Death of a Salesman

American Lit 9/23 – Modernizing Death of a Salesman

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Over the weekend finish up your ten modernizations of themes/characters/motifs in Death of a Salesman. You don’t have the books with you so I won’t blame you if you don’t have page numbers, but all the resources we looked at in class are below:

modernizing-doas-symbols-graphic-organizer

And if you’re really ambitious, here’s a pdf of the play, though no page numbers: http://www.pelister.org/literature/ArthurMiller/Miller_Salesman.pdf

For Monday have 10 of those boxes filled out. We talk next steps after that.

American lit 9/12 – Death of a Salesman character analysis

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Today we split into groups and studied a specific character:

Directions: Finish reading Act 1 with your group

With your group, choose a character to study:
-Willy
-Biff
-Happy
-Linda
-Charley & Bernard

As you read, track one character:
—-What do each of them want?
—-What details reveal parts of their character?
—-What are their fears, concerns, motivations, relationships and history?
—-What could this character symbolize? What symbols or objects do we associate with this character?

Use chart paper, make sure to include two or three choice quotes from your character.

American Lit 9/9 – Masculinity and the American Dream

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Today we read pages 41 to 60 of Death of a Salesman. For homework, consider it a “second draft” of you answers to those two questions from class:

1) How does masculinity (in however you define it) play a role in the American Dream/American Way of Life of today and in the past?

2) Where do we see masculinity and emasculation in this section of Death of Salesman? How does masculinity (or lack thereof) impact the attainability of the American Dream in the play?

***As always, use quotes and line numbers in your responses