A Midsummer Night's Dream, Death of a Salesman - Essay Example

31 May, Themes in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Death of a Salesman Abandonment: Abandonment is one of the major themes of this play. Abandonment is ingrained in the very title of the novel i.e. The Lost Father In The Death Of A Salesman (Fix). The first impression audience gets from reading this title is that of disassociation, social exclusion and abandonment. This impression is intensified by the adage that immediately follows the title of the novel, which reads, “What we can’t see is more important than what we can see” (Brater cited in Fix).

Abandonment is related to things we can not see because we have left them or they have somehow, left on their own. By calling these things more important than others which have not gone away, the author tends to favor the abandonment right at the outset, and the audience’s perceptions are modified accordingly. Fix has done this in the start of the novel in order to make sure that the audience follows her exactly in the same footsteps so that both the author and the audience reach the same conclusion by the end of the novel.

In Willy’s life, there is a constant and uninterrupted shift from one abandonment to another. Every time this happens, the successive abandonment causes even more despair to rise in Willy’s heart than the preceding abandonment. The author has coherently constructed this argument by making the audience aware of the news of death of Willy’s father at an age when Ben and Willy are both too young and are not earning anything. When Ben and Willy’s father dies, the children are left with no tangible or intangible asset whatsoever.

After some time, Ben resolves to leave for Alaska and go away from Willy who is lost in the American Dream vision. As a result of numerous unfortunate events congested in the early phase of his life, Willy catches a phobia of abandonment. It is this phobia that makes Willy cultivate a desire of seeing his family comply with the standards of the American Dream. Nonetheless, his inability to perceive the truth can be estimated from his eager attempts to up-bring perfect sons. Young Biff, who is thought of as an epithet of promise by Willy, does not come up to Willy’s expectations.

He does not act according to Willy’s wills. Willy’s enthusiastic ambitions for Biff are all ruined after Biff gets to know of Willy’s adultery. Biff also dissatisfies Willy in his practical life performance. Biff is not able to run the business successfully and this becomes a fundamental cause of division and disparity between Biff and Willy. Biff’s failure only aggravates the ever deteriorating association between him and Willy. Near the end of the novel, when Willy ultimately gets to realize at Frank’s Chop House that Biff has reached the apogee of success, Biff does not let Willy cultivate the happiness of his son’s success any longer.

Willy’s misapprehension is shattered by Biff who together with Happy abandons the deceived and gibbering Willy inside the toilet. Works Cited: Fix, Charlene. The Lost Father In Death Of A Salesman. pp. 464-475.