Death of a Salesman by Miller and Enoch vs The Aleph - Literature review Example

College Analysis of short stories This essay sets out to analyze the various themes in two short story ics that seem quite simple and straight but have deeper meanings and themes that are applicable in society even today. They are both easy reads that use simple language that can betray the deeper messages that they are meant to portray about the society and how certain changes affect people in society together with their coping mechanism to mitigate the negative effects of these changes. We shall start with death of a salesman. Death of A sales Man This play mainly addresses the issue of the inability of a man to accept change in the society as well as within himself. This play is a mixture of dreams, arguments, confrontations and montage of memories. There are three main themes within this play; Contradiction, Order Versus Disorder and Denial. The Theme of Denial This can be seen in the members of the Loman family. They are all feeding a cycle of denial for others. The sales man, Willy Loman is not ready to accept the fact that he is a poor salesman. He instead works extra hard to build his own little version of the elusive American Dream. He opts to retreat into his past glory and when he was perceived as being a successful salesman. A good example is his reluctance to let go of the memory of Biff’s last football game. He does so simply because his son made a promise to make a touchdown for him. Due to his son’s pride in him, he considers himself to be famous. He also cannot wait to inform his potential buyers of this irrelevant incident. Happy and Biff are his sons who also start developing the habit of manipulating reality or even denying it. He (Biff) eventually admits towards the end of the play to having been ‘phony’ just like his father the salesman. The only person that openly recognizes this is Linda who chooses to play along with these fantasies so as to protect Willy’s mental state that is quite fragile. The Theme of Contradiction Willy’s behavior accompanied with major inconsistencies throughout the story. It can be said that the only thing consistent about him in this play is the art of being inconsistent. He displays this aspect of his character right from the beginning of the play. He initially calls Biff a lazy bum two lines later, he does a spectacular turnaround labeling him as such a hard worker. These contradictions really confuse the audiences at first but they come to understand that they are part of his character. These inconsistencies can be explained as his way of coping with his sorry state of affairs at the moment which he has not fully accepted as seen by his willingness to re-create the past in order to shield himself from the present. He cannot bring himself round to accept the fact that his son no longer has any respect for him since he cheated on his mother. Their relationship was already on the rocks but he chose to recede to a period of time when he was respected by his son Biff. This becomes a pattern as the play progresses with him detaching himself more from the unpleasant present. The Use of the Seeds The reader is given a simple glimpse of Willy’s thoughts on life through the usage of seeds. Willy was of the view that if he did work hard and he managed to be a good role model to them, then they too will grow up to be successful adults in the society. These thoughts were quite similar to plant seeds; if you plant them in a suitable environment and take good care of them through watering, they will eventually germinate and develop to be big and healthy plants. His sons in this case are likened to the plants in the way that they would develop both physically and career wise and end up providing for the family. This unfortunately did not come to pass and greatly disappointed Willy. He was clearly very disappointed since he felt like he had personally let down Biff as his father. Biff had a very bright future prospect for his life. He was the ladies’ man in the family, a good American football player and to top it off he was provided with everything that he ever requested or wanted. With all these talents and advantages, Biff still ended up a bum. Willy actually blamed himself for these failures as a father even though there was nothing that he could personally do to influence a different kind of outcome. All these themes are put in play to assist in shaping the atmosphere of the entire play. As we have seen, the three main themes in this short play are; Order versus disorder, Contradiction and Denial. All of them work simultaneously with the aim of creating a very conflicting atmosphere whereby the reader watches as Willy’s mental stability and identity gradually slip away from his control. This story affects its readers in a mixed manner since it makes the reader feel like they are holding out a mirror on themselves. Jose Luis Borges’ The Aleph The initial theme in this narrative centers on grief. This is brought about by the death of Beatriz Viterbo whom he dearly loved. There is a prevailing prima facie of unrelated themes within the narrative. This can be seen when the author introduces an issue on writers centering on their aesthetic differences in the middle of the theme of death and unrequited love. Even though these stories may appear completely distinct, they are actually interconnected in a significant manner. I will therefore look at the three themes that are dominant in The Aleph in an attempt to figure out how they relate to one another. Theme of Intense Love and Death This theme starts with a brief comment on the transient nature of human memory and concludes with an awful vision of the physical decay of Beatriz. Borges exclaims that the universe is already attempting to move on from this sad event, he claims that even though the universe may attempt to forget her, he will do all he can to forever hold her memory dear. This can be viewed as his last ditch attempt to keep her memory alive even if she was physically gone and already decaying. He attempts to mend fences with Daneri whom he deeply disliked so as to use him to be able to have physical access to Beatriz’s former home. This memory is the ultimate foundation of the plastic friendship that he cultivated with Daneri. Borges only manages to let go of Beatriz when sees her in the aleph. Daneri also uses the aleph and the house at the same time. This cannot be by any chance a mere coincidence. He loses his identity contributed mainly by this event that is too much to endure all at once. This thread of identity is what connects the three main themes together. The theme of Writers and their aesthetic differences This theme refers to the subjective nature of art. Daneri and the author have completely different interpretations of the same piece of poetry. What Daneri views as interesting turns out to be not so interesting in the eyes of Borges. This stark contrast in views begs leads the reader to question who between the two of these writers is delusional or even prideful. There can even be the question of what exactly is art to begin with. Borges manages to portray his key adversary, Daneri as being unskilled and pompous in nature. The inaccessible nature of art is revealed when Daneri takes the first runners up position in the National Prize in Literature. The fact that Borges is the hero in the story manages to confuse the audience. With somewhat detached resignation, he discusses Daneri’s award. This confusing and detached manner is what links this emotional state of Borges’ story to the theme of death and unrequited love. Even though loss of a loved one is confusing, the concept of accepting this and moving on comes about due to a sense of detached resignation. The aleph is confusing and the author responds in a detached manner. Just like death and art, it is also very overwhelming and acts as a reminder of our very own insignificance. A person has to maintain a distance and resign to this fact in order to maintain his or her identity. This story helps us to come to terms with the fact that we cannot truly understand death, art or even the sublime. We can only conceptualize these events and facts through the means of representation. This can be the reason why according to the author, the three themes and concepts are not understandable to the human mind no matter how much we may try to convince ourselves that this is possible. The unexplainable nature of art, death and the sublime is mainly brought about because of the limitations of human perception. Our humanly senses find it difficult to solve these issues and the closest we can come to having a solution is through approximation. This can be the reason why we tend to grieve a lot in the event of death of our loved ones and can only feel better by hanging onto the pleasant memories of the dead person. Work Cited Miller, Arthur, and Enoch Brater. Death of a Salesman. London: Methuen Drama, 2010. Print. Borges, Jorge L, and Jorge L. Borges. The Aleph: Including the Prose Fictions from the Maker. L Weales, Gerald C, and Arthur Miller. Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman: Text and Criticism. New York: Viking Press, 1967. Print. London: Penguin, 2000. Print. Block, de B. L. Borges, the Passion of an Endless Quotation. Albany, N.Y: State University of New York Press, 2003. Internet resource. Read More