JusticeKangaroo25024
FORM A FIVE PAGE ESSAY FOLLOWING THE PROMPT BELLOW: A eulogy is a…
FORM A FIVE PAGE ESSAY FOLLOWING THE PROMPT BELLOW:
A eulogy is a speech given at a funeral to honor the person who has passed. Your assignment will be to write the eulogy that Biff might have given for Willy.
Keep in mind that a eulogy usually offers some sort of praise, and often indicates the lessons taught by the departed to the person giving the speech. In other words, this is not a moment for Biff to deliver a speech “against” his father. It is a moment for him to reveal that he understands his father and has learned from him. Since change is critical in understanding drama, you might want to explore how Biff’s attitudes shift throughout the play. You might also want to demonstrate the empathy that Biff is encouraging the audience to have.
Although this is a “creative” assignment, you are required to use excerpts from the play AND at least THREE of the supplemental readings from this unit. They are listed below for your convenience. Try to avoid structuring your piece around these texts, however; instead, let them illustrate Biff’s growing awareness of self and his world.
The best essays will reveal the attitude toward success and toward his father that Biff has developed and will incorporate his views on how one might live a meaningful and happy life. They will also integrate the moments from the supplemental texts into the writer’s text seamlessly. You might want to think about Biff as a reader of these texts who cites them in his speech. For example, a good structure might be: “My father, too often, looked for “talking points” (Rudin) to be plucked out of the lives of others on how to be successful and didn’t realize that “the knowledge of those who make it to the top is less transferable,” (Rudin), and I always wished he had embraced his love for “building a ceiling” and “working with cement” (Miller).
Remember to be specific, both in referring to the play (it’s not a novel, in spite of what many of you have written in your homework assignments) and the essays. References to specific scenes that illustrate what Biff is saying are preferable to general observations.
To begin, you should go back and reread Tragedy and the Common Man for some ideas regarding what Miller himself felt he was trying to accomplish with this play. This should serve as a springboard for the development of a meaningful path. Please start early – the development of an effective approach is something that might take a few days of processing and “kicking around.” I will give you some time in class next week to get started, and I encourage you to bounce your ideas off your classmates.
Your final piece should be approximately five pages long.
TEXTS
1 – Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller
2 – Tragedy and the Common Man, Arthur Miller
3 – The Fallacy of Success, G.K. Chesterton
4 – The Matthew Effect, Malcolm Gladwell
5 – Fixed and Growth Mindsets, Carol Dweck
6 – What is Masterclass Selling?, David Rudin
7 – Commencement Address, Stephen Colbert
