Thursday, October 3, 2019
English Mamet Miller Essay Example for Free
English Mamet Miller Essay Crucial to the dramatic impact of any stage play are the entrances and exits of the characters, as well as the motivations which drive these entrances and exits. In both Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman and David Mamets Glengarry Glen Roos, pivotal events and sequences of events are set in motion by the entrances of exits of the plays characters. The entrances and exits of the characters and, most importantly, the entrances and exits of the plays main characters, are keyed to the thematic impulses of the plays. In Death of a Salesman it is the very existence of an exit for Willie Loman that drives the plays message regarding classicism and the American Dream.  In Glengarry Glen Ross, the action of the play is framed almost entirely by the entrances and exits of the players on or off of an unchanging set than from various set-changes which set mood and pace.             Millers Death of a Salesman offers one of the most famous and memorable exits of a plays main character in American theater. Mamets Glengarry Glen Ross offers ironic and darkly comical entrances and exits by its main character Shelly Levine. The most prominent impact of a characters entrances and exits on stage to an audience is to signal to the audience that the character or characters in question will either be apart from the ensuing action, or be initiated into it. For audiences the arrivals end exits of a plays main character are poignant and obvious symbols of a change in the direction of the plot, pace, and mood.            Millers Death of a Salesman exemplifies how the entrance and exit of a plays main character can frame the entire action of a play. The plays first dramatic action, other than the revelation of the non-realistic and semitransparent set, is the entrance of Willie Loman who comes onstage carrying two large sample-cases. (Miller). The image of a man, past sixty, striding onto an unrealistic set with two suitcases transmits a considerable amount of information to the audience in a single dramatic gesture. Loman, merely by entering the stage, can be obviously determined to be a middle-aged man, lost in hazy memories of the past, facing an uncertain future, carrying a heavy load, and ready to travel.            These qualities are precisely those which drive the plays dramatic plot and its themes. The plot involves Willie Lomans battle to make a home and living world for his family, to find meaning in his existence, and to salvage dignity from an undignified station in life. The theme of the play, which deals with economic disparity and the dissolution of the average working person, is clearly articulated purely by the image of Willie Lomans initial entrance onto the hazy, dreamlike set.            Lomans exit, which closes the play, is similarly concise in dramatic impact and vision. Before making his famous exit to his own death Loman turns to emphatically address the audience. He says, Theres all kinds of important people in the stands; and the first thing you know. This direct appeal to the audience, spoken just before Lomans final exit from the stage, invites the audience to identify even more deeply with Loman and his plight just prior to his death. The breaking of the invisible fourth wall (or at least the bending of it) invests Loman with humanity and realism, bringing the audience as close to him as he possibly can, before throwing himself to his fate. (Miller)            In this way, the dialogue spoken by characters as the enter or exit the stage can be rightly considered a part of the exit or entrance itself and is, in a well-made drama, keyed compositionally into the thematic purpose of the entrance or exit. When Loman speaks his last word to the audience Shhh! the audience knows, even before his exit, that he is about to do something extremely important,. perhaps more dramatic and more important than any action up to that point in the play. The dialogue is, itself, signaling both his exit and the plays climax. Lomans physical exit from the stage is accompanied not only by spoken dialogue, but it is immediately followed by an off-stage cacophony which directly contradicts Lomans Shhh!            This abrupt shift, from a call to silence, to a roaring crash, which modulates to a single cello note, wraps the play together thematically as well as granting the complex plot a suitable denouement. The swift transformation from impelled silence to the off-stage crash takes the audience through a grand dramatic arc in the space of a few moments and encapsulates the plays essential message about the sanctity of the individual. By framing the entirety of the play with Lomans exceedingly well-composed and envisioned entrance, Miller conveys the essence of his theme through two dramatic gestures, each of which incites the reader or audience to identify more closely and more intensely with Lomans plight and fate and in so doing, embrace to the same degree the plays thematic message.            Mamets Glengarry Glen Ross offers a similar thematic impulse as Death of a Salesman, in that it explores the dissolution and degradation of a little man in American society. However, Mamet, rather than opting for warm, empathetic audience identification, seeks to lead his audience to his thematic message by way of a study in ambition and moral ambiguity. Shelly Levine aspires to be a thief and a selfish and materialistic person. The impact of his selfishness and materialism is conveyed, often ironically, through his entrance sand exits in the play. An example of this is in Act Two when Levine bursts onto the (ransacked) office-set with tremendous glee and confidence. He says:            Get the chalk. Get the chalkget the chalk! I closed em! I closedthe cocksucker. Get the chalk and put me on the board. Im going to Hawaii! Put me on the Cadillac board, Williamson! Pick up the fuckin chalk. Eight units. Mountain View            Meanwhile, it is clear to the audience by the mere fact of the office being in shambles, that Levines victorious tone is completely inappropriate. This is an ironic gesture, created by Mamet from the dissonance created by Levines up-beat entrance and the shambled state of the set he enters on. The irony generated in this gesture is central to the plays themes of selfish dissolution and culpability.            Like Miller, Mamet incorporates important dialogue into the entrances and exits of the characters and, like Miller, he utilizes audience expectation and the sudden change of the plays pace and mood to transmit important thematic information tot he audience. In this, both playwrights partake of musical composition where the various entrances and exists of melodic themes and passages indicate a shift in mood and thematic direction for the listener.            Similarly, Aaronows exit into the side-office in the same scene discussed above indicates a pending plot complication. His line We had a robbery. which comes just before he moves from the office-space to the inner-room indicates a shift in the plot. The line indicates that the motion of leaving the main office is somehow tied to the fact of the robbery. And at this point, the audience feels intensely, the ironic impact of Levines enthusiastic entrance earlier in the scene.            The energy of the scene is tied directly to the plays themes and, in fact, encapsulates them for the audience. Levines initial excitement and dialogue are indicative of the ambition which drives him; Aaronows line and subsequent stage-movement indicates both the moral ambiguity of Levines ambition and the potential repercussions for this naked ambition.             Both Miller and Mamet decline to give their main characters entrances and exits of noble stature or consequence (as one might expect from a Shakespearean or Greek tragedy). Instead, the players entrances and exits are ironic, chaotic, elegiac, or fragmented. For miller the lack of grand entrances and exists invested with nobility symbolized the fragmentation and degradation of an individuals mind, body,m and spirit. For Mamet, the rather hectic and ominous entrances and exits of the characters in Glengarry Glen Ross symbolize the disorder and fragmentation of modern society.            As important to the dramatic impact of the play as dialogue or plot, the entrances and exits of a plays charters produce a dynamic relationship with the plays sets and situations. As noted above, Mamets construction of a pivotal scene in Act 2 is structured around an ironic entrance by the plays protagonist. Millers unforgettable climax is structured around the tragic exit of Willie Loman; the plays Requiem in effect becoming an extension of this last exit, for it is the absence (the exit) of Loman which provides the impetus and motion of all that concludes beyond his leaving the stage.            When Shelly Levine is guided meekly away in handcuffs by detectives at the close of Glengarry Glen Ross, the audience is left with the impression of tragedy, but also with a sense of ironic justice. The meekness of Levine, in contrast to the ambition which has propelled him through the events of the play and given rise to the plays complications is reduced, at last, to helpless culpability.   This resonance drives Mamets theme of social disintegration for it is not merely a moral failing on Levines part which incites the plays final, ironic tragedy, but the hopelessness of ambition and competition in an economically driven society, which values money over human relationships or moral fortitude.            By staking so much dramatic impact on the entrances and exits of their characters, both Miller and Mamet, create a sense of constant motion, excitement, change and energy, giving a sense of the ephemerality of an individuals existence. In effect the entrances and exits of Loman and Levine demonstrate the ineffectuality of the individual in an impersonal society, but they also manage to convey (usually by irony) a sense of the injustice which accompanies their characters ignoble entrances and exits.            For Miler, the sanctity and nobility of the individual was more important even than death for Mamet the destruction of the individual through submission to material ambition was viewed as thoroughly corrupting, so much that his protagonist perceived victory only at the moment of his actual defeat. For Loman, some form of self-reclamation took place in his final, tragic exit form the stage; for Levine, self-reclamation is left as an ambiguous and unlikely possibility.            Both Death of a Salesman and Glengarry Glen Rooss depend on important entrances and exits by their main (and minor) characters to shape the flow and pace of the plays scenes, plots, and character development but also to transmit through gesture, word, and motion the thematic meaning, or message of the work. In each case, the use of dialogue, set-changes, and dramatic irony accompany the entrances and exits of their characters as a method for inverting (or subverting)the traditional, flourished and noble entrances of classically tragic characters.            Miller and Mamet each chose to articulate the story of little men. In keeping with these portrayals, they necessarily constructed entrances and exits for these characters and the characters the interacted with in order to present the theme of the individual in modern society, with a vie toward examining the moral implications of materialism, ambition, and classicism in American society. the entrances and exits of their characters proved to be crucial technical elements for transmitting these important themes.
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