The dream in charge

Will Landschulz
Am Lit. Per. 2
Mrs. LaMagdeleine

Stella is very sad at sending her sister to what is implied to be an insane asylum.  However, I think that she was justified in doing that, as her sister is trapped in a twisted reflection of her real life, with the wallpaper suddenly sprouting "twisted shapes" that move "sinuously . . . like flames" and the world outside suddenly becoming punctuated by "inhuman" cries.  In this way, her world becomes like how she described Stanley; brutal, inhuman, like an ape.  However, this is strangely juxtaposed with what goes on in the alleys behind Stella's apartment, which are both starkly real and which also parallel the inhuman cries and the sinuous shapes of Stella's mind.  After Stella's phone call to the operator, we see that a prostitute has stolen something from a drunk, who is in hot pursuit.  A police officer comes in with a sharp whistle, which sends them off like rats with their tails between their legs.  The Negro Woman, whom we saw in the first scene as a benevolent friend of Eunice's, now picks up the prostitute's forgotten bag and is rooting through it.  We see these streets at night for the first time, and they are a far cry from the "raffishly charming" set described in the beginning.  However, the foreboding, shifting shapes and the slightly off-key renditions of the Varsouviana polka theme seem to die down once Blanche realizes that the doctor is there to help her.  She even says as much in her last line: "Whoever you are - I have always depended upon the kindness of strangers."  Stella, however, despite knowing that Stanley's actions have driven her past the point of no return, feels bad that she had to abandon her to an institution.  Besides, as Eunice points out, there is nothing really else for her to do.  Blanche can't stay there, especially as unhinged as she is, and there is nowhere else for her to go. 

Hearsay

Will Landschulz
Am Lit. Per. 2
Mrs. LaMagdeleine

Ah, another meaty section, with information and backstory given out nearly willy-nilly.  Juicy gossip for everyone!  To recap: Blanche caught her husband with an older man, doing . . . "degenerate" things, Blanche called him out during a dance and he shot himself, Blanche creeped out the (jaded) management of the seedy Hotel Flamingo so much that they kicked her out, Blanche eventually attained notoriety by the way she got around, Blanche got "mixed up" with a 17-year old she was teaching "English" to, she later got fired because the boy's dad found out, and Stella's water just broke at the end of Scene 8.  Whew!  However, we had an inkling that Blanche had caused her husband's death, had been fired from her job,  and had gone to the Flamingo, so none of this is really surprising.  The really surprising things are that her husband was gay and that the Hotel Flamingo kicked her out because of how much of a playa she was.  More and more, Stanley seems to exist only to dig up dirt and throw it in Blanche's face.  Blanche could have been happy again with Mitch, as with her husband of old, but when Stanley told him about her tendency to drop a man after three dates, there is little to no chance of them getting together.  We both pity and are grossed out by Blanche (Blanche makes us blanch.  Haha.) because of her quaking demeanor and her (for lack of a better term) horniness.  However, she is most definitely the protagonist of the story, which makes Stanley her antagonist. 

Beastly relations

Will Landschulz
Am Lit Per. 2
Mrs. LaMagdeleine

Blanche doesn't like Stanley at all.  Starting with her nigh-hysterical rant in Scene 4, he is apparently "common," doesn't have "any part of a gentleman's in his nature," "bestial," and several other derogatory metaphors likening him and his friends to a pack of apes.  She sees his drunken rages, and in fact all his other actions such as the (admittedly worrying) practice of grabbing your wife's slipper and smashing out the lights to create a romantic atmosphere instead the slightly more efficient expedient of turning out the light, slightly psychotic and scary.  She's at a loss to explain why her sister is swept off her feet by him, while she herself is hardly above reproach.  She repeatedly says that drink and money don't mean much to her, but continues to ask for both.  Somebody doth protest too much.  Also, for all her bemoaning the "epic fornications" of her male counterparts at Belle Reve, and all her abusing Stanley for his sexuality, she herself is not innocent of chaste Southern beauty.  She's met this rich married guy, this guy "Shaw" with whom she does not want to be associated, and (it's implied) several other guys in an attempt to pay the bills.  And she accuses Stella of being sexual. 

New information

Will Landschulz
Am Lit. Per. 2
Mrs. LaMagdeleine

Dear God, where to begin?  Blanche, for instance, with a boat-load of information about her former life, including that her family seemed to live in their very own "Belle Rève," (french for Beautiful Dream) while pretty much tearing down the real Belle Reve that had been part of their family for generations.  Also, Blanche seems much more cynical than we first believed (of course, the men of the family "epically fornicating" the property away would do that to a person), when she cries out "the blind are leading the blind!" at the end of Scene 2.  I find it most interesting that Blanche, being described as "like a moth," shies away from actual light ("Turn that over-light off! Turn that off!") but flutters close to another light of her life, Stella ("star").  This is a subversion of the moths we are familiar with, as they go toward unnatural light, but do not flutter towards, say, Sirius the Dog star at every opportunity.  She is also very coy towards Stanley, almost flirting with him.  Speaking of Stanley, he now comes with 10% more suspicion and brutality.  Yeah, really nice guy there.  Trying to disguise his greed with concern over "the Napoleonic code" so that he can get Blanche's estate.  However, he does feel remorse for beating Stella and is nearly debilitated by the combined forces of his remorse and her leaving him that he cries out her name for the remainder of the scene.  We get an interesting mix of brutality, hotheadedness, and genuine love from Stanley, that we were not able to see from our first glimpse of him. 

Essay thoughts

Will Landschulz
Am Lit Per. 2
Mrs. LaMagdeleine

My ideas for this paper consist of pointing out the similarities between Norma and Willy, especially in the dream-like quality of their existences.  The dreams themseves are similar in how they suspend their users from a great height, but everyone can see that their throne is no more substantial than seafoam, and drops Willy and Norma from a great height at the end.  The difference between those is the sources of these dreams.  Willy's dreams arise from his own mind, from his memories and imagination.  Norma's dreams come from outside, from her former stardom as well as from her Director-cum-husband-cum-butler, Max.  Another difference between them is that Willy kills himself at the end after convincing the shade of his brother, while Norma kills Joe and goes mad, going so far into delusion as to believe that the news crew covering the police investigation at her house are the movie cameras in a Paramount Pictures studio.  Even the other characters around her mirror roles from the book.  Max is a direct analogue of Linda or Happy, DeMille is extremely similar to Charley, and Joe evolves into a Biff-esque character. 

Requiem Aeternum

Will Landschulz
Am Lit Per. 2
Mrs. LaMagdeleine

And in these last few pages, the event we have been waiting for has transpired.  Willy has died, by deliberately crashing the car.  In the last few pages, we have seen him arguing with Ben for this course of action and arguing with Biff while trying to resist waking up to the reality of Biff's situation and view.  We get this interesting dynamic where Willy is tempted to kill himself because of the twenty thousand dollars it would give his family, but everyone else is determined to keep him from killing himself because "nobody's worth nothing dead."  Paradoxically, when Biff sets the record straight with him to try and get him to "burn [that phony dream] before something happens," Willy gains even more ground for killing himself, because "that boy is going to be magnificent," and all he needs is a start-up loan.  Twenty thousand seems like a nice round total to start him off.  This, however, would bring nothing but grief to his family (as well as the aforementioned money), only he doesn't see it.  I think he thinks his actions are noble, but they are misguided by the American Dream he sees in a cracked mirror, refracted all over the place until they illuminate what he feels is the best path forwards - into a tree or over a bridge.  I feel nothing but pity for him.  I think that Biff has emerged from this the better-looking man, because he notices the shell that is his father's dreams, and managed to find his way out.  He notes (correctly, in my opinion) that Willy had the wrong dreams for someone who was happiest working on the front stoop of their house.  However, Charley, trying to defend Willy, also notes that, as a salesman, he needed those dreams in order to do his work.  When the dream of a salesman stops working the way it should, the salesman in question is on his way downhill. 

The Hotel

Will Landschulz
Am Lit Per. 2
Mrs. LaMagdeleine

Willy is holed up in a hotel with his mistress, the Woman.  They've evidently emerged from a, um, stimulating evening.  Someone knocks on the door.  Willy, terrified of his secret being blown, ignores the knock.  More knocks come, then a call, then a page, then more knocks.  For Willy, it must be like a nightmare, scared witless by his secret, knowing someone is calling your name, relentlessly circling you in the forms of the door, the phone, and the pager, while all the while you cannot move a muscle.  He holes the Woman up in the bathroom and tells her to keep quiet.  He opens the door to find - Biff.  Willy is surprised by the object of all his hopes and desires standing shamefacedly in front of his door, but quickly recovers himself as best he can given the circumstances.  Biff has just flunked math, and he hopes that Willy can talk his teacher into giving him the points he needs to pass.  Biff then makes a joke about his math teacher on his way to the door.  Here, Willy's secret betrays him, by laughing out loud in response to what is said by Biff and Willy.  This marks the end of all respect Biff had for Willy as a person, as an embodiment of an ideal, and as someone to be emulated.  There are several betrayals in this scene, both in its time and in the present.  One is Willy's betrayal of Linda, underlined in Biff's anguished line "You - you gave her Mama's stockings!"  Another is Willy's betrayal of Biff's image of the popular, honest salesman who can fix anything with a smile, forever marred by the lies meant to save Willy's skin.  Betrayed also is the invincible ideal of the American Dream, as Willy's search for that ideal has made him "lonely," tired, and isolated.  Willy also sees Biff's actions afterward, where he vanishes across the west and drifts from job to job to job, as a betrayal of the lofty goals he inherited.

Jobs old and new

Will Landschulz
Am Lit. Per. 2
Mrs. LaMagdeleine

Willy has just been fired by his boss, his old boss's son.  Never before has "out with the old, in with the new" had such dire consequences.  He descends into another flashback with Ben, where he points out that Willy has nothing more to point to in terms of success than the elusive big break just around the corner.  He says that it just isn't enough to get by if you only rely on dreams.  Ironic, since the person giving him this advice is nothing but a dream.  He wanders around New York for a while, and the dream changes.  Now he is in a flashback about Ebbets Field, the football game before it all went wrong.  In it, he sees Charley mocking him about his fanatical preparations for the game.  This sends him into a rage, and the "camera" refocuses itself upon the people in reality, specifically, Charley's receptionist Jenny and an older and wiser Bernard.  Bernard is everything the boys are not, and has been from the beginning.  In the earlier flashbacks, Bernard was geeky, unpopular, ridiculed by Willy and Ben.  In reality, however, Bernard is successful, (he's going to argue a case at the SUPREME COURT when we see him), he is liked, and Willy wouldn't even arm an insult now.  Bernard leaves to catch his plane, and Charley takes over the conversation.  Willy, with trepidation and "difficulty," increases the size of his loan (which Charley has been giving him) to a hundred dollars.  Charley, in a strange mixture of pity, exasperation, and resignation, offers Willy a job (presumably being a salesman) for a straight salary of 50 bucks a week.  Willy has insurance, a mortgage, and various repair costs to pay, almost none of which comes from his sons.  One would think that any job is better than no job at all.  So what does he do?  He turns down the job, out of a strange mixture of pride, regret, and jealousy.  I'm thinking, "You idiot."  This could be that "big break" he's always dreaming of, the chance for him to get back to the good ol' days, and he tosses it out the window through his own arrogance.  Unemployment doesn't leave much room for a big head, you dummy. 

Uncle Ben

Will Landschulz
Am. Lit Per. 2
Mrs. LaMagdeleine

Linda doesn't like Ben all that much.  She considers him shortsighted and impulsive, to the extent that she sees illogicalities in Ben's actions ("Why does he[Biff] have to fight [Ben], dear?").  She doesn't get why Willy should go with Ben to Alaska/Africa when he already has a job selling things.  She doesn't get why people need to conquer the world when they've already got their own little corner of the universe.  She's scared of what Ben would do, or wouldn't stop at doing.  These fears were made manifest in the aforementioned sparring between Ben and Biff, culminating in Ben making a terrifically illegal maneuver and holding the tip of his umbrella inches from Biff's face.  He tries to laugh it off and helps Biff up, but he still gives a diatribe that would rival Machiavelli: "Never fight fair with a stranger, boy.  You'll never make it out of the jungle that way."  The attitude given by this lesson - don't fight fair, or you won't succeed - runs counter to Linda's idea of her idyllic household.  Linda sees Ben as a bad influence on Willy, tempting him with visions of treasures buried in a mountain or a jungle, drawing him away from the stable rock that is his home.  What is interesting is that she is proven right, although she doesn't know it.  Willy's affair (trying to find treasure in The Woman's jungle) only brought him guilt and left deep fissures in his psyche, disrupting the stability of his marriage to Linda and allowing him to slip through the cracks of the present into his past.