Essays and written composition overview

¶ … girls in bikinis from "A&P" by John Updike and Happy Loman in "Death of Salesman" by Arthur Miller

Both the girls in bikinis and Happy feel as though 'the rules' of society do not apply to them, only to other people. The girls come into a supermarket dressed inappropriately, while Happy is constantly looking to profit from some underhanded scheme at work, and as a young man is only angry at the math teacher who refuses to illegitimately pass his football star and brother 'Biff,' rather than faulting Biff for failing math. Both Happy and the girls blame authority figures rather than take responsibility for their own actions.

The speaker in "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning and the speaker in "Sonnet 55" by William Shakespeare

Both poems deal with lasting monuments to another person. Of course, Browning's Duke makes a cruel monument in the form of a painting of the woman he has arranged to be murdered. He gets rid of his first wife and keeps her picture. Shakespeare attempts to create a monument in verse to preserve the memory of his beloved. Both the Duke and poet use (or confuse) the ability of art to encompass the best aspects of a human being.

Views on war of Thomas Hardy "The Man He Killed" and Randall Jarrell "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"

Both ordinary soldiers apprehend the horrors and absurd nature of war, even though the leaders of their nations do not. The narrator of the Hardy poem, although a simple soldier, realizes better than his leaders that it is the arbitrary division of barriers between nations and men that create wars, not conflicts between human beings -- he would have been glad to have bought the enemy soldier a drink, if they had not been forced to wear a different uniform and hold a gun on different sides of the trenches. Likewise, Jarrell's narrator speaks of falling into the state from his mother's arms, in other words, of falling under the control of leaders, rather than living by the code of simple humanity and his own force of will, which he was given at birth.

The Misfit in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by and Emily Grierson in "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner's

Both the Misfit and Emily Grierson do not understand, fully, what it means to take the life of another human being. Miss Emily kills a man who jilted her, so he can remain beside her always. The Misfit speaks vaguely to the grandmother about how he was condemned by society by a paper, and put away, as if this gives him license to kill an entire family when he escapes. "It was the same case with Him as with me except He hadn't committed any crime and they could prove I had committed one because they had the papers on me," he says.

"Richard Cory" by Robinson, Edwin Arlington and Biff Loman in "Death of Salesman" by Arthur Miller

Both Richard Cory and the young Biff Loman seem like happy people on the outside, although they conceal a secret sorrow. Biff gives up his chance to become a football hero in college, upon learning of his father's infidelity to Biff's mother Linda. Richard Cory commits suicide, even though the town, on the surface, believes he has everything a man could want because of his wealth and good looks.

Part II

Conventional wisdom suggests that an epiphany, or a moment of sudden self knowledge, should make the individual who experiences that revelation a better person. But in the case of Willy Loman in "Death of Salesman" by Arthur Miller, and Emily Grierson in "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, at the moment of their epiphany, these characters use their self-knowledge to change their lives not for the better but for the worse. Willy's epiphany comes when he realizes that his son does love him, and craves Willy's approval. "He likes me," he exclaims to Linda, in response to Biff's plea to his father to see reality: "Pop, I'm a dime a dozen and so are you." Biff makes Willy understand that both he and his father are the same 'type' of man, Americans who believed in the American dream of quick riches, but did not have the character to see that dream become reality, like Biff's hard-working cousin Bernard who becomes a successful lawyer.

For years, Willy was confused as to why Biff refused to retake his high school math class and became a college drop-out before Buff even began college. Then, worse yet, Biff became societal drop-out, riding horses in the Wild West. First, Willy realizes, having been put on pure commission sales, that despite the fact that he is liked in his job, he is not well-liked, and is easily disposable as a salesman. When Willy finally has the answer to the question about his eldest son that has tormented him his entire life, Willy decides to kill himself, because he believes he is better off dead. He rationalizes that his insurance money will help support his family and now he can rest at peace, since he understands that in his own way, Biff still craved his father's approval, even when Biff was far away in the West.

Miss Emily Grierson's revelation comes when she understands that, despite her father's treatment of her as a special and protected Southern belle, she is not unique, special, and exempt from societal laws. She is jilted by the man she wants to marry, Homer Baron. But rather than accept this and use this to live a more humane life in touch with other people, she only uses it to as an excuse to further remove herself from the other residents of the town and to escape into her own fantasy life.

Emily murders Homer, and keeps him beside her for the rest of her life, thus rationalizing that he never jilted her at all, as she still 'has him.' She makes him into the man she wants, positions him like a lover beside her in bed, and bends reality to suit her will. When the town eventually finds the corpse upon her demise: "For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust."

At the end of her life, Emily is so dissociated from reality she denies her need to pay taxes, and to behave according to the conventions of society that other people must observe. Although the town tolerates her eccentricities, clearly this toleration has not made Emily happy, nor did it help her accept Homer's refusal. Emily had a moment of self-revelation, she knew that Homer jilted her, otherwise she would not have killed him, but this revelation was used to justify cruelty rather than positive action. Similarly, in the case of Willy, although his insight about his son and his job may have been true, he used this to justify the suicide he had been longing to commit for so long.

It is easy to condemn the protagonists of "A Jury of her Peers" by Susan Glaspell, and "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor. Both are unrepentant murderers. Glaspell's murderer kills her husband; O'Connor's murderer kills an entire family, including some young children. Neither murderer expresses real, convincing regret for his or her actions. But the purpose of great literature is not to tell the reader that murder is wrong -- anyone who watches the tabloids 'knows' this to be true. The purpose of great literature is to make the reader think more critically about his or her own ethics.

Is it right that the grandmother sees the Misfit as one of her "own babies" -- and what does this apparently perplexing statement mean? Even if the reader disagrees with O'Connor's radical idea of grace, that everyone is potentially saved, like the grandmother, so long as they recognize humanity in the eyes of another person, no matter how fallen, her story forces the reader to think deeply about issues of appropriate punishment in society. Through her use of humor she also reminds the reader that everyone is potentially a sinner like the rude little girl who insults the proprietor of the restaurant where the family eats before the murder. "No I certainly wouldn't,' June Star said. 'I wouldn't live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks!' And she ran back to the table."