In Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman (1949), Miller reflects on the struggle many American families have encountered in time of economic crisis. The story is based on a typical family of four whose dreams have gone far beyond their reality. William Loman, the father and only financial provider, has high expectations of his son Biff, in the business field. Willy is too old to keep up with the payments and hopes that his son Biff can take charge of his life and began making big profit as did Willy's brother Ben. The author deepens the situation with despair with Willy's hallucinations and struggle to live up to date. Furthermore, the protagonist is too proud to accept help from prosperous friends. Pressure overcomes Willy's desire to live, and he commits suicide in order to save his family. It can be considered a sacrifice more than a suicidal case. Moreover, the author's purpose is to emphasize the effect and pressure that money has created on many lower and even middle class people in order to set a boundary between needs and desires. Miller seems to have two different audience in mind, the poor and the ones who make money from the poor, because after all the average American that struggles through life due to financial needs is the only one affected by the economic crisis.



Vocabulary
-Perspire:(v.) to emit through pores; exude
-Mystifies:(v.) to perplex (a person) by playing upon the person's credulity; bewilder purposely.

-Spite: (n.) a malicious, usually petty, desire to harm, annoy, frustrate, or humiliate another person; bitter ill will; malice.

-Fumbles: (v.) to feel or grope about clumsily

Tone
 Resentful, critical


Rhetorical Strategies
-Metaphor: Happy: "Yeah, that was my first time--I think. Boy, there was a pig!" (21).
-Simile: Willy: "I slept like a dead one"(71).
-Foreshadowing: Willy: "Will you stop mending stockings? At least while I'm in the house. It gets me nervous. I can't tell you. Please." (75).
-Idiom: Howard:"Kid, I can't takes blood from a stone" (81).
-Pathos: Biff, crying, broken: "Will you let me go, for Christ's sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?"Struggling to contain himself, he pulls away and moves to the stairs (133).

  
Questions:
- Despite the obvious sorrow of a widow, does Linda's last words have a deeper meaning in regards to the situation?
-Why is the ending entitled "Requiem"? Does it have a religious purpose?
- Do suicide rates increase as the economy decreases?

Memorable Quote
Biff:"Exactly what is it that you want from me?" (129).

Death of a Salesman

             The play Death of a Salesman written by Arthur Miller takes place in one of America's most difficult time period, the Great Depression. It is a time of crisis and struggle for Willy and Linda as well as many other American families.The play opens with a conversation between Linda and Willy who discuss Willy's problem with his job. Evidently, Willy has been taking long drives to work that he cannot handle. However, the sacrificed is being made due to the time era which shows that employment is scarce and that any job that is obtained must be preserved in order to support a household. The play creates a lamenting atmosphere, for economic problems are extremely rough to live with and it causes some people to lose their hopes and dreams. The play is very easy to relate to due to the economic crisis that is currently taking place in America and employment is a hassle. Furthermore, many parents are complaining about their children not doing anything productive with their time, which is reflected through Willy and his son Biff.

Why must it end?

I have the option of becoming dirt, ashes, food, or a collectable; I’ll go with becoming a lemon tree. In Mary Roach’s novel Stiff, she explains the different ways cadavers are returned to the earth. The author explains the characteristics and effects of cremation, water-reduction, and composting. She uses a variety of anecdotes to expand the reader’s knowledge of the grotesque use of cadavers. Furthermore, the author’s spends a fair time with the story of Wiigh-Masak and the encounter she had with the idea of making corpses into fertilizer. Roach gives strength to her piece by adding rhetorical questions which compels the reader to think beyond the accepted idea of death. In addition, humor is one of the author’s greatest forces, for she is easily able to address dead bodies and taboo stories perfectly fine! Her purpose is to address the life of cadavers from every angle; hence, she describes the options given to a dead body. She seems to have an audience that finds an interest in ecology, cremation, or dead bodies in general in mind because her enlightened personality makes the subjects extremely comfortable.

Vocabulary:

• Veal: a calf raised for its meat
• Feat: a noteworthy or extraordinary act or achievement
• Miasma: a dangerous, foreboding, or deathlike influence or atmosphere
• Manure: any natural or artificial substance for fertilizing the soil
• Pagan: one of a people or community observing a polytheistic religion

Tone: Whimsical

Strategies:

·        Allusions: “The paper’s authors describe Trendelenburg as a great innovator ...one of his slightest contributions to medical science”(231).

·        Rhetorical Questions: “Is there a more economical way to dispose of the body? A more environmentally friendly way? Could something useful be done with the remains?” (251).

·        Anecdotes: “In 1961, Jack Kevorkian drained four cadavers according to the Soviet protocol…jerking off into pasta sauce” (231-232).

·        Humor: “My reasons boil down to Harvard Brain Bank donor wallet card, which enables me to say “I’m going to Harvard” and not be lying” (284).

·        Dialogue: ““Sandy,” I blurted out, “I have to tell you what this is about! There was this guy who cut the butts off dead bodies to give to his brother to…””(243).

Questions:

• What inspired you to write a book about cadavers?
• The story resembles a diary/journal because of the multiple stories and experiences you’ve encountered, why didn’t you choose to write the book in an epistolary form?
• Why is death given a price and so many difficulties? Religion should focus on the soul not the body.

Memorable Quote: “Thus we should respect Nature, and when we die, we should give ourselves back to earth” (263).

Chapters 7,8, & 9

2.         Only Stiff and horror films would make me think about a dog with two heads, the posture in which Jesus was nailed onto the cross, and body-less heads that continue to speak. In Mary Roach’s novel Stiff, Roach narrates a wide variety of surgeries performed by past surgeons and researchers that use different flesh than that of cadavers. The author explains the surgeries through anecdotes which include historical events and collective data. She then widens her description of the operations through imagery that allows the reader to engage in the story. The author’s purpose is to inform her audience about the accuracy found in cadavers rather than animals or other alternatives in order provide the reader with a clear understanding of the purpose of cadavers. Any mid-age scientist and researcher would feel absolutely comfortable reading Roach’s piece for she conveys a great amount of information about scientific experiments with an enthusiastic and friendly style.      

3.

• Harangue- a long, passionate, and vehement speech, especially one delivered before a public gathering.
• Ubiquitous- existing or being everywhere, especially at the same time
• Nematode- any unsegmented worm of the phylum Nematoda, having an elongated, cylindrical body; a round worm.
•  Noose- a tie or bond; snare
• Amorphous-lacking definite form; no pattern or structure.  

4. Informative, Vibrant

5.

• Analogy: “The things that happen to the dead in labs and Ors are like gossip passed behind one’s back. They are not felt or known and so they cause no pain” (170)
• Humor: “We are fortunate that this is sp, for we would...the somewhat less lilting higado, and bumper stickers would proclaim, “I [liver symbol] my Pekingese” (176).
• Allusion: “It’s a mixing-machine part, a stoat squirming in its burrow, an alien life form that’s just won Pontiac on The Price Is Right” (179).
• Anecdote: “The killer, Andrew Lyons, shot a man in the head in September 1973 and left him brain-dead. When Lyons’s attorney…In the end, Lyons was convicted of murder” (186).
• Rhetorical Questions: “What must that have been like? What could possibly be the purpose, the justification? Had White been thinking of one day isolating a human brain like this? What kind of person comes up with a plan like this and carries it out?” (210)

6.

• Why is the soul taken into great concern?
• Why are the “star-ed” texts set aside?
• Can a person feel themselves after having a body transplant, after all it takes many people to get adapted to a donated heart ?

7. “But H is different. She has made three sick people well. She brought them extra time on earth. To be able, as a dead person, to make a gift of this magnitude is phenomenal. Most people don’t manage this sort of thing while they’re alive. Cadavers like H are the dead’s heroes” (195). 

Stiff. So far so cool.

Chapters 1-3

In Mary Roach’s novel Stiff, she describes the life of a cadaver and narrates the anatomical surgeries, preparations and seminars that she observes. The author uses a series of techniques to get the reader involve in her experiences with cadavers: imagery, allusions, anecdotes, comparisons, dialogue, cause and effect and even history on the subject. The author uses allusions to give a thorough explanation and familiarize the reader with the subject. Roach also uses multiple anecdotes which vary from past anatomists to present surgeons. She also incorporates imagery and comparisons to give the audience an explicit description of the series of events that occur in the book. Her purpose is to convey information about the function and expectations of a cadaver and the history that lays behind the practice on dead bodies.  Roach creates an atmosphere that comforts young anatomists the text serves as an expository piece which revolves around the profession of anatomists and her tone is soothing and humorous which gives the profession less terrifying.

1. Anatomy-dissection of all or part of an animal or plant in order to study its structure.

2. wholly- entirely; totally; altogether

3. dire- causing or involving great fear or suffering; dreadful; terrible: a dire calamity. 

4.Sever-to separate (a part) from the whole, as by cutting or the like.

5. embalm- to treat (a dead body) so as to preserve it, as with chemicals, drugs             

      6. eviscerate- Surgery . to remove the contents of (a body organ).

      7. ghoul- an evil demon, originally of Oriental legend, supposed to feed on human  beings, and especially    to rob graves, prey on corpses, etc.

8. hermetically- so as to be airtight.

Soothing, humorous, friendly

• Allusion: “Do you recall the Margaret Hamilton death scene in The Wizard of Oz? (“I’m melting!”) Putrefaction is more or less a slowed-down version of this” (68).

• Imagery: “Something else is going on. Squirming grains of rice are crowded into the man’s belly button. It’s a rice grain mosh pit” (65).

• Anecdote: “The case centered on a garbage scavengernamed Oscar Rafael Hernandez, who in March 1992 survived an attempt to murder him…Hernandez came to and escaped to tell his tale” (50).

• Euphemism: “Lets not use the word “maggot.” Let’s use a pretty word. Let’s use “Hacienda.”(65).

• Dialogue: “Like how large?” “I don’t know. Large” “Softball large? Watermelon large” “Okay, softball.” (67)

1. How long does it take a cadaver to become completely dead and useless?
2. Does the book follow a specific order? Is it directed by the experiences of the author?
3. How does the amount of cadavers run today? Are they still scarce and difficult to attain?

“To those factors I would add the popularization of science. The gains in the average person’s understanding of biology have, I imagine, worked to dissolve the romance of death and burial—the lingering notion of the cadaver as some beatific being in an otherworldly realm of satin and chorale music, the well-groomed almost-human who simply likes to sleep a lot, underground, in his clothing”(57).

Chapters 8 & 9

““O, not so!—not so!” continued Mr.Dimmesdale. “She recognizes, believe me, the solemn miracle which God hath wrought, in the existence of that child. And may she feel, too—what, methinks, is the very truth—that this boon was meant, above all things else, to keep the mother’s soul alive, and to preserve her from blacker depths of sin into which Satan might else have sought to plunge her! Therefore it is good for this poor, sinful woman that she hath an infant immortality, a being capable of eternal joy or sorrow, confided to her care—to be trained up by her to righteousness—to remind her, at every moment, of her fall—but yet to teach her, as it were by the Creator’s sacred pledge, that, if she bring the child to heaven, the child also will bring its parent thither! Herein is the sinful mother happier than the sinful father. For Hester Prynne’s sake, then, and no less for the poor child’s sake, let us leave them as Providence hath seen fit to place them!”

            “You speak, my friend, with a strange earnestness,” said old Roger Chillingworth, smiling at him.” (111)

This quote is significant because Hawthorne wants the reader to read between the lines. Hawthorne gives Dimmesdale a strong and eloquent but at the same time personal character when defending Hester. There is more than a reverend's duty to help those who come to him for help in young Dimmesdale argument. Hawthorne gives an indirect introduction to Pearl's biological father by having Dimmesdale speak of the "sinful father" as if he knew more than what religion can predict. Furthermore, Chillingworth's recognition of Dimmesdale's strange way of defending Hester also supports the idea of Hawthorne wanting to hint the reader about Dimmesdale's possibility of being Pearl's father.

Q1. Is Chillingworth's interest for helping Reverend Dimmesdale deeper than the basis of his medical experience?

Q2. For what reasons would Reverend Dimmesdale refuse to receive medical help and claims to end his sorrow, sins, and pain once he dies?

Q3. Can religion be blamed for the problems that the characters confront? Why or Why Not?

Chapters 6 & 7

1. "Her mother, while Pearl was yet an infant, grew acquainted with a certain peculiar look that warned her when it would be labor thrown away to insist, persuade, or plead. It was a look so intelligent, yet inexplicable, so perverse, sometimes so malicious, but generally accompanied by a wild flow of spirits, that Hester could not help questioning, at such moments, whether Pearl was a human child. She seemed rather an airy sprite, which, after playing its fantastic sports for a little while upon the cottage floor, would flit away with a mocking smile. Whenever that look appeared in her wild, bright, deeply black eyes, it invested her with a strange remoteness and intangibility; it was as if she were hovering in the air and might vanish, like a glimmering light that comes we know not whence and goes we know not whither. Beholding it, Hester was constrained to rush towards the child to pursue the little elf in the flight which she invariably began, to snatch her to her bosom, with a close pressure and earnest kisses--not so much from overflowing love, as to assure herself that Pearl was flesh and blood, and not utterly delusive. But Pearl's laugh, when she was caught, though full of merriment and music, made her mother more doubtful than before" (89).

2. Because Hester gave birth to Pearl as a result of her sin, she begins to question whether Pearl is human or not. Simply by considering Pearl's malicious laughter and strange smile, Hester begins to find Pearl different and even devilish. However, Pearl being Hester's first and only child implies that Hester lacks experience with children. Hence, she cannot find Pearl's behavior strange because she doesn't really know how children are suppose to behave.This passage is significant because it demonstrates how Hester's religious views and the townspeople's offenses are effective to Hester's belief of her daughter's humanity. Furthermore, she is being driven by the belief that her sin has cursed her with a demon-child even though she treasures her daughter more than anything. Hawthorne really emphasizes his stance on sin by making Hester challenge her daughter's humanity. He uses Hester to demonstrate how the idea of sin can create worries in one's conscience and interrupt the sense of reality.

1. How does Hawthorne address Hester's position on her own sin?

2. How does Hester's views on the scarlet letter differ from her views of little Pearl--both being symbols of her sin?

3. Why would Hawthorne spend an entire chapter describing Governor Bellingham's mansion, instead of using a paragraph or so?