A Comparison of Salesman and Mater Harold - Essay Example

A Comparison of Salesman and Mater Harold It has been said that all plays pose questions that must be addressed, but some are easier to ignore than others. Two plays that cannot be viewed or read without thinking of the ramifications of the views put forth by the playwrights are Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Athol Fugard’s Master Harold and the boys. These two plays deal with different themes on one level, but find similar grounds on another. By comparing these two plays, a better understanding of each of them can be gained. Death of a Salesman deals with what happens to people when their dreams, what they believe is the ultimate goal of their life, turns out to be false and falls apart. Specifically, Willy Loman feels that by being likable, he will be able to achieve success in business. The death of Willy’s dream results in the death of his character. In Willy’s view, all that is required to become successful is to be well liked and attractive: “Bigger than Uncle Charley! Because Charley is not—liked. He’s liked, but he’s not—well liked” (1362). His view of physical attractiveness is also rather unrealistic: “Bernard can get the best marks in school, y’understand, but when he gets out in the business world, y’understand, you are going to be five times ahead of him. That’s why I think Almighty God you’re both built like Adonises” (1363). In both plays, however different there intended theme was, still has the commonality of people suffering because of their parents way of viewing the world and behaving towards other people. Willy Loman has built up his sons’ views of themselves to such an extent that they were bound to be failures according to the standards set to them by their father. We can see how their father’s attitudes are rubbing on them when Biff says of Bernard, mimicking his father, “He’s liked, but he’s not well liked” (1363). In this way Willy Loman’s unrealistic views of the world have a negative effect on his sons and becomes a burden to them. Later in the play, we can see just how unrealistic Willy Loman’s views are when we see that Bernard has become successful: “Oh, just stopped by to see Pop. Get off my feet till my train leaves. I’m going to Washington in a few minutes” (1393). Willy did not think that Bernard could possibly be more successful than his children because he wasn’t well liked and attractive. He placed no merits in hard work and determination. Biff, specifically, can’t deal with his father’s expectations and rebels against them, sabotaging himself from ever achieving something with his life: “I stole myself out of every good job since high school…And I never got anywhere because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking orders from anybody! That’s whose fault it is!” (1415). Willy is a salesman, and he has tried to sell his sons his own version of the American dream. As Biff has rebuked this vision and refuses to lead the life that his father expects that he should be able to lead, Willy takes it as a personal insult, an insult to the very dream that he holds dear to himself: “I want you to know, on the train, in the mountains, in the valleys, wherever you go, that you cut down your life for spite…When you’re rotting somewhere beside the railroad tracks, remember, and don’t you dare blame it on me” (1414). Here Willy is unable to see how he has had an adverse effect on others. Biff’s real disillusionment with Willy’s dream comes when he finds out about his father’s adultery. This ultimately is the source of Biff’s rejection of his father’s views. If he is not the man that he attempts to portray himself to be, then Biff can see no merit in the views that Willy holds. While Willy might feel betrayed by Biff’s rejection of his values, Biff felt betrayed by what he felt were falsities that were portrayed to him as Willy was instilling his views upon him. Master Harold and the Boys, on one level, deals with apartheid. However, the play deals with more than just the injustice faced by those under apartheid. It attempts to examine the underlying reasons that people mistreat each other, and it also attempts to show how people can treat each other with more respect. Hally, a young, white, school boy in South Africa, has learned his attitudes towards the servants from his parents. It extends further than just how he degrades them when he’s angry at them; it includes how he feels superior to them as revealed in his everyday speech with them: “Act your bloody age…Cut out the nonsense now and get on with your work. And you too, Sam. Stop fooling around” (13). To add to this, Hally feels that it is his duty to instruct Sam, a man in his mid0forties, because he has not had the opportunity to attend school: “Tolstoy may have educated his peasants, but I’ve educated you” (23). Comments made by Hally show that these attitudes were picked up from his parents.. Not yet old enough or mature enough to realize that adults can also be wrong, he treats Sam and Willie as inferiors. He sees the way that people are treated and assumes that that is the appropriate way they should be treated: “Which meant I got another rowing for hanging around the servants’ quarters” (25). It has yet to occur to him that academic merit and skin color are not areas in which people should be judged.. He notes that tests aren’t really a good indicator of one’s intelligence, just one’s ability to take tests, and that Winston Churchill wasn’t good in school either, but he can’t extend this judgment to Sam and Willie. He can’t see these two men who he has spent so much time with as people on the level on which he views his family. This attitude has been ingrained into him by his parents and he has not figured out on his own yet that the way his parents treat Sam and Willie is wrong. After Hally spits in Sam’s face, Sam mentions how he wants to hit Hally, and Willie agrees that he would probably have wanted to do the same thing. Sam refrains from hitting Hally because he wants to show him that there are other ways to react to people. This goes beyond the mere physical violence of the act. He wants to show that retaliation is not necessary. Spitting back in Hallly’s face, hitting him, and verbally abusing Hally the way that Hally did to Sam and Willie after receiving the phone calls is not something that Sam is going to do. In this he is instructing Hally and Willie in the ways that they should act. The play shows how mistreatment of others is cyclical. Hally’s father feels that life has let him down because he is crippled, so he takes it out on his family by getting drunk all the time and being a burden upon his family. In this we can see that Sam is intentionally making Hally think about this particular memory, as in it Sam serves as a father figure to Hally, even though Hally would never admit to this. Sam knows that Hally’s father couldn’t have done this with Sam because he is crippled; however, we can also gather from the text that he probably wouldn’t have even if he could have. All Hally’s father seems intent on doing is getting drunk. Because he is crippled, Hally’s father gets drunk all the time and is a burden on his family. Because of this Hally lashes out at people because his father mistreats him. Sam is able to see all of this, and he knows that when people lash out like this, they do not only hurt their intended target: “You’ve hurt yourself, Master Harold. I saw it coming. I warned you, but you wouldn’t listen” (56). Finally we see the point of what Sam has been saying all along. Not only has Hally’s parents shown him to mistreat people, but they’ve shown him to hurt himself. By hurting those that close to him, Hally is also hurting himself by damaging the relations he has with other people. Sam is able to control his anger at Hally and at the world around him, and in this he knows that he is also helping himself out by preserving the relationships that he has with people. Willie, the witness to all the interactions between Sam and Hally, seems to have learned something from him: “You right. I think about it and you right. Tonight I find Hilda and say sorry. And make promise I won’t beat her no more” (60). In this we can see how there is hope for all people to learn to treat each other better by the examples made by people like Sam. The main difference between the two plays is in the tone of the ending. In Salesman, we are left with a bleak view, with no hope of Willy’s sons escaping the legacy that their father provided for them. They will never be successful themselves, and they are likely to pass these poorly adjusted attitudes upon their own children if they do eventually have them. On the other hand, Master Harold ends with the possibility for people to change, as Willie declares that Sam was right and that he would apologize to his dance partner for hitting her. While both plays have similarities and differences in the approaches that they took, they both quite fully and gracefully explored the questions that they raised. They both had different outcomes to their questions, but nonetheless there is much to be taken with both of these plays. Works Cited Fugard, Athol. “Master Harold”…and the boys. Penguin books, New York, 1982. Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. Literature and Its Writers, Eds. Charters, Ann, & Charters, Samuel, Bedford/ St. Martin’s. Boston, 2004, Read More