Deconstruction of Greatness – Moon of Alabama

February 11, 2005

Deconstruction of Greatness

Willy – ‘All your life is wide open’
Biff – ‘*sharply* But, pop, I am a dime a dozen and so are you!!’
Willy – ‘I AM NOT A DIME A DOZEN!!! I AM WILLY LOMAN AND YOU ARE BIFF LOMAN!!‘ *hits Biff*
Biff – *tries to go at Willy but Hap is holding him back, struggling,
shouting* ‘ I AM NOT A LEADER OF MEN, WILLY AND NIETHER ARE YOU!! You were
never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ashcan like all
the rest of them!!! I am one dollar an hour, Willy! I am not bringing home
any prizes anymore!!! and you’re going to stop waiting for me to bring-‘
Willy – ‘You miserable spiteful MUTT!! *throws jacket in Biff’s face*
Death of a Salesman

He reflected the false self-perception of The American way of life to the audience of his plays. In this sense, his work, the deconstruction of greatness, is unfinished.

Posted by b on February 11, 2005 at 16:40 UTC | Permalink

Comments

the most important line & perhaps the most important in american literature which has gone unheeded since the beginning is
“attention must be paid”
& america has proved it neither gives attention nor wants to pay
he was a good & a flawed man – america is the poorer for his absence

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 11 2005 19:25 utc | 1

I was superficially acquainted with his work in my younger years but only began to have some grasp of it in recent years, and still have a lot more to grasp.

Posted by: maxcrat | Feb 12 2005 2:04 utc | 2

Thursday night I watched a show that included Arthur Miller as an advocate for a man wrongly convicted of murder. This morning I blogged about my old friend Arthur, not a playwright, but a teacher. While I was typing into Blogger the top of the hour radio news came on announcing the death of Arthur Miller.
Such a life he had. What an impact he made. My first exposure was “The Crucible” followed by participating in a high school production of “Death of a Salesman”. And while I love the original film adaptation (with Lee J. Cobb as Willy) , I was transfixed by Dustin Hoffman’s performance in the remake of it, something like 30 years later.
I’m looking forward to seeing an “in tribute” revival of his plays in the coming months.

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Feb 12 2005 3:43 utc | 3

I shouldn’t have clicked post. “The Crucible” is a must read for an understanding of Miller’s grasp of what was going on the US at the time. McCarthy, Roy Cohen… HUAC (the House Unamerican Activities Committee, where Congressman Nixon was a committee member), blacklisting… lives destroyed. Miller’s senses were keen. I’m forever grateful to the literature teacher who made sure we knew as wet-behind-the-ears teens just what Arthur Miller was calling attention to.
“Attention! Attention!” (Screaming birds in “Island” by Aldous Huxley)
Yes Rememberinggiap … “attention must be paid” from Willy is some pristine writing.
“Have you no decency, Sir” from the HUAC hearings.
This is not distant history. I was born in 1952… Ike and Mamie were on the cover of Life Magazine. The still visible shadows of all of it and more are there in plain sight for anyone who has the acuity to see.

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Feb 12 2005 3:57 utc | 4

Greatness… Great Society… Miller was, as far as I could tell, satirising the same 20’s-era “boosterism” (the first golden age of travelling salesmen and raw capitalism in the US) that Sinclair used to skewer so expertly (oh lordy, those local businessmen in Babbitt and Kingsblood Royal!)
anyway, here’s a pop quiz on the current state of the Great Society. It starts:

1. In 1968 the minimum wage was $1.60 per hour. How much would the minimum wage be today if it had kept pace with inflation?
2. In 1965, CEOs in major companies made 24 times more than the average worker. In 2003, CEOs earned how many times more than the average worker?
3. The US is composed of 3,066 counties. In how many of the nation’s 3,066 counties can someone who works full-time and earns the federal minimum wage afford to pay rent and utilities on a one-bedroom apartment?
4. How much must the typical US worker must earn per hour if they dedicate 30% of their income to housing costs.[…]

there’s a lot more where that came from. worth taking the quiz, especially if you’re an American or living here. worth sharing with friends.

Posted by: DeAnander | Feb 12 2005 7:01 utc | 5

@DeA – thanks for that link – distrubing numbers..

Posted by: b | Feb 12 2005 11:02 utc | 6

Are You Now or Were You Ever?, by Arthur Miller for the Guardian, Saturday, June 17, 2000

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Feb 13 2005 11:37 utc | 7

Thanks Kate,
should we expect the return of McCarthy era’s anti-~~communist~~-terrorist trials as Miller describes them?

Posted by: b | Feb 13 2005 12:38 utc | 8

Seems to me that they’re getting there – revving up, b…
I’ve read a dozen interesting pieces on those years and all the madness since I woke up at 2 AM… RossK at The Gazetteer started me on my way with a link to an excerpt from Dalton Trumbo’s “Johnny Got His Gun” – Trumbo was of the Hollywood Ten incarcerated for a year for non-cooperation with the HUAC. From there,… surfing, I found this great little resource: The American 1950s

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Feb 13 2005 14:00 utc | 9

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