Expressionism in Death of Salesman Essay

From the dissonanting crimp nones to their closing reprise, millers var.ful subjects express the competing influences in Willy Lo compositions mind. at one time established, the minds need exclusively be sounded to p bent certain time frames, emotions, and value. The stolon sounds of the drama, the flute nones junior-grade and fine, represent the grass, trees, and horizon butts of Willys (and biffs) longing that ar tellingly absent from the overshadowed situation on which the chimneypiece rises. This melody puzzle outs on as Willy makes his stolon appearance, although, as miller tells us, he hears provided is not aw are of it (12). Through this euphony we are thus given our first nose out datum of Willys estrangement not completely from reputation itself but from his give birth deepest nature. As puzzle pop out I unfolds, the flute is link up to Willys father, who, we are told, made flutes and exchange them during the familys early wanderings. The fathers constitution, a high, rollicking tune, is differentiated from the short and fine melody of the natural beautify (49).This distinction is fitting, for the father is a gross r withalueman as healthy as an explorer he embodies the conflicting values that are destroying his intelligences life. The fathers tune shares a family dealness with Bens idyllic (133) medication. This turned theme, like Ben himself, is associated eventu entirelyy with death. Bens theme is first sounded, after all, only after Willy expresses his exhaustion (44). It is perceive over again after Willy is fired in passage II. This time the harmony precedes Bens entrance. It is heard in the distance, then closer, ripe as Willys thoughts of felo-de-se, once repressed, now come out closer at the loss of his concern. And Willys first words to Ben when he finally appears are the am monolithicuous how did you do it? (84). When Bens idyllic melody plays for the third and final time it is in accents o f dread (133), for Ben reinforces Willys wrong take aimed thought of suicide to bun paper bag.The fathers and Bens themes, representing selling (out) and abandonment, are thus in immunity to the small and fine theme of nature that begins and wipeouts the play. A go motif elaborates this infixed conflict. Whistling is often done by those contentedly at work. It frequently in any case accompanies outdoor activities. A talkr in an office would be a distraction. jab Loman likes to whistle, thus reinforcing his ties to nature rather than to the care environment. But Happy seeks to stifle Biffs true voice well(p)-chosen . . . Bob Harrison said you were tops, and then you go and do some damn suck up thing like whistling only songs in the elevator like a comedian. BIFF, against Happy. So what? I like to whistle sometimes.HAPPY. You don t raise a guy to a responsible job who whistles in elevator (60) This chat reverberates ironically when Howard Wagner plays Willy a recording of his daughter whistling Roll out the Barrel just onward Willy asks for an advance and a freshly York job (77). Whistling, presumably, is all right if you are the boss or the bosss daughter, but not if you are an employee. The tympan volition not be rolled out for Willy or Biff Loman. Willys conflicting relishs to work in sales and to do outdoor, indep terminationent work are complicated by anformer(a) longing, that of knowledgeable desire, which is expressed through the raw, sensuous music that accompanies The Womans appearances on wooden leg (116, 37). It is this music of sexual desire, I suggest, that insinuates itself as the first leaves cover the house in Act 1.5 It is heard just onwards Willy reliving a past conversation offers this ironic warning to Biff reasonable wanna be careful with those girls, Biff, thats all. entert make any pacts.No shout outs of any kind (27). This raw theme of sexual desire contrasts with Linda Lomans theme the maternal hum of a to uchy lullaby that ferments a desperate but two-dimensional hum at the end of Act I (69). Lindas monotonous drone, in turn, contrasts with the gay and bright music, the boys theme, which opens Act II. This theme is associated with the great times (127) Willy remembers with his sons to begin with his adultery is discovered. Like the high, rollicking theme of Willys father and like Bens idyllic melody, this gay and bright music is ultimately associated with the false dream of temporal success. The boys theme is first heard when Willy tells Ben that he and the boys will get rich in Brooklyn (87). It sounds again when Willy implores Ben, How do we get cover to all the great times? (127).In his final moments of life, Willy Loman is shown struggling with his furies sounds, faces, voices, seem to be swarming in upon him (136). Suddenly, however, the faint and high music enters, representing the false dreams of all the low men. This false tune ends Willys struggle with his competing voi ces. It drowns out the other voices, rising in garishness almost to an unbearable scream as Willy rushes off in pursuit. And just as the travail of Moby Dick ends with the ongoing scarper of the waves, nature, in the form of the flutes small and fine refrain, persists despite the catastrophe we get hold of witnessed.SetsIn the introduction to his sedate Plays, miller acknowledges that the first image of Salesman that occurred to him was of an huge face the height of the proscenium sinful the face would appear and then open up. We would see the inside of a mans head, he explains. In fact, The internal of His Head was the first title. It was conceived half in laughter, (60) for the inside of his head was a dope of contradictions (23). By the time milling machine had completed Salesman, however, he had found a more than(prenominal) knowing plays correlative for the giant head a vapourish background signal. The entire picture is wholly, or, in some slurs, partially tr ansparent, moth miller insists in his set description (11). By substituting a transparent setting for a bisected head, Miller invited the audition to get wind the social context as well as the individual organism. Productions that eschew transparent scenery eschew the nuances of this invitation. The transparent lines of the Loman home allow the audience physically to sense the city pressures that are destroying Willy. We are conscious(predicate) of towering, angular shapes behind Willys house, ad center it on all sides.The roofline of the house is unidimensional under and over it we see the flatbed buildings (11-12). Wherever Willy Loman looks are these encroaching buildings, and wheresoever we look as well. Willys personal trance is expressed as well as in the homes furnishings, which are advisedly partial. The furnishings indicated are only those of importance to Willy Loman. That Willys kitchen has a table with three prexys alternatively of four reveals both Linda Lom ans unsymmetrical status in the family and Willys fixing with his boys. At the end of Act I, Willy goes to his small refrigerator for life-sustaining milk (cf. Brechts parallel use of milk in Galileo). Later, however, we learn that this repository of nourishment, like Willy himself, has disordered down.That Willy Lomans bed get on contains only a bed, a straight chair, and a ledge holding Biffs bills athletic trophy also telegraphs ofttimes about the man and his family. Linda Loman has no object of her own in her bedroom. Willy Loman also travels light. He has nothing of substance to sustain him. His egoism is devoted to adolescent competition. Chairs ultimately become surrogates for people in end of a Salesman as first a kitchen chair becomes Biff in Willys conflicted mind (28) and then an office chair becomes Willys deceased boss, Frank Wagner (82). In, perchance, a subtle bow to Georg Kaisers Gas I and Gas II, Millers bollocks up bullet train glows when Willy thinks of death. The scrim that veils the primping Woman and the secrecy hiding the restaurant where two women will be seduced suggest Willy Lomans repression of sexuality. visible radiationExpressionism has done more than any other movement to develop the expressive powers of decimal point fervour. The German expressionists employ light to grow a strong sense of fashion and to isolate characters in a void. By contrasting light and shadow, and by employing utmost(prenominal) side, overhead, and rear lighting angles, they established the hair-raising atmosphere in which some of their plays took place. The trustworthy Kazan Salesman made use of more lights than were apply even in Broadway musicals (Timebends 190). At the end of act 1, Biff comes downstage into a golden pond of light as Willy recalls the day of the city baseball claim when Biff was like a young God. Hercules something like that. And the sun, the sun all around him. The puddle of light both establishes the moment a s one of Willys memories and suggests how he has inflate the past, given it mythic dimension. The lighting also functions to instill a sense of banter in the audience, for the golden light glows on undiminished as Willy exclaims, A mastermind like that, magnificent, atomic number 50 never unfeignedly fade awayWe know that Biffs star faded, even before it had a chance to shine, and even as Willy speaks these words, the light on him begins to fade (68). That Willys thoughts turn immediately from this golden vision of his son to his own suicide is indicated by the blue burst out of the torpedo heater that begins immediately to glow through the mole a foreshadowing of Willys desire to gild his son through his own demise. Productions that omit either the golden pool of light or the glowing gas heater withhold this foreshadowing of Willys final deed. Similarly, productions that omit the lights on the vacant chairs miss the chance to reveal the federal agency of Willys fantasies .Perhaps even more important, the gas heaters flame at the end of Act I recalls the angry glow of orange touch Willys house at the plays beginning (11). Both join with the red glow rising from the hotel room and the restaurant to give a entangle sense of Willys twice furnish cry The woods are intenseTheres a big blaze going on all around (41, 107). Without these sensory clues, audiences may analyse to appreciate the desperation of Willys state.Characters and CostumesMiller employs expressionist technique when he allows his characters to check into younger versions of themselves to represent Willys memories. vernal Biffs letter jumper and football signal his age reversion, up to now they also move in the counsellor of social type. The Woman also is an expressionistic type, the plays only generic character other than the marvelously individualize salesman. Millers greatest expressionistic creations, however, are Ben and Willy Loman. In his Paris re contestw interview, M iller acknowledged that he deliberately refused to give Ben any character, because for Willy he has no character which is, psychologically, expressionist because so many memories come back with a saucer-eyed tag on them somebody represents a threat to you, or a obligation (Theater Essays 272). Clearly Ben represents a promise to Willy Loman. It is the promise of material success, but it is also the promise of death.6 We might consider Uncle Ben to be the fantasm of Ben, for we learn that Ben has recently died in Africa. Since Miller never discloses the cause of Bens death, he may be a suicide himself.His idyllic melody, as I have noted, becomes finally a death march. In Willys last moments, the contrapuntal voices of Linda and Ben vie with each other, but Willy moves inexorably toward Ben. Alluding to Africa, and perhaps also to the River Styx, Ben looks at his watch and says, The boat. Well be late as he moves lento into the darkness (135). Willy Loman, needless to say, is Mi llers brilliant demonstration that expressionistic techniques can express inner as well as outermost forces, that expressionism can be used to create felt, humane character. The music, setting, and lighting of Salesman all function to express the gentlemans gentleman inside Willy Lomans head, a introduction in which social and personal values meet and merge and struggle for integration.As Miller writes in the introduction to his undisturbed Plays The plays expressionistic elements were consciously used as such, but since the approach to Willy Lomans characterization was consistently and rigorously subjective, the audience would not ever be apprised if I could help it that they were witnessing the use of a technique which had until then created only coldness, objectivity, and a highly styled sort of play. (39) In 1983, when Miller arrived in capital of Red China to direct the first Chinese production of Death of a Salesman, he was pleased to find that the Chinese had created a mirror image of the passkey transparent set. Seeing this set, and observing that the kitchen was equipped with only a refrigerator, table, and two (not even three) chairs, Miller felt a fantastic boost to his morale (Salesman in Beijing 3-4).Teachers and directors might offer a akin(predicate) boost by giving liberal weight to the expressionistic moments in Death of a Salesman. For directors, achieving such moments may be technically demanding, but they should not be abandoned simply because they are challenging.7 Similarly, the expressionistic devices should not be considered too self-explanatory for postmodern taste. In truth, the expressionism in Salesman is not intrusive. Its very refinement of German expressionism lies in its subtlety, in its delicate balance with the practical moments in the drama. This ever-shifting tension between realness and expressionism allows us to feel the interpenetration of outer and inner forces within the human psyche. The expressionistic d evices also elevate Willys suffering, for they place it in the context of the natural order. To delete the expressionism is to diminish the rich chord that is Millers drama