英语戏剧欣赏

2021年1月24日发(作者：屠呦呦)
Broken of American Dream in Death of

a Salesman








【
Abstract
】

The great dramatist to come out of the 1940s is Athur Miller who
was,
along
with
Tennessee
Williams,
led
the
postwar
new
drama.
Death
of
a
salesman,
one
of
Athur
Miller’s
best
plays,
is
hi
s
masterpiece,
won
him
the
Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1949 and some other prizes. Unlike the classic Greek
or
Elizabethan
tragedy,
which
focuses
on
the
downfall
of
a
noble
character,
Death
of
A
Salesman
focuses
on
an
ordinary
character,
a
common
American
man. It’s said that Miller is criticizing and capitalism as a promoter of socialism.

【内容摘要】
十九世纪四十年代米勒写了一部最著名的 戏剧，
他和田纳西威廉引领了
战后的戏剧发展。推销员之死是米勒最好最杰出的剧作，在
1949
年为他赢得了普利策
最佳戏剧奖和其他的奖项。
与古代希腊和伊莉莎白时代 的经典悲剧不同，
它关注的是一
个角色的衰落。
推销员之死的主角是一个普通的美国人 。
米勒是批判资本主义者是社会
的推动者。

【
Key Words
】

American dream; friendship; materialistic America

Death
of
a
Salesman
is
a
great
tragedy
which
was
written
by
American
dramatist
Arthur
Miller.
This
drama
is
one
of
the
three
great
tragedies
in
the
American drama history with Tennessee Williams’ s
A Street Car Named Desire
and
Eugene
O’
Neill’s

Long
Day’
s
Jouney
into
Night
.
It
is
different
from
the
classical
tragedy.
It’s
demonstrated
through
willy,
the
protagonist
during
the
story, who struggles to support his family and even himself. It’s a story of a man

at the end of his life, who realizes he was wasted his years in pursuit of a goal is
not
only
unattainable,
but
was
never
real
to
begin
with.
I
think
this
drama’s
protagonist
willy
loman’problems
in
life
were
usually
caused
of
his
chase
towards the American dream. In Death Of A Salesman, we can learn a lot about
the broken of
American dream
—
a
belief
that
as
long
as
the
United
States
after a hard struggle will be able to achieve the ideal of a better life, that is,
people have to work through their own hard work, courage, creativity and
determination
to
move
towards
Prosperity.
There
are
also
many
other
factors could direction our life.
Death
of
a
Salesman
is
centered
on
one
man
trying
to
reach
the
American dream and taking his family along for ride. Willy is at the bottom
of
the
totem
pole
in
a
capitalistic
world.
He
owns
nothing,
and
he
makes
nothing, so he has no sense of accomplishment. He believes that if a person
is well liked and has a great deal of personal attractiveness, then all doors
will
automatically
be
opened
for
him,
and
he
built
his
life
around
those
dream. He lived everyday of his life trying to become successful, well-off
salesman. His self-image that he portrayed to others was a lie and he was
even able to deceive himself with it. He travelled around the country selling
his
merchandise
and
maybe
when
he
was
younger,Willy
loman,the
salesman
of
the
title
,is
as
“phony”
as
Mark
Twain’s
Colonel
Sellers
but
hardworking and honest, but in reality not as successful and “great”.

Despite
his
desperate
searching
through
his
past,
Willy
does
not
achieve
the
self-realization
or
self-knowledge
typical
of
the
tragic
hero.
The
quasi-resolution
that
his
suicide
offers
him
represents
only
a
partial
discovery
of
the
truth.
While
he
achieves
a
professional
understanding
of
himself
and
the
fundamental
nature
of
the
sales
profession,
Willy
fails
to
realize his personal failure and betrayal of his soul and family through the
meticulously
constructed
artifice
of
his
life.
He
cannot
grasp
the
true
personal, emotiona
l, spiritual understanding of himself as a literal “loman”
or
“low
man.”
Willy
is
too
driven
by
his
own
“willy”
-ness
or
perverse
“willfulness”
to
recognize
the
slanted
reality
that
his
desperate
mind
has
forged. Still, many critics, focusing on Willy’s ent
renchment in a quagmire
of
lies,
delusions,
and
self-deceptions,
ignore
the
significant
accomplishment of his partial self-
realization. Willy’s failure to recognize
the anguished love offered to him by his family is crucial to the climax of
his torturous day, and the play presents this incapacity as the real tragedy.
Despite this failure, Willy makes the most extreme sacrifice in his attempt
to leave an inheritance that will allow Biff to fulfill the American Dream.
Ben’s
final
mantra—“The
jungle
is
dark,
but
full
of
diamonds”—
turns
Willy’s suicide into a metaphorical moral struggle, a final skewed ambition
to
realize
his
full
commercial
and
material
capacity.
His
final
act,
according
to
Ben,
is
“not
like
an
appointment
at
all”
but
like
a
“
diamond . . .
roug
h
and
hard
to
the
touch.”
In
the
absence
of
any
real