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He wanted everything to be perfect and his way all the time, but could not do that for himself since he’s not able to make money at his job, his sons were not living up to his expectations, and he could not stop drifting into his memories.
Symbols in death of a salesman full#
He falls into nostalgia and mentions, “Oh, Ben, how do we get back to all the great times? Used to be so full of light, and comradeship… and simonizing that little red car,” while he is hitting absolute rock bottom in his mind. Willy also talks about simonizing his car in small amounts, which makes it seem minute, but it is a monumental symbol throughout the book. By introducing the car and her worry, Linda presents why the car will be a problem later in the play. After the initial scene layout, Willy came back home after being unsuccessful to make his way to his job, and Linda, his wife, immediately asked, “Why? What happened? Did something happen? You didn’t smash the car, did you?” (12). Willy talked about his Chevrolet on many accounts and could only hint to the reader that something detrimental will happen to it. Although the house is the only thing literally fragile looking, Willy’s health was, too.Īs the house was crumbling, Willy’s mental health is correlating with it as well. The imagery used on the first and second page of the play are imperative for creating a play a “fragile-seeming home” is both foreshadowing and imagery due to its description of how the metaphoric house appeared like, and is described like, it will crumble and the family will fall apart in the future (11). In the beginning, the house is described as “ small, fragile-seeming home,” which is an example of astounding symbolism and foreshadowing (Miller 11). Miller immediately uses foreshadowing and symbolism to set up conflicts that will occur throughout the entire play. Arthur Miller, an author of many famous book titles, portrays the complexities of mental health due to the constant comparison of the past, the present, and the future through foreshadowing, imagery, symbolism, and pathos, in his play, Death of a Salesman.
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Throughout the play, there are numerous examples of foreshadowing, symbolism, pathos and imagery to display how happiness can quickly turn into madness if people have the wrong outlook on the future. He had unhealthy obsessions with his children and his car which lead to him ultimately ruining his life further. Willy, a father of two adult kids with a wife, was exponentially spiraling into insanity due to the stress of his family and his future not coming together. “In psychology, a person has a threshold of how much stress they can uphold an excessive amount of stress can lead to unsuccess, and a deficiency will lead to the same.