Lula M. White
This could last three or four days.
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1. Spend some time on the concept of apartheid and what that means in South Africa.
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2. Discuss the concept of pen pal. What are your obligations to your pen pal?
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3. Divide the class into groups of four to discuss further what apartheid means.
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4. Have students write letters individually. The teacher gives four or five possibilities of the identity of the pen pal. Pretend you are Zach and Morris. Write fictitious letters to your white pen pal.
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5. On the next day have some students read their letters aloud.
Goals
better understanding of apartheid and brotherhood. This exercise also works to improve writing and communication skills.
Death of a Salesman
by Arthur Miller
Ostensibly Arthur Miller’s play begins with the most typical family in today’s American society: the nuclear family, a family which owns a home, mortgaged though it be, a father who is in sales, a mother who stays at home, and two sons, one of whom is an ex-high school football hero.
Very soon it becomes clear that Willy Loman’s world is not perfect. In his fantasy world he is a successful super salesman who is known, welcomed, and well-liked throughout the New England region. But in fact he has been cut off salary and is working strictly on commissions, dwindling ones at that. He is unable to meet his weekly bills. We learn that his friend and neighbor Charlie has been even has been subsidizing him to the tune of $50 a week. He even offers Willy a job, but Willy rejects it; for staying with the company is the only success he understands.
Willy’s lack of touch with reality extends to his sons, especially to Biff, the ex-football star. Biff has recently arrived in New York after a long absence during which he drifted from one job to another. Buoyed up by his own dreams and his hopes for Biff, Willy convinces Biff to go to see a former employer to borrow money for opening a sporting goods store where he and his brother Happy can know no limit to success. Willy is so good at dream building that he convinces Biff that the man will have fond memories of him, faith in him, and will lend him $15,000. The truth is the man barely remembers Biff, who held only a menial job with him once.
Not only has Willy failed as a businessman, he fails as a father. When Biff travels to Boston to try to convince his father to speak with the math teacher on his behalf, he finds Willy in a hotel room with a woman.
Willy’s wife, Linda, has become increasingly worried about Willy: his dreams haunt him that he could have been a financial success if he had gone prospecting with his brother Ben many years ago; his frequent car accidents, and a piece of hose that she finds in the basement. She keeps her fears to herself and encourages him to apply for a home office job in New York.
When he makes his request, Loman is shocked that he is at first ignored, and finally fired. Where are the trust, the recognition, and the loyalty owed to a man who has given his life to a company?
In what was supposed to be a celebratory dinner on the town, Willy still goes off to find his sons in a restaurant. He finds they have stood him up, abandoned him for two girls they picked up in the restaurant. When his sons arrive home, they find him in the cramped yard, trying to plant vegetables in the dark. Here, Biff promises that he will leave New York and cut off contact with the family; he seems to have come to the realization that he is an ordinary man, not destined for fame or fortune. In the end Willy takes the car out and has a fatal accident. The family is shocked that there are so few at the funeral.
Sociologically the play is about identity, self-delusion, and the national success ethic. Just how much it is a criticism of our economy is debatable. It is not clear to me that Howard, the boss, pays Willy so little attention because he’s intrigued by the new tape-recorder or because he intends to rid the company of Willy all the time. The play may not be so much a criticism of the system as of individuals in the system who treat others as ciphers. Charlie, like Howard, is a capitalist, but Charlie is a good person who treats Willy quite kindly.
Biff’s epitaph for Willy seems most fitting. He had the “wrong dreams”. Willy believed that there was only one way to make a living in the world. He believed everyone had to know you and like you; he believed that there was no place for you unless you were #1. Biff comments that his father did not even know who he was. Happy, on the other hand, feels he must vindicate his father’s dream and show people that his dream was all right.
Note: the interweaving of the past and the present on the stage probably requires an explanation for some students. The flute music represents Willy’s father, a flute maker, and Ben is a fantasy who appears on the stage from time to time when Willy is thinking about what might have been if he had gone to Alaska.
Some discussion questions
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1. Have you ever known or read about a man like Willy who thinks he is more successful than he really is?
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2. Why do you think being a salesman has such an appeal to Willy?
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3. Why do you think Miller chose that calling for him?
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4. Have you ever met or read about anyone like Biff who merely drifted from job to job at thirty-four? What explanations for it does the play offer or imply?
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5. Why do you think Biff threw away his sneakers and never went to summer school to make up the math course?
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6. Have you ever met parents who had exaggerated views of their children’s skills or their potentialities?
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7. Why do you think Howard fires Willy? Is he justified?
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8. What is ironic about Linda’s comments about the mortgage at the funeral?
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9. What is ironic about Happy’s decision to take up Willy’s work?
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10. Is the problem Willy or the American society?