Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman

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Recommended: Writing police narratives

The objectives of this written task were to show how Willy’s family (Linda, Biff and Happy) viewed his death and his achievements. I also attempted to illustrate their individual relationships with Willy. I chose to use the format of a formal police report as it allows all three characters to express their views of Willy freely. Emotions were adjusted to the minimum since this is a police report, except for the case of Linda whom I consider would be too weak at that point to control herself. Their stories do not correspond exactly because some are trying to hide the facts. One difficulty I encountered was imitation of tones of all three characters. After reading the original play again, I managed to capture Linda’s admiration and Happy’s indifference. Various factual details were added carefully to increase the authenticity of the police report, such as the dates, the autopsy result, the photographs and the model of Willy’s car (a red Chevy). Linda deliberately lied to the policeman. She twisted the story in a way that Willy would retain his dignity and hold on to the image of a well-respected old salesman. Her extreme protection and unconditional love for her husband and family were demonstrated through her ‘lies’ (e.g. ‘He forgot his hat at Frank’s Chop House and he drove back to get it.) In the end, Linda chose to maintain Willy’s dignity over the insurance money, as she stated her wish for the file to be closed. Biff’s story was told in an honest way because he couldn’t deal with lies anymore. His endurance with all the cover-ups was over. He honestly admitted that his father’s job has been on the downside and implicitly agreed it was a suicide, but we still see his respect for his deceased father because Biff only vague... ... middle of paper ... ...istake to rule out the possibility of suicide. Name: Happy Loman Relationship with deceased: Spouse / Partner / Child / Friend / Others I do not know much about this. All I can say is that after dinner at Frank’s that night, the three of us went home. Then I went to bed early because I was so exhausted. Suddenly I heard a big crash, and next thing the police were here. That is all I know about the event. What happened? If you ask me about my father, I guess he was happy with his life. He had a good wife and two smart sons – well, he had some arguments with Biff but just very minor ones. He enjoyed his job and was enthusiastic about it. I think he had friends who offered help whenever needed. In a lot of aspects, my father was a happy guy, why would he kill himself when he knew all of us would grieve deeply? So I would really say this was an accident only.

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