Response to Course Materials 4- The Revenge

I still don't like death of a salesman. I read the actual play, watched the full movie, got to discuss and break down every symbol and pattern of meaning, and the creepy incestuous relationships, and I still don't like it. Generally, I think the whole class was on board with this particular vein of thought. You are free to like it if you so choose, but I can't bring myself to do it. When we read the articles, the one I agreed with most was the one about the incestuous relationships, simply because that author was as sick as I am already of the canonization of Willy Loman as some kind of saint when really, he's a deranged and unstable man who ruined his own life and the lives of those around him. What I was surprised by is how this whole experience has changed my opinion of Miller. I fell in love with The Crucible, but as I read Miller's comments on his own work, they struck me as incomplete and just generally a bit off. He obviously has a clear definition, for example, of a tragic hero, but I personally don't think that he created one in Willy. (Also- what kind of guy writes analytical essays about his own works? Seriously).

Even our discussions of Salesman were a little bit flat, at least to me. When we talked about The American Dream it was hard to get us to shut up, but I felt that we all just ran out of things to say. The play just saps the life out of the atmosphere around it, and doesn't invite discussion so much as it does silent personal reflection on just how awful life can be sometimes.

Also, while I can appreciate the leading themes that tie all our works together in a coherent structure, from American wealth grabbing and family issues to American wealth grabbing and family and tragedy to family issues and tragedy that we've now arrived at with Hamlet, reading two commentaries on the concept of the American Dream with very similar outlooks on its effectiveness is enough to drive anyone bonkers. There's something to be said about variety as much as there is to be said about consistency.

Still, we've moved on from 1950's America and rocketed ourselves back in time to Shakespeare's very own imagined Denmark and the political swamp that it entails. The whole lesson on tragedy was excellent to gain perspective, but I'm still finding it kind of hard to absorb it all into something that I can apply right off of the bat to get a picture of what Elizabethan audiences would be expecting or feeling at any given development. Because of this, I'm grateful that Ms. Holmes is taking time out every now and again to explain the nuances, because Shakespeare really doesn't make much sense any other way. I am also pretty desperate to figure out Ophelia and her motivations.

I'm not sure how pleased I am that we're reading it aloud, though. No offense meant to any of you reading this, of course- it's just that none of us are professional actors and Shakespeare is hard. And if it's read wrong, it doesn't make any sense. And if I have to keep looking down at footnotes and trying to follow along to someone else's pace, or fumbling my own lines whenever I talk, it just makes it very hard to conceptualize what's actually happening, and I'm fairly sure I'd get a better idea of Hamlet if we all just watched it and read along, but ah well. Participation is still fun.