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德宏师范高等专科学校 云南 678400
Abstract：Both Yank and Willy in Miller's and O’Neil’s plays present similar struggle to their lives. This essay will examine how the self-awareness affect the protagonists’ lives and more precisely, discuss the individual’s value within human societies.
Key Words：self-awareness; The Hairy Ape; Death of a Salesman
1. Introduction
Both the plays The Hairy Ape and Death of a Salesman are two masterpieces written by American playwrights Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller in the early 20th century. Yank in Hairy Ape or Willy in Death of a Salesman, they both have a self-awareness guided through their lives, the only differences is that Yank doubted himself and altered constantly what he believed. Why do both protagonists in the two plays all end tragically although they made different choice when their self-identities are questioned in reality? In relating with Yank and Willy inside struggle in Miller's and O’Neil’s plays, this essay will examine how the self-awareness affect the protagonists’ lives and more precisely, discuss the individual’s value within human societies.
2. Similarities and Contrast of the Both Plays
Being both contemporary playwrights in the early 20th century, O’Neil and Miller live in a time of mechanization and materialism of America, although Miller was born 27 years later after O’Neil and experienced the economical depression of 1929, they both presented same puzzle that confused individual at different time of America. O’Neil criticized in Hairy Ape pointing to the individual confusion in the machine age while Miller inclined to depict it within the context of commercial business age. The question of how people should identify himself or herself or what is the right value of living in fast changing world of commercialized society are hence manifested by the fate of Willy and Yank .
Both Willy and Yank sustained a sort of self-awareness at the beginning of the play and never doubted it in the two plays. Yank is a working class s in a roaring time driven by machine and technology, a great time of mechanization and materialism in 1920’s of America. He fantasized himself as the engine of his time thus produces a sense of self-value as part of the machine. “They don't belong, but I belong” [2] declaring his importance to the world .But after he encountered with Mildred, a daughter of a steel industry millionaire, his illusion soon faded and puts his world on edge, since he senses the truth that he is not what he believed any more. As a result he strives to look for his “right” identification that would value him as a member and eventually places hope on apes in the Zoo.
Compared with Yank, Willy has the same false self-awareness like Yank at the beginning of his life, but he takes completely different strategies. Instead of denying himself, Willy chose to insist the path of the salesman based on the old values of the trade, but the role of the salesman has changed and Willy simply cann’t adapt. “there was respect, and comradeship, and gratitude in it. Today, it’s all cut and dried, and there’s no chance for bringing friendship to bear – or personality. You see what I mean? They don’t know me anymore“[3] In spite of his rants about how successful he is, he obviously realizes that the image of himself he tries to sustain is hollow “I get the feeling that I’ll never sell anything again, that I won’t make a living for you, or a business, a business for the boys… there is so much I want to make for.”[3] He cannot seem to recognize that he has made the wrong choices in his life. He cannot quite take the plunge into self-awareness. “I am not a dime a dozen! I am Willy Loman, and you are Biff Loman!”[3]. Willy insists in his view toward himself whole life until he committed suicide, In the view of Robert A. Martin, his death is caused by "his desire and willingness 'to secure one thing--his sense of personal dignity.'"5. However, although killing himself may be thought as a heroic way of protecting his last dignity of his life, people hardly would agree it’s a satisfactory closure of Willy’s story, but see it more as a tragic play.
One’s self-awareness can not be constituted away from his or her own society in the context of history and ideology. Compared Willy with Yank, it’s hard to say who is happier. It is hard to judge what is the right self-awareness for individuals. Yank spends all his life to change and search for his belongingness but in vein. Willy insists in what he believed also ended tragically. Takes Willy as an example, he seems to hold a right dream or a worldview, he believed in the myth of success and admires the Bens and Howard of his world that has fulfilled their economic dreams and is striving to reach goals.
3. Conclusion
Willy’s failure, as Gordon, Lois. Pointed， that “Miller's masterpiece, Death of a Salesman, measures the enormous gap between America's promise of inevitable success and the devastating reality of one's concrete failure”[5]. Yank and Willy’s worldview are misguided by the false self-awareness developed in the need of his time. From the perspective of Marxist, their social values are closely related with capitalist ideology that is determined by the capitalist productive force.
References:
[1] Martin, Robert A. "The Nature of Tragedy in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman." South Atlantic Review 61.4 (Fall 1996): 97-106.
[2]刘海平.英美戏剧作品与评论. 上海：上海外语教育出版社.2001.
[3]Arthur Miller. Death of a Salesman [M] London:Penguin Books. 1961:63-64，29，109，64
[4] Martin, Robert A. "The Nature of Tragedy in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman." South Atlantic Review 61.4 (Fall 1996): 97-106.
[5] Gordon, Lois. "Arthur Miller: Overview." Contemporary Dramatists. K. A. Berney. 5th ed. London: St. James Press, 1993.
作者简介：段丽芳（1982- ），女，汉族，云南芒市人，硕士学位，德宏师范高等专科学校讲师，主要研究方向为英美文学和英语教学。
论文作者:段丽芳
论文发表刊物:《语言文字学》2017年4月
论文发表时间:2017/7/27
标签：云南论文; 上海论文; 英美论文; 汉族论文; 期刊论文; 师范高等专科学校论文; 尽在论文; 《语言文字学》2017年4月论文;