Plain Style Revison of Open Prompt December 2

1975 Also. Unlike the novelist, the writer of a play does not use his own voice and only rarely uses a narrator's voice to guide the audience's responses to character and action. Select a play you have read and write an essay in which you explain the techniques the playwright uses to guide his audience's responses to the central characters and the action. You might consider the effect on the audience of things like setting, the use of comparable and contrasting characters, and the characters' responses to each other. Support your argument with specific references to the play. Do not give a plot summary.

               The job of an author differs depending on the medium they use.  Plays might be more difficult since they do not often have a narrator; in order to guide the audience in the direction the author intends they must use other means instead of an overhead monologue.  In Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, Miller uses the conflicting relationships and unstable mind of his main character, Willy, to guide the responses of the audience, making them wonder what has caused such a dysfunctional family.

                 The conflicting relationships in Death of a Salesman are best seen in Willy and Biff’s relationship.  Biff, Willy’s son, has been wandering around the country trying to find himself, when he returns home the conflicts between himself and Willy flare up again, drawing the audience’s attention.  The relationship was once a positive one, when Biff looked up to Willy,  and Willy was always proud of Biff; but this relationship changed it was soured when Biff went to Boston to ask for Willy’s help in a problem and Biff catches Willy cheating. At this point Biff realizes that Willy has been a fake, all along Willy has been faking many of his achievements and his popularity too.  Biff can never see Willy in the same light again, and this confrontation helps the audience understand why Miller has been showing all the disagreements between the two in the present.  Miller used this confrontational relationship between Biff and Willy to catch the audience’s attention and then keep it until he explained what had actually happened between the two.

                The mental instability of the main character Willy also catches and guides the responses of the audience, the audience must wonder what has happened to this man that he has gone crazy.  Willy has frequent flashbacks and he talks to himself, he has flashbacks to important moments in his life, choices he could have made differently, things he thinks would have given him a different life.  One of these flashbacks includes a discussion with Willy’s older brother Ben, Ben offers him the opportunity to go to Alaska to make a life, but Willy declines it.  This is one of those decisions that continue to haunt Willy, one that makes the audience wonder what else has happened to him.

                All the confrontational relationships and the unstable mind of the main character make the audience follow the central characters and they guide the audience’s responses by making them wonder what has happened to cause such dysfunction in one family.