[lit-ideas] Willy and Silas
- From: "William Ball" <ballnw@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit Ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 12:03:39 -0500
Another way of seeing Willy Loman is to look at Frost's "Death of the
Hired Man," who is Silas.
In the poem, a dramatic scene, there are only three characters on stage,
Warren and Mary, a New England farmer and his wife, and the narrator,
who functions as a Greek chorus.
Mary says of Silas, "Poor Silas, so concerned with other folk, with
nothing to look backward with pride, and nothing to look forward to with
hope. So now, and never any different."
That's Willy.
.Bill Ball
Incidentally, neither poem nor play is about death, as I see it. It's
about compassion (the female kind) for Silas and Willy, and about
attention being paid to the Willy's and Silas' of this mess called life.
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