The travels of Ulysses represent mayhap the greatest tales in all literature of continuous, full-scale exploration purely for the sake of the adventures to be had. Ulysses' odyssey took him wherever the winds blew, with the carefree mindlessness of youth. Tennyson imagines the aging king's longing for the excitement he once undergo as a universal yearning "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to offspring" (576). Tennyson's poem speaks to every adult who remembers, however unrealistically, an earlier, more(prenominal) evoke clock time.
Willy Loman, the traveling salesman in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman," is likewise longing for his glory days. He tells his boss, "In those days, there was personality in it, Howard. There was respect, and comradeship, and gratitude in it. Today, it's all cut and dried, and there's no peril for bringing friendship to bear - or personality" (1079). His married woman Linda asks him, "Why must everybody conquer the world?" (1081), nevertheless Willy has never been able to become the booming salesman of his aspirations. In his youth, he looked up to men w
The past haunts Willy, sometimes quite literally. He holds conversations with people from his youth, and these spells in which he appears to be talking to himself terrify his family. He revisits the safety of his past because this was the time when he understood who he was and could look forward to what was to come. He is confused by the present, finding himself unable to connect with the changes he finds all around him. Linda tells him, "Well, dear, life is casting off. It's always that way," but he replies, "No, no, some people - some people fulfil something" (1041). He is not one of them.
Willy's son Biff is also haunted by the past. His father's unrealistic expectations of his capabilities continue to follow him everywhere.
erst a football hero, he now confronts his father: "I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you
For Nora in Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House," success is defined in much(prenominal) different terms. At the start of the play, Nora seems to be a successful wife and mother, happily preparing for the first Christmas on which she can manifest a little extravagance. When Christine Linde, an old friend she has not seen in almost a decade, arrives for a visit, Nora seems even more of a success by comparison. She exclaims, "Oh God, oh God, Christine, isn't it a wonderful thing to be alive and happy!" (925), but she soon confides that she has been even more successful at covering up the ways she raised money without her husband's knowledge to pay for the expenses of his unexpected illness.
Ibsen, Henrik. "A Doll's House." An presentment to Literature. Ed. untaught Barnet, Morton Berman, and William Burto. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. 918-976.
Miller, Arthur. "Death of a Salesman." An Introduction to Literature. Ed. Sylvan Barnet, Morton Berman, and William Burto. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. 1037-1113.
ho seemed to be confident, powerful, and admired. When he started on the road, they were his position models. Ho
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