Death of a Salesman

The scene of the flashback to when Biff visited his father in Boston had interesting and varied impacts on the people involved. When I first read it, I found it to be the turning point for Biff. He goes to his father for advice and guidance as he always did because he looked up to him as an idyllic figure. Then he arrives and finds that this man who he thought the world of had been lying to him and his family. At the beginning of the conversation he was confident in his father’s ability to right the situation that he was in but later he says, “He wouldn’t listen to you,” (95) referring to his teacher that flunked him. He no longer believed that his father could fix anything. Biff says to his mother that, “he knows he’s a fake”(42). To Biff this means that everything that his father had ever told him was a lie. All of things he had said to boost him up were false and he could not be the person that he was raised to believe he could be.

Looking over this scene again I found that it is not just the turning point for Biff. This point also defines the rest of Willy’s life. Willy’s life goal was to be well liked. In his mind, nothing else mattered as long as he was liked by the people around him. Once he lost the respect and adoration that his son had for him, he felt as though he could no longer be liked by others. In the latter parts of the play, Willy reminisces and has flash backs to the “better days”. These flashbacks lead up to this one scene. The past that he wishes to go back to are the days when he was still liked by people around him and loved by his family.

Fires In the Mirror

Accident, Justice, and Power.

The words accident, justice and power are all thrown around quite often throughout this piece. Their presence greatly outlines some of the larger themes that are being portrayed. Justice and accident go together in a lot of the monologues. Both the groups are seeking justice for crimes that were acted upon them by the opposing group. The Jews are insisting that the death of Gavin Cato was an accident in which case there would be no one to blame. However on the other side, the Blacks came up with a long list of who to blame and why. Whether it is the man who was driving the car or the Jewish ambulance that supposedly refused to help the boy or the Police who appeared to have done nothing to suppress the riots or help the victims. The main argument for the Jews is that it was a simple car “accident” and nothing could have been done to stop it. Does this mean then that there can be no justice? Is there no justice for the father who watched his son die? Is there no justice for the driver who fled the country to avoid the consequences of his “accident”? Whether the crash was an accident or not does not change the fact that justice needs to be delivered.

Power goes along with this theme also. This is because whoever has the power will be justified. The power held by the Jews was used to deliver what they believed was justice to the community. The monologues paint the picture of power in the community showing how the death of a black boy was a mere accident and that the death of a Jewish man was a malicious crime that required justice. Those in power had the ability to determine what could be defined as an accident and whom justice needed to be served upon.

Theatre 120

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