Thursday, January 14, 2010
Guest Blogger - Zack J.
In the unit we are doing now, we have picked our own book, I chose The Death of a Salesman because it sounds interesting. The books we chose were some sort of a play. While I carefully read my very interesting book, I realized that there were a lot of inside meanings. These meanings became more revealed as the story continued. Is it just me or is this kind of stuff happening in all the books? This little details seem to be pointless at first but as I continued reading I realized that these little events had huge meanings in the end. For example, in my book when a character named Willy claims he gets into car accidents while driving for work, these accidents happened kind of frequently and in the end of the book, we find out that this character, Willy, was trying to kill himself during these frequent accidents. All these little details really added up in the end and put the story together after I was very confused. Are these details happening in other books and are they bringing the story together and making it easier to understand, or is this just happening in The Death of a Salesman? I think that these little details really help bring the story to a more interesting level instead of just writing about a boring and big concept. I think that these details made the story more likeable and made it into a better book than I thought it would be. As the Death of a Salesman being the first short-play-book I’ve ever read in my life, it actually seemed kind of interesting to me and all the confusing things going on in the beginning all were fixed in the end.
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I agree. My book "Our Town" is a very simple and sort of a boring play, until I read to the last act and it finally all made since. One of the clues that didn't make since until the end was why the stage manager always had little comments about life and why we were put on this earth. In the end I realized Emily's purpose on Earth. And it was to simplify live it to her fullest, which unfortunately, after looking back on her life, she realized she did not accomplish her life goal.
ReplyDeleteI am also reading "Our Town" and there are a things that don't seem relevant at the time but in the end, they sort of come full circle. At the beginning of the play Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Webb are talking about how Mrs. Gibbs wants to travel someday when she gets her legacy of $300. When i first read this i was confused on why she told us this...but then after Emily dies she thanks Mrs. Gibbs for the legacy that she left them. It shows that Mrs. Gibbs never used her money to do what she wanted to with it
ReplyDeleteIn my book, "A Streetcar Named Desire", the whole book does not make sense untill the last act as well. The book revolves around a lamp shade that Blanche buys and puts up in her sister's apartment. Through out the play the lamp shade is torn down twice, the second time the story becomes clear and we find out that Blanche is insane and lied about her lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteI'm also reading Our Town. Throughout the play Wilder has the characters use numerous invisible objects. I think his detail of all of the small invisible things represents us going through life and doing all sorts of things without actually seeing them, not living our life to the fullest. As I started the play I thought Wilder was using all of these invisible props to cut the cost of production, but once I read the end of the play I realized he was using these small details to show us the small things in our life that end up being alot.
ReplyDeleteI definatly agree with this. I also read "Our Town" and during the first two scenes we don't learn much about the overall meaning of the story as a whole. We learn little things about the towns folk and how they choose to live their life, with or without morals. In the end we realize that the whole purpose of the story shows that people don't always see the greater meaning of life, or try to appreciate all of its wonders. Emily realizes that after she dies, and chooses to relive a day in her past, only to realize how blind the people among the living truly are.
ReplyDeleteI also read Our Town. Like everyone else has stated, I was also just a little lost until the end where it all finally made sense. Like Ben said, the stage manager used the small little details to point out that the little things in life are important. Emily realizes what she missed in life when she looked back on it, and it just goes to show how important living your life to the fullest is. I really enjoyed Our Town, and it did a really good job of conveying the idea of really living life to it's fullest, and how important that truely is.
ReplyDeleteDuncan
ReplyDeleteI agree. death fo a salesman was a good book. Another small detail used is when Willy tried to plant his garden. The was bare and unable to grow anything. This symbolized Willy's failure to leave a legacy. At the end when he tries to plant some seeds in his garden but it's too late, he's a failure. The garden might also sybolize Willy's life, unable to "grow" any succes, but at the end when he tries to plant seeds, that might symbolize him trying to create a future for Biff by comitting suicide and leaving the life insurance money to Biff.
As like 5 or so other people here I too read Our Town. The things pointed out about the little details revealing themselves in the end is very true for my play as well. Even the fact that the stage manager has very extensive descriptions of certain actions or histories gets an additional meaning at the end of the play. Also that Emily is always worried about what's going to happen gets a greater meaning by the end of the play as she goes back to her birthday and realizes just how much she was missing of everyday life because of the attention she was always paying to the future.
ReplyDeleteOh at least I'm not the only one noticing these tiny details that make no sense to me at the time. I think that these short plays are meant to be confusing and meant to be deeply thought through as we read them. That is a lot of thinking though because I can't seem to get some of the tiny details such as the stocking that keep getting brought up. Some of these things just didn't add up to me in the end of the play.
ReplyDeleteDuncan
ReplyDeleteThe stocking.
Willy had given Linda's stocking to the woman he was having an affair with. When Linda is repairing her old stocking infront of him, Willy gets angry because it reminds him of his infedelity and betrayal to Biff and Linda. New stockings represent Willy's pride in being successful and it also eases the guild he has.
I chose "A Streetcar Named Desire." I also noticed the little details you speak of. In my book Blanche, the main character, always was shown in candelight and dim lights. I started noticing it happened consistenly throughout the book. Another thing I noticed was that Blanche and her sister Stella depended on men for everything. In the end you find out why she is always shown in that light and the meaning of the dependence on men.
ReplyDeleteI am reading "Our Town" for our final. I agree that things in these plays have been coming together in the end, and haha being relatively confusing in the beginning. I wonder if Mrs. Arko noticed this too, and chosen these specific plays for one specific reason? what do all of them have in common? and why do all of them have this same repeating patter of coming together in the end?
ReplyDeleteWell, plays usually come together at the end because that's where the resolution happens and the reader is exposed to all the deeper meaning and secrets that they didn't understand before. I think that most all pieces of literature do have that element of suspense. Not just the plays that we're reading in class, but other plays and novels too.
ReplyDelete-Karissa B.
I agree with the couple people who have commented about Our Town. There are many details in the first and second acts that gain meaning in the third and final act. I think almost everyone who read the book would not have notice many of the details unless the stage manager hadn't pointed them out. I think his main purpose was to point out the obvious and make we the audience make note of it. I know i would have missed many details, unless the stage manager had not blatantly acknowledged them.
ReplyDelete-Josh Kelly
I also noticed this very same thing in Our Town as many others did. In fact, my blog post is about a very similar topic. One thing that I found interesting was that when Emily went back she saw little details that had happened earlier in her life that she had completely forgotten about. When writing some of the essays about Our Town, I too went back and reread some earlier parts of the stories and caught some little details that I had completely missed that turned out to really add to the story.
ReplyDeleteI read a Streetcar Named Desire, but I think these small details make the play predictable. Yes, the resolution definitely includes all of the props and events wrapped up in one, but there are instances where the audience can foresee the ending. For example, the antagonist in my play, Blanche, is very erratic and often tells people lies to cover up her troubled past. Eventually once people start to see through these fabricated lies (especially Stanley), a downturn is sure to occur.
ReplyDelete