Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller

 Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller 

 

Willy Loman is a salesman living in New York City in the late 1940’s. He lives with his wife, Linda, in the same house for the last twenty-five years. The house once set apart from other houses, now it is surrounded by apartment buildings, which makes Willy feel closed in. 

 

Willy is having trouble in concentrating on driving and often makes mistakes such as crossing the white line, driving off the road, and running red lights, while stopping for green lights. He has begun to talk to himself more and more, which causes concern for Linda. He, at the beginning of the play, has come home from a business trip because he has had trouble with his driving. He is also concerned, because his sons are not progressing in the business world the way he had hoped they would. His first son Happy does have a job and lives in his own apartment, but his second son, Biff, rambles from job to job, as a farmhand, never making much money. 

 

Willy has been demoted from a salaried employee to a commission employee at his job. This means he makes less money to support himself and his wife. This combined with the constant driving and lackluster sales, causes Willy so much stress, that he begins to hallucinate. He thinks he is living in an earlier time in his life. He speaks to people who aren’t there, and he disturbs his friend, Charley, who come over to play cards with Willy. During the game Willy thinks his dead brother, Ben, is in the room with them. He is talking to Ben and Charley at the same time, which causes Charley and Willy to have a disagreement about the card game, Charley leaves, but Willy is still talking to Ben asking him how he made his fortune. Ben had gone to Africa and worked in the diamond mines; this is how he became rich. Willy also needs Ben to tell him he is proud of Willy and his sons. During this hallucination the boys are teenagers and Biff is the sports star at his school. Willy sees a very bright future for his son, but in reality, this does not come to pass. Willy is not as proud of Happy, who does all he can to garner some attention from his father. He is constantly telling his dad about the weight he has lost, but Willy instead of praising his son, tells him more ways in which to lose weight. 

 

Biff and Happy are surprised at the turn their father has taken. Happy knew his father would often talk to himself but did not know he was so loud about it and how often it occurred. Biff, meanwhile, had no idea his father was behaving in this manner. Now their mother tells them the car accidents Willy has been having, are in fact attempts at suicide. The boys agree to try to stay closer to home and start a business together. Biff decides to ask his former boss for a loan to help start the new business. 

 

At the beginning of act two. Willy and Linda are full of hope for their family’s future. Willy is going to talk to his boss, Howard, and try to change his job from that of traveling salesman to floor salesman in the store. They are also hopeful about Biff’s and Happy’s future business venture. If Biff can receive the loan from his former employer, then it will mean a bright future for the boys. Biff at age 34, needs to settle down and make a career for himself, he sees that and so does his parents. 

 

Willy tries to talk to Howard about the job change, but Howard tells him he just doesn’t have a position open for him in the store. He needs Willy to keep selling to the clients in the New England area. Willy becomes angry with Howard and starts to yell at him. Howard after trying to calm Willy down, eventually has to fire him. 

 

Biff is left waiting in his former boss, Bill Oliver’s office for six hours and he only sees Bill, as he is leaving for the day. It is clear either doesn’t remember Biff or doesn’t want to speak to him. Biff, after all did steal some basketballs from Bill’s business. Biff in a pique of anger enters Bill’s office and steals his pen. As he is making his escape from Bill’s office, he realizes he and Bill never did have a real relationship and he has made a mess of his life. 

 

Biff and Happy have made plans to meet their father in a restaurant to celebrate the anticipated good news from the day. Instead, it is all bad news and Willy is not willing to accept the truth from Biff. The two boys meet some girls and leave Willy alone in the restaurant, which causes Willy to have another hallucination about a woman he had used to cheat on Linda. 

 

At home, Linda is furious with the boys for leaving their father behind at the restaurant. She tells them it would be better if they left and never returned, because they cause so much stress for their father. Willy and Biff finally tell each other how they feel, which makes Willy understand that his son loves him. Willy decides the insurance money, or twenty-five thousand dollars would benefit his family. He talks to Ben and decides to kill himself. Afterward, Linda has a hard time dealing with Willy’s death. She cannot bring herself to cry, because she keeps on waiting for him to return from another business trip. She is sad, because finally the house is paid for and now, she does not have a husband to share it with.

 

This play shows how false perceptions of ourselves and others can bring about the ruin of a person. If a life is based on a lie, then eventually the truth can be too much to endure.

 

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The Old Man and The Sea: Plot Summary

The Old Man and the Sea is the story of a battle between an old, experienced fisherman and a large marlin. The novel opens with the explanation that the fisherman, who is named Santiago, has gone 84 days without catching a fish. Santiago is considered "salao", the worst form of unluckiness. In fact, he is so unlucky that his young apprentice, Manolin, has been forbidden by his parents to sail with the old man and been ordered to fish with more successful fishermen. Still dedicated to the old man, however, the boy visits Santiago's shack each night, hauling back his fishing gear, getting him food and discussing American baseball and his favorite player Joe DiMaggio. Santiago tells Manolin that on the next day, he will venture far out into the Gulf Stream, north of Cuba in the Straits of Florida to fish, confident that his unlucky streak is near its end. Thus on the eighty-fifth day, Santiago sets out alone, taking his skiff far onto the Gulf Stream. He sets his lines and, by noon of the first day, a big fish that he is sure is a marlin takes his bait. Unable to pull in the great marlin, Santiago instead finds the fish pulling his skiff.

Two days and two nights pass in this manner, during which the old man bears the tension of the line with his body. Though he is wounded by the struggle and in pain, Santiago expresses a compassionate appreciation for his adversary, often referring to him as a brother. He also determines that because of the fish's great dignity, no one will be worthy of eating the marlin. On the third day of the ordeal, the fish begins to circle the skiff, indicating his tiredness to the old man. Santiago, now completely worn out and almost in delirium, uses all the strength he has left in him to pull the fish onto its side and stab the marlin with a harpoon, ending the long battle between the old man and the tenacious fish. Santiago straps the marlin to the side of his skiff and heads home, thinking about the high price the fish will bring him at the market and how many people he will feed.

While Santiago continues his journey back to the shore, sharks are attracted to the trail of blood left by the marlin in the water. The first, a great mako shark, Santiago kills with his harpoon, losing that weapon in the process. He makes a new harpoon by strapping his knife to the end of an oar to help ward off the next line of sharks; in total, five sharks are slain and many others are driven away. But the sharks keep coming, and by nightfall the sharks have almost devoured the marlin's entire carcass, leaving a skeleton consisting mostly of its backbone, its tail and its head. Finally reaching the shore before dawn on the next day, Santiago struggles on the way to his shack, carrying the heavy mast on his shoulder. Once home, he slumps onto his bed and falls into a deep sleep. A group of fishermen gather the next day around the boat where the fish's skeleton is still attached. One of the fishermen measures it to be 18 feet (5.5 m) from nose to tail. Tourists at the nearby café mistakenly take it for a shark. Manolin, worried during the old man's endeavor, cries upon finding him safe asleep. The boy brings him newspapers and coffee. When the old man wakes, they promise to fish together once again. Upon his return to sleep, Santiago dreams of his youth—of lions on an African beach.

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A FEW BOTTLE NECKS IN TEACHING ENGLISH IN KCK

A Few bottle necks in Teaching English in KCK

It cannot be denied that the results of English language not only in KCK but also other colleges of the V.V. Sangha and other affiliated colleges of GUG are falling into slightly lower percentage. This is not exactly the result of incompetence of English Teachers working in these colleges. It is the fact that various factors either directly or indirectly working together to put our results at an average levels. Particularly in rural colleges like KCK is facing a major set back in its competition to vie with other colleges. I tried to explain through these observations how various problems are working together and trying to destroy the quality of English in the student-community in particular.

1. Crowded Class-rooms

The statistics of the students' admission in each year shows particularly in B.A. class is really crowded. The number of students in each year of B.A. Classes from all combination nearly 250 and more. Maintaining regular attendance in such large classes is impossible. They create lot of mess while the roll call is made. The exercise of taking attendance in those classes is likely risky affair and greater part of teacher's allotted time will be consumed in each period. Taking this as an advantage most of the students remain absent for many classes.

The problem in B. Sc. course is different to B.A. The admission of students may be higher than 100 from all combinations(sections) of B. Sc. The college usually provides room nos. 1/2/3 for B. Sc. classes. These rooms are being smaller in size cannot accommodate all students of B. Sc. They only accommodate the maximum 60 students. This tends again students remain absent for combined classes like English for lack of space in these class rooms. Though we brought this problem to the notice of the authorities of the college several times it remains same as it was. Nothing was made for the improvement in this connection.

2. Abnormal student and teacher ratio

The ratio between student and teacher is abnormal when compare it to the other departments. There is only one full-time lecturer for the entire college where students' strength is nearly 875. According to semester manual provided by the GUG the strength of the students in each class strictly restricted to 60 but against to this restriction we manage to engage classes for more than 250 to 300 students.

3. Problem with non-English students

Nearly 60% of the students especially in B. A. did not study English as basic language at lower classes like PUC. They studied either Hindi or Sanskrit instead of English. All these boys and girls are forced again to study English as it is compulsory paper for them according to GUG semester rules. These students even came to PUC just writing multiple objective type questions for sixty marks at SSLC examination. In addition to this most of the remote village schools help their students in filling these objective type questions in the respective examinations to get them pass.

4. Problem with compulsory English for all Students

English Language is made compulsory for all students who seek admission at UG level in GUG. A large number of students are really not interested in studying English however they are all forced to undergo this ordeal despite their lack of basic knowledge in previous classes. Some students in B. A. classes are not able to recognize very fundamental and simple words in English.

They could not read even the simplest sentences in English even though they are very familiar to them. Further they are not able to mange to read the sentence meaningfully by dividing it into meaningful units. Such students do really lose interest in studying English in the examinations.

5. Students from rural background

Unlike the students of Hospet and Bellary, KCK is getting students from its remote rural villages where English teaching is completely neglected in both Primary and High Schools. I met several teachers personally when I attended CRC meetings as a resource person and came to know that the teaching English in rural schools is at stake. Several English teachers working in rural schools are untrained and non-technical. These schools are exercising to teach English with any one of the teachers available who might have known a little English. No specially trained teacher is appointed to teach English. Either Kannada teacher or mathematics teacher or some Hindi teacher or Social Studies teacher or any other teacher is playing the role of English teacher in most of the schools. So input of qualitative students in rural colleges is seldom and ultimately passing level in University examination is coming down.

6. Non-technical English teachers at primary and high schools

As I said above I came to know many English teachers in various schools in the villages are Non-technical. They did not study English as a major subject either in UG or in B. Ed. Somehow they managed to teach English with very ill-informed knowledge. I personally knew many teachers teaching English in various schools who did not know how to use a dictionary. They did not know how to make interrogative sentences to interact their students.Some of the teachers are not able to read lengthy sentences meaningfully. They have a lot of confusion in using prepositions, phrases and English usage. Most of them even did not possess any Standard English Dictionary like OALD or Cambridge Type. So naturally we could not get students with minimum knowledge in English.

7. Non-availability of English textbooks in rural book shops

The book sellers in Kottur do not take any risk in selling textbooks. The reasons may be varied from one seller to another seller. The commission they earn on selling textbooks may be lesser than the commission on the guides they sell. Here students feel comfortable on the availability of ready made questions and answers in the guides. It is interesting to mention the students used to come to the classes with guides instead of textbooks. They could not follow what teacher is reading from the textbook and explain out of his experience and homework. Without textbooks how could they locate some of the annotated sentences which are appearing in the examinations?

8. No mechanism is adopted to control the truancy rate

KCK is admitting students without following any standard norms of admission prescribed by the university. The university authorities restricted the maximum number of students in each class 60 only but the college is stuffing class rooms 4 times greater than the required strength. Attendance is made mandatory but no use. If we take attendance in each class we fin no time to talk on the lesson. Calling their names or numbers in a crowded classroom is really in-explainable difficult. There are several chances of proxy attendance. Could we apply any rule and take action against students who remained absent regularly in case we take compulsory attendance at the cost of valuable time? We know very well many students just take admission in the college and write examinations without attending classes. Thanks to the present present principal who have taken necessary steps at least to control the entry of other college students. The unfinished list of students of each class is handed over in the second week of September just one month before the examination. How could a teacher prepare his attendance books and monitor the attendance of the students? With all these constraints it is like wading through all these difficulties and helplessness with sedate pace.

9. Late admissions

Usually the college reopens on 16th of June. the college administration instructs the teaching staff to take classes as early as they can. The semester mode of examination does not allow us to take our own time to start our lessons. All lecturers usually start their syllabus and seriously engage their classes soon after the college begins. the admissions of the college are kept open up to 30th 0f September. Examination date will be announced in the same week. It says that the examination is conducted in the next month i.e. in November. Within this shortest time, how these students who admitted lately could take their examination? How far this type admission is helpful for both teachers and students to achieve good results?

10. Increased volume of syllabus

Before 2006 (yearly exams) there were only eight prose lessons, eight poems and small novel/play for non-detailed study in the syllabus for the whole year. It was common syllabus for all degree classes. the same volume of syllabus is taught for the second year degree classes also. what we were teaching in B. A. the same was taught in B. Sc. and B. Com. total 16 prose lessons and 16 poems and 2 novels/plays with simple grammar for the whole year. The strength of students in each class was less because English was not compulsory for all students. most of the students who were weak in English had an option to choose either Hindi or Sanskrit language Then the rate of pass percentage was really appreciable.

After 2006 the semester system of education was introduced. English is made compulsory for all students. The strength of students in each class is considerably increased to the maximum level. The whole year is divided into four (I&II Degree) semesters. Class wise syllabus is introduced. Now there are 59 prose lessons and 36 poems and four types of transformation of sentences, essay writing, paragraph writing, resume writing, words often confused, prefixes and suffixes, English Usage etc. for 4 semesters apart from communication skills comprising: meaning of communication, definition, evolution, process of communication, types of communication (verbal and Non verbal in detail) verbal: oral communication and written communication. Non verbal: body language, paintings, road signals , colours and codes etc. Total 59 prose lessons and 36 poems and a great volume of communication skills is taught with in five months duration besides 3200 student note books have to be verified and valued for internal assessment.

11. Library is no helpful to the students in providing books in English language

Library of KCK is no way helpful for the students of English language. Unlike the other subjects of the college the library is only buying 2 copies of each textbook. These two copies are provided to the lecturers. No copy of any textbook of English is on reserve for the purpose of the students. Neither the library nor the private book sellers are resourceful to provide text books for the students. Most of the students nearly 98% of them are coming to the classes without English text books. Teaching poetry or a play to the students who do not have textbooks with them is really a heard nut to crack. Many of the students do not know how to read some mere simple sentences. It is because students are not able to compare the spelling of the word and the pronunciation of it while teacher is reading the text book.

12. No time is allotted to conduct remedial and bridge courses

KCk is charted for the benefit of the rural students who are plying everyday from their remote villages. The college timings are arranged in two sessions from 9-30 am to 4-30pm with one hour lunch break. Students may not come from their villages too early or they may not wait for one more hour in the evening to attend the specially arranged bridge course classes. We requested the previous principals many a time to arrange time-table that may be convenient to take bridge course classes to help them learn at least some basic knowledge. But it does not come into execution in anyway.

13. Unscientific methods of admission and commencement of classes

The GUG has restricted the strength of the each class should be not more than 60 students for effective implementation of semester system. The admission committee must be constituted according to the directions of UGC and it should screen all the applications of the students within the set parameters of eligibility before the admission. Just passing in the previous examination is not the eligibility. we should know how did he pass in the examination? What was his percentage? Did the candidate pass in the previous examination either in the first attempt or compartmentalize? Knowing all details we should invite the eligible candidates for the admission. Despite the rules of admission we are taking all students who ought to seek admission.

14. No support from the other departments for the encouragement of English and English speaking culture among the students.

Students of Arts faculty are encouraged to write all the examinations in their mother tongue except English Examination. Other subjects are taught in the regional language and most of the lecturers irrespective of Arts, Science, and Commerce used to talk with them in a general vernacular. Students have no exposure to cultivate English speaking habits within the premises of the college. The environment is created in such way where students do not get any type of encouragement to express their views in English. This type of environment is a major set back in learning English because what is taught in English class is not exercised anywhere. So naturally the students lose interest and zeal of learning English.

15. Beeping high-alert particularly on the day of English Examination

Malpractice is predominantly common in all subjects. Personally I condemn such practices in all examinations. I am proud to say that KCK has set some standards in conducting examinations comparing to other colleges. In spite of all these ethics vigilance squad beeps high-alert on the particular day of English examination and many students feel acute tense and embarrassment. Many students lose confidence to write English examination peacefully. Continual instructions through out the duration of examination may disturb them to write English examination confidently by recalling answers from their exiguous memory.

16. Unfavourable Govt. Policies against English

We all aware that the Government of Karnataka is implementing strict ploices to use Kannada in all stages of its administration. Under the guise of these polices rural schools have completely neglected the importance of teaching Englsih at primary level. Teaching English in rural primary and high schools has become nominal. English medium schools either in urban or rural are disqualified to get grant-in-aid from the Government. The managements of English medium schools particularly in rural areas use the scanty available resources to run their schools. No quality Englsih medium education is provided in our college catchments. Besides these indifferent polices of Govt, Kannada Horata Samithi, Kannada Chalavali Sangha, activities and slogans like 'Save Kannada, use Kannada', 'Kannadave sathya, kannadave nythya' are successfully completed the destruction of English.

17. Adolscent age group

The students of UG courses are neither immature nor fully matured group. This adolescence is really a challenge to deal with. They are egoistic in many ways. These adolescent students are eager to be identified by any means. They have been easily attracted and being influenced by powerful media TV and Cinema. It is really crucial time for all students of this age. The parents of these students should take much care to prune them in right method. The ignorance and negligence of the rural parents is also one of te reasons to reap unsatisfied results.

18. Very least importance is given in the time-table

English is given very least importance in the time-table. 17 English classes out of 24 are allotted after 11.30 hour and afternoon though college starts at 9.30. Many students remain absent in the afternoon classes. Afternoon is not favourable time to sit and learn the unfavourable subject like English. The lecturer is helpless though he is innovative and creative in attracting them in all classes.

19. No Scope is provided to students to exercise their knowledge in English

Students are not encourage to exercise their knowledge in English anywhere. They are forced to write all request letters or applications in Kannada only. First of all the employees in all offices discourage them whenever they attempted to write or tried to speak with them in English. With all these negative approaches of English the confidence of student is undermined. They have come to an agreement that Englsih is only a classroom exercise and nothing more than that. So gradually students grow negative attitude and completely neglect it.

20. Shortage of time as the English teachers staying at GUG for longer duration for valuation purpose

All Lecturers of English are supposed to stay at Gulbaraga for longer period on account of valuation work. The camp of the valuation work is not less than two months. Every time the lecturers of English return to their work one month or one and half month late after the commencement of the college. By that time the rest of the departments have already completed a greater part of their syllabus. The English lecturer starts has lessons one month late on account of the above said problem and tries to complete his part of syllabus hurriedly. It is really a greater shortage of time to complete his syllabus hence he is not able to make use of his efforts for the benefit of the students.

______mastanappa puletipalli