In Hills Like White Elephants, And Death Of A Salesman

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Throughout history, blue collar and working men have been revered, loved, and idolised by some and belittled, scorned, and depreciated by others. The popularity of these viewpoints rise and fall with the passage of time. To get a glimpse of the views of people groups throughout history, we must turn to literature from the time. The works The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck, Hills like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway and “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller all portray a working man as a central character and each convey a related, yet separate view of this socially constructed group. While it is fallacious to say that the men depicted are acting on behalf of working men as a whole, as a society we tend to establish stereotypes for groups …show more content…

Through context clues and reasoning we can reasonably deduce that the American and the women are expecting child, and they are discussing an abortion. While the story does not explicitly state the American’s employment, his quality of being defined by his nationality strongly suggests that he is a businessman, as America is often seen as a land of business and laboring. Through the story we begin to perceive the American as a very factual and logical man, albeit somewhat manipulative, with a clear objective in mind. This is best shown when he pretends to concede the decision to the women, “I think it 's the best thing to do. But I don’t want you to do it if you don’t really want to.” and then continues to push the issue. His badgering regarding proceeding with the surgery continues after she drops the subject without making a decision, and endures past when she explicitly tells him to stop. This shows that he wants nothing more than to have the abortion, while the woman still feels turmoil regarding the …show more content…

Through the course of this play we get an inside look at the mind of Willy Loman, a salesman from Brooklyn, New York. Willy has worked for almost everything he has, and maintains most of his property by himself. He worked almost his entire life as a traveling salesman, and developed a wholehearted belief in the American Dream which he carried with him until the day he died. Despite Willy’s best efforts, neither of his sons are able to fulfill his vision of success and much less even carry his hope of a better life onwards. Throughout the play we are able to observe his deterioration into madness that accompanies the decay of his mental

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