Similarities Between Fences And Death Of A Salesman

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Arthur Miller and August Wilson are both authors of plays that show the readers two fathers who try their hardest to work and support their families, but in both plays the fathers show their feelings and thoughts about their sons. Both authors present this by creating a conflict between the two fathers and sons. These conflicts lead to showing the true natures of both the fathers and sons to the reader. Miller and Wilson display this by having the characters begin to change once the sons start to express their opinions to their fathers. Throughout the plays, Fences and Death of a Salesman, the authors display two different fathers who have similar relationships with their sons by having both fathers be disappointed in their son’s actions, beliefs, …show more content…

When Biff decides that he does not want to work as a salesman, Willie becomes angry and calls Biff a bum. Willie believes that Biff is perfectly fit to become a great salesman, but Biff believes that he should be working outside with his hands. This makes Biff feel guilty because he is not doing what his father has preached to him about his whole life. However, later in the play Biff “demonstrates his ability to separate from his father” (Ribkoff) by telling him “I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been. We’ve been talking in a dream for fifteen years” (Miller 1812). This shows the reader that Biff understands the position he is in and wants to take action to live a better life, but Willie refuses to understand Biff’s feelings. Now, in Fences we see a very similar situation with Troy and Cory. For example, we see Troy believes that Cory will never be fit to play football. Troy has this belief because he barely missed the opportunity to play in the Major Leagues. Troy expresses this belief by saying “I’m talking about if you could play ball then they ought to have let you play” (Wilson 1840). Troy was unable to play because African American baseball players were not recruited until he was too old. This makes Troy think that he was unable to play in the Major Leagues because of his race and also believes that Cory will experience the same problem. As a result, Cory is not able to play professional football because of Troy’s “need to control every aspect of his life”

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