There seems to be a lot of debate around which character is the protagonist. Personally, I see it two ways: First, the play is a tragedy, and in all tragedies, the protagonist is destroyed by his or her fatal flaw. Therefore, Willy is the protagonist. He is the titular character, after all. And he is destroyed by his obssession with success. Second, the protagonist is the character who changes and the antagonist is the character who causes the protagonist to change. Therefore, Bif is the protagonist. Willy and Happy are the antagonist, because they bring about all the change that Bif has to face. Even time could be an antagonist, because as Bif grows older, his views and opinions change. However, time has also changed Willy. So... Screw it, there is no protagonist...
Anyway, all character confusion aside, the play is very interesting. It presents a take on the dark side of the American Dream, the people who failed to be the Great Gatsby, if you will. Willy is a picture of someone who worked hard and long, and for what? A run down house, a history of domestic violence, an affair, and a kid who doesn't love him--barely respects him. It's dark, gruesome (in the sense that the American Dream is slaughtered before our very eyes). It's a true picture of America. Reminds me of Watchmen, the scene where Nite Owl and the Comedian are fighting rioters--American citizens--and Nite Owl asks "Whatever happened to the American Dream?" to which the Comedian replies "It came true. You're looking at it."
Powerful stuff.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Invisible Man
The narrator had choices.
Oh, you want more? That's not enough information for you?... *Sigh* Okay. See, the way I see it, everything that happens to us is the result of a choice. Almost everything. Sometimes, people do things to us, but we have the choice of letting them, stopping them, or running away from them. In the eyes of mortals, our free will is infinite, unlimited. Not so much in the eyes of deities, but that's a different subject for a different time.
"They forced him," you say. "He had no choice but to get in the ring and fight."
Not true. It was simply the best option. The narrator says he has no choice in the matter when really, he just knows that the alternative is that he gets the shit kicked out of him by a bunch of drunk, angry white guys. He <i>chooses</i> the better option. Plus, he was conscious enough to realize that some of the guys were jumping out of the ring, so he could have chosen to do the same. He could have chosen not to go after the money. He could have chosen to lose the battle royale altogether. But he didn't. Because he kept choosing the self-preserving options. He didn't want fifty angry white guys beating him into Jell-O.
All in all, I liked it. Maybe it wasn't about race, but there were certainly some racial aspects of it. Like the illusion of success in the black community. The white guys gave him a scholarship for his talent in speech-writing, but it was to a Negro college. They chose a college for him, they didn't hand him a check and say "Pick any college you like, son. You've earned it." Nope, they said "Go to this black school and be a good boy." It's condescending. They send the smart black kids off to college so they don't cause trouble for the white folk. Then they're free to push around the more uneducated ones. Sad but true.
Oh, you want more? That's not enough information for you?... *Sigh* Okay. See, the way I see it, everything that happens to us is the result of a choice. Almost everything. Sometimes, people do things to us, but we have the choice of letting them, stopping them, or running away from them. In the eyes of mortals, our free will is infinite, unlimited. Not so much in the eyes of deities, but that's a different subject for a different time.
"They forced him," you say. "He had no choice but to get in the ring and fight."
Not true. It was simply the best option. The narrator says he has no choice in the matter when really, he just knows that the alternative is that he gets the shit kicked out of him by a bunch of drunk, angry white guys. He <i>chooses</i> the better option. Plus, he was conscious enough to realize that some of the guys were jumping out of the ring, so he could have chosen to do the same. He could have chosen not to go after the money. He could have chosen to lose the battle royale altogether. But he didn't. Because he kept choosing the self-preserving options. He didn't want fifty angry white guys beating him into Jell-O.
All in all, I liked it. Maybe it wasn't about race, but there were certainly some racial aspects of it. Like the illusion of success in the black community. The white guys gave him a scholarship for his talent in speech-writing, but it was to a Negro college. They chose a college for him, they didn't hand him a check and say "Pick any college you like, son. You've earned it." Nope, they said "Go to this black school and be a good boy." It's condescending. They send the smart black kids off to college so they don't cause trouble for the white folk. Then they're free to push around the more uneducated ones. Sad but true.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Gertrude Stein
"Tender Buttons" is an interesting piece of work. In a way, it reminds me of Charles Simic, a poet who immigrated to America as a boy during World War II. Simic write prose poetry--which is sort of what Stein does, only without coherent sentences--but the thing about Simic is that he writes these cryptic freaking poems that, without significant analysis of every word, make no sense whatsoever.
The difference is that Stein doesn't set out to make meaning out of her poems, as far as I can tell. It's all modern art. It's a Rothko painting, or some abstract sculpture that means something different to everyone, because whatever you get out of it is whatever you project onto it. Darren Arnofsky's "The Fountain" is a great example of this. The movie has a definite meaning to its director, but Arnofsky has not commented on that meaning, rather hoping everyone will draw their own conclusions. And there are many interpretations of the movie, not all of which do I agree with, nor would some have even occured to me. (I highly recommend that movie, by the way.)
I didn't get Stein most of the time, but some of her poems clicked immediately. I still prefer her to Simic, because at least I can just appreciate Stein's alliteration and word association without having to search desperately for meaning.
The difference is that Stein doesn't set out to make meaning out of her poems, as far as I can tell. It's all modern art. It's a Rothko painting, or some abstract sculpture that means something different to everyone, because whatever you get out of it is whatever you project onto it. Darren Arnofsky's "The Fountain" is a great example of this. The movie has a definite meaning to its director, but Arnofsky has not commented on that meaning, rather hoping everyone will draw their own conclusions. And there are many interpretations of the movie, not all of which do I agree with, nor would some have even occured to me. (I highly recommend that movie, by the way.)
I didn't get Stein most of the time, but some of her poems clicked immediately. I still prefer her to Simic, because at least I can just appreciate Stein's alliteration and word association without having to search desperately for meaning.
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