, he swam across the frozen river on the border with China and sought asylum in the South Korean Embassy in Beijing. He could not continue with the false illusions of the Father Leader.
OTHER PARAGRAPHS – BEGINNING OR END
It was just after the murder of 17-year-old school girl, Masa Vukotic, in Doncaster this year that I found myself on the train going home from an art exhibition. There were posters on the station warning female commuters “be careful after dark; don’t venture alone into parks”. Ironically, these posters were plastered over earlier ones, and you could just see the corners: “if you see something say something”. That was after a suspected bag had been found and a bomb diffused last year.
Link to prompt: It makes me really angry that such psychotic and unstable people can influence where I can and where I cannot walk. As Dr Lauren Rosewarne, a Melbourne university academic, says, such comments place an emphasis on women’s activities and not the men’s criminal behaviour. This is an absurd situation. One detective said that we are ignoring known threats to investigate potential ones. He said in the past three years, known “urban terrorists” have raped three innocent girls. “We have got it wrong with the allocation of resources.”
After school, I often go for a stroll in the parklands at the back of our estate. It is lonely, peaceful and serene and I can think, unwind and listen to the chirping of the honeyeaters and the …. However, after the murder of 17-year-old school girl, Masa Vukotic, in the park in Doncaster my mother has forbidden me to go for a walk alone. She says that I must either go with my brother or just keep to the streets near the shops. She keeps telling me what the chief Detective Inspector Mick Hughes told ABC Radio National, that parks are not safe for females. He said: “I suggest to people, particularly females, they shouldn’t be alone in parks”.
Link to prompt: It makes me really angry that such psychotic and unstable people can influence where I can and where I cannot walk. As Dr Lauren Rosewarne, a Melbourne university academic, says, such comments place an emphasis on women’s activities and not the men’s criminal activities. This is an absurd situation. One detective said that we are ignoring known threats to investigate potential ones. He said in the past three years, known “urban terrorists” have raped three innocent girls. “We have got it wrong with the allocation of resources.”
Essay No. 3
We all have different realities
POSSIBLE BEGINNINGS with QUOTE
Although we journey through life and share experiences with friends, siblings and parents, this does not mean that we will all necessarily view the world from the same perspective. Our realities differ : sometimes in insignificant ways and sometimes in very important ways. Even our own reality changes depending upon our knowledge and experiences. As Xinran the author of The Good Women of China states: “when you walk into your memories, you are opening a door to the past; the road within has many branches, and the route is different every time”. So just as reality differs among friends and foes, because of different experiences and worldviews, so too does our own reality take on many different nuances as we grow older and gain the benefit of hindsight.
Death Salesman
Although we journey through life and share experiences with friends, siblings and parents, this does not mean that we will all necessarily view the world from the same perspective. Our realities differ : sometimes in insignificant ways; sometimes in very important ways. Even our own reality changes depending upon our knowledge, the accumulation of our experiences and the choices we make in life. As Robert Frost says in “The Road Not taken” wherever the roads diverge and people are confronted with important choices, often taking the “less travelled” path makes all the difference in life. Often such a path presents challenges and experiences that help individuals forge a different “reality” to their friends and family members.
Our understanding of the world changes with our experience of it
As Xinran, the author of The Good Women of China states, “when you walk into your memories, you are opening a door to the past; the road within has many branches, and the route is different every time.” This demonstrates that we see our past in different ways we accumulate knowledge and experience in life which impacts on our place in the world. Our memories are constantly changing to adjust to meet our necessities and desires. Often our perspective of reality is influenced by many internal and external factors. Elements such as maturity, knowledge and experiences allow us to understand the world according to our needs, vulnerabilities and emotions, which constructs our individual interpretation of reality. In addition, people around us also affect the way we view the world due to social norms and expectations.
COMPARE: Our understanding of the world changes with our experience of it
As we journey through life, each day, each week and each year offers a wealth of experience – sometimes our experiences are completely insignificant; other times they are memorable. Such experiences influence our views and values and they help us make sense of the world in which we live. As we accumulate new experiences, they help us make sense of our past memories. With the benefit of hindsight and our knowledge and imagination, we may take many different paths. As Xinran, the author of The Good Women of China states, “when you walk into your memories, you are opening a door to the past; the road within has many branches, and the route is different every time.” Evidently, our experiences will vary depending upon our knowledge and our maturity, our vulnerabilities and our perspectives.
We all experience reality differently, or do we?
Individuals only ever have different realities.
Individuals often see reality differently because of their life experiences, their memories, and their views and values. Often relationships influence our realities as does our dreams and goals in life. There are many factors that make up our “take” on reality. According to Willy, he experienced a turning point in his life when he encountered Dave Singleman. Wrapped up in values about aspiration and popularity which remind one of the American Dream, Willy becomes singularly obsessed by the fame and status of this man, with his “green velvet slippers” who could command an audience and still make a very respectable living at 84 years of age. In fact, Willy remembers how he was about to follow his brother Ben and his father to Alaska, “And I was almost decided to go, when I met a salesman in the Parker House.” Duped by brand names such as the Chevrolet, which is the “greatest car ever built”, Willy seeks to build the Loman brand based on the memorable salesman. Willy boasts to Biff that he is greeted by mayors in the major cities such as Providence and that he is well known, “they know me up and down New England” (24). As a measure of his status and reputation, he states that he can park “my car in any street in New England and the cops protect it like their own” (24).
Contrastingly, individuals may have different experiences that lead to different outcomes and hence different realities. Often children define themselves and their realities in opposition to their parents, or seek an alternative path in life based on an intuitive sense of difference. Biff has different vision of himself and of reality, perhaps because of his discovery of his father’s affair, or because of his three-month experience in jail after stealing the suit in Kansas or because of the horror of the pipe and Willy’s suicide attempts. Whatever the reason, Biff realises, “We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house.” He challenges Happy’s self-concept: he is not the assistant buyer but just one of “two assistants to the assistant”. Biff rejects the American dream of opportunity and wealth (cult of personality) that consumes Willy. He rejects a system where people feel a need to “get ahead of the next fella”. All he wants to do is “be outdoors, with your shirt off”. (16) He also realises just how his father deceived them with false pride and false values condoning stealing that undermined their confidence and sense of self-worth. “I stole myself out of every good job since high school”.
In addition, a violent upbringing, a volatile and dysfunctional home environment can lead to poor experiences and traumatic memories. Jeremy, whose case is now before the Royal Commission into Domestic Violence, struggles that he has been conditioned to see life through a violent lens. He worries that he, too, will become violent. His mother reminds him that his violent father is “not normal”, but he doesn’t have a concept of “normal”. He only remembers how his father forced him to become complicit in the abuse of the mother. Once at a family shack in the country, he made Jeremy ring and violently abuse his mother, or he, would suffer a beating himself. So he complied, but forever worries about his shameful complicity. Did he do enough to protect his mother? Will he, too become a violent person?
A physical or mental disability informs a different perspective and can lead to different realities and in particular different ways of speaking, or communication. For example, Tim Sharp (featured in the Good Weekend’s Two of us) is an autistic artist whose most popular drawings are those that challenge the viewer to see reality from Tim’s autistic or rather very literal perspective. (In autism, language has a literal meaning.) Eschewing a metaphoric or symbolic take on reality, Tim’s “the Barbie Queue” relating to the family’s outing to a barbecue, features a line of Barbies in a queue waiting for a barbecue. As mother Judy Sharp states, “no one looks at a barbecue the same way any more.” (At 16 years of age, he was the only Australian picked to participate in the Very Special Arts festival for the disabled in Washington. Currently, there is an exhibition about him in the National Museum of Australia. He is the first person with autism to have his creation turned into a TV show, Laser Beak Man).
Likewise, Brad Connelly, who broke his neck in a bodysurfing accident, is forced to communicate through lip-reading which changes his perspective on life and the way he relates to people. From a tactile perspective, he also had to rethink his relationship with his children as he can only feel their skin through his face. As he states, “It’s not how I envisaged being a father”. His relationship with his wife Pam is not physical but rather they “sit and talk for hours” contemplating “life’s big questions together”.
Although our individuality does influence our reality, we often have shared experiences that lead to similar views and values. From a personal and family perspective, members of the LOman family share Willy’s dream. For example, Linda reinforces Willy’s reality and wants to believe in the virtuous nature of the salesman and his unique American Dream. Likewise Happy, challenges Biff, and states that they do, indeed see things “as they are”. They value the truth in the household.
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