Death of a Salesman

1. Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949) captures the importance of success in the American Dream that every man has. Miller shows the struggles faced by the aging salesman, Willy Loman, who is beginning to realize he is not the big business man that he hoped to be. Loman has to support his wife, Linda, along with his two sons, Biff and Hap. Throughout the play Willy Loman has flashbacks, in some he is speaking to a younger woman and in others he is speaking to his brother Ben. Loman is first introduced coming back from a business trip he failed to do and later one can see that the relationship he has with his sons is very distant now. He underestimates them especially Biff and feels as if they do not love him. His relationship with Biff is very weak since Biff has left them alone before and has not helped them out much. Throughout the entire play Willy insists that he is a big businessman and that everyone knows his name. He is not making much money and his only hope are his sons. Hap does not seem to care but Biff does so he attempts to get into business. A number of flashbacks that occur show Loman is a lonely, tired man. After making peace with his son Biff and realizing that his son does love him he has another flashback of Ben. Only to realize that Ben was not there he got in his car and drove fast to his death.With the use of intense scenes, Arthur Miller's purpose is to present the fights one must face in finding success for themselves and for their children. His audience targets everyone because within every family there are arguments but in general Americans since it covers the desire of reaching the "American Dream". 


2. Vocabulary: 

• pompous (adj.) : Affectedly and irritatingly grand, solemn, or self-important
• simonizing (v.): Polish (a motor vehicle).
• immersed (v.): Involve oneself deeply in a particular interest
• chamois (n.):  a small goatlike bovid
• primps (v.):  to dress, adorn, or arrange in a careful or finicky manner
• incarnate (adj.):  invested with bodily and especially human nature and form
• laconic (adj.):  using or involving the use of a minimum of words
• valises (n.):  old-fashioned : a small suitcase
• caliber (n.):  degree of mental capacity or moral quality
• saccharine (adj.):  of, relating to, or resembling that of sugar

3. Tone: Sincere, Intense 


4. Rhetorical Strategies: 

• Idiom: "Knocked 'em cold in Providence, slaughtered 'em in Boston" (33).
• Analogy: "Biff a man is not a bird, to come and go with the springtime" (54). 
• Rhetorical Questions: "Why shouldn't he talk to himself? Why? When he has to go to Charley and borrow fifty dollars a week and pretend to me that it's his pay?" (57). 
• Anecdote: "Well, it seems she was walking down the road and saw his car. She says that he wasn't driving fast at all, and that he didn't skid. She says he came to that little bridge, and then deliberately smashed into the railing, and it was only the shallowness of the water that saved him" (59). 
• Similes: 
• "Like when you worked for Harrison's. Bob Harrison said you were tops, and then you go and do some damn fool think like whistling whole songs in the elevator like a comedian" (60).
• "I slept like a dead one" (71).
• Personification: "Once in my life I would like to own something outright before it's broken! I'm always in a race with the junkyard! I just finished paying for the car and it's on its last legs" (73). 
• Metaphor: "...And be sweet to him tonight, dear. Be loving to him. Because he's only a little boat looking for a harbor" (76).

5. Discussion Questions

1. What role does the fear of being alone play in Willy's life?
2. What explanation does Biff have for his failure to succeed and what is Willy's? 
3. How does the flashbacks of Ben affect Willy? 

6. Quote:
"The only thing you got in this world is what you can sell" (97). 

Hollywood Metro Art Project

Hollywood Metro Art Project

            Art is a wide topic in which each person has their own perspective or feeling towards it. Each piece of art has a different story behind it or a deeper meaning to what is displayed in it. The art that stood out to me the most and made me see art from a different point of view was Hide-n-Seek by JoeSam. Every day I pass through the Wilmington/ Imperial Station, where the Metro Blue Line and Green Lines intersect. Never did I ever stop and pay close attention to any of the colorful figures that are seen throughout both levels of the station. I just saw them as random colorful figures of people until the day of the trip. As I was eating my Reese’s minis candy with my partner Edith Rodriguez we learned that the figures were in reality children playing a game of hide-n-seek. Immediately as we both looked at the figures once again with close focus we realized that all along those "weird figures” were in reality more than just that. Immediately I was drawn to the art demonstrated. This art is made from the community. It is made by the importance and interaction that kids from our neighborhood had. It also brings all the kids together as one and avoids the differences that exist among them by the games of hide-n-seek. I view this art as a great way to involve the kids of the communities and inspire them to go pursue great things. The art by Joe Sam manages to capture ones attention through the variety of colors and the way they are organized. Friendship can be seen throughout the art pieces, this small game of hide-n-seek creates bonds among kids without them realizing it. I believe Joe Sam’s art is to speak on behalf of people of culture, especially African Americans. Overall, this art is made by the community and the importance of kids.

            Throughout the day we continued to view different types of art that were found throughout the metro stations. Art pieces that also captured my attention include the ones that involved water. Since reading The Big Thirst has changed my whole perspective of water, I found these art pieces displayed the joy water brings to us. One of the images was of a woman in the shower & the word “water” was in the art piece. This made me remember about other countries not having water 24/7 like we do to take showers as often and happily as we do. The art piece was made by the water because it showed one of the many ways we use it every day. Other images that followed this one were of people in different places were water is found and others were of ships. The art pieces that showed the ships brought beauty to water and made it spectacular by the great use of color. I took this art as another way water helps us, which would be in transportation. Without there being seas the shipping of products would take long and be more expensive. This art pieces were made with the thought of art and how it surrounds us every day. 

            The fieldtrip was crazy overall, but fun. I enjoyed learning about the art that is present here in our community because it teaches one to appreciate it more and know the history behind it. This trip made my friendship with Karen, Michelle, and Edith become stronger because we got to learn more about each other. I learned that Karen does not like roller coasters, that Michelle does not like Reese’s candy and that Edith in reality talks a lot! The metro was pretty fun, however I did not like the bus ride because it seemed like forever and I was starting to feel car sick. When we were at Hollywood, I realized that it isn’t as pretty in daylight as it is in night time. We went to eat at McDonald’s and we were so hungry that I had to say “This is the best art I’ve seen the whole day!” Therefore I took a picture of the food we all ordered. The fieldtrip was very amusing, despite it being hurried and not going as planned, it was a fun trip and in reality I believe people were able to take some knowledge from it. 

The Big Thirst Chapters 8-10

1. In The Big Thirst (2011) by Charles Fishman, he manages to bring light to the importance that water truly holds and that people take little consideration of. Everyday tons of water is used and wasted, many take it for granted or as Fishman mention in his book, we do not take it for granted since we do not even pay that much attention to it. The final chapters of Fishman's book adds to the already set purpose of reminding everyone, in particular Americans, of our everyday use of water. He speaks about countries who have to sacrifice a lot to access water and do not receive it 24/7 as we do, in India water is carried in buckets and many girls are forced to drop out of school to get water everyday. He furthers this issue by stating how the water we pay for is to pay for the processing to get it to us and in reality water is a free natural element on Earth. Overall, Fishman's purpose is to "rescue water not so much from ignorance as from being ignored". He discusses the many ways water is used and gives real account stories that involve water such as dying of thirst, the waste of water in Las Vegas and he limited access of water in other countries. Water is a free element that Earth has provided us with, we use it everyday (many waste it), and it is time to recognize the importance of water and find ways of preserving it. 


2. Vocabulary

• ambient (adj.): existing or present on all sides
• dichotomy (n.): a division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities
• vertiginous (adj.): inclined to frequent and often pointless change
• nominal (adj): of, relating to, or constituting a name
• pristine (adj.): belonging to the earliest period or state
• irrigation (n.): the therapeutic flushing of a body part with a stream of liquid
• incentive (n.): something that incites or has a tendency to incite to determination or action 
• allocate (v.): to set apart or earmark
• refurbish (v.) to brighten or freshen up
• juxtaposition (n.): the act or an instance of placing two or more things side by side; also : the state of being so placed
• pivots (n.): a person, thing, or factor having a major or central role, function, or effect
• gimbals (n.): a device that permits a body to incline freely in any direction or suspends it so that it will remain level when its support is tipped
• insurmountable (adj.): incapable of being surmounted
• exuberance (adj.): the state or quality of being  joyously unrestrained and enthusiastic
• proprietorship (n.): a person who has the legal right or exclusive title to something

3. Tone: Logical, Formal, Concerned 

4. Rhetorical Strategies

• Metaphor: "It is a kind of water slavery that millions- tens of millions- of ppoor Indians are trapped in every day..." (221). 
• Allusion: "On the Forbes 2010 list, two of the five richest people in the world are Indians" (226).
• Statistics: 
• "In India, 32 million households get their water from "away"- 17 percent of the country. About 170 million people..." (240).
• "In Toung's ideal scheme, the high- security pol of water is 30 percent of the ten- year moving average of available water. If a river an annual flow of 10,000 gigaliters...then 3,000 gigaliters-30 percent- would be high- security.." (283).
• Anaphora: 
• "We all know what it feels like to be thirsty, and what it feels like to be refreshed with a glass of water. We know what a dried- up lawn....We know what water that's been sitting..." (312).
• "All we have to do is change how we value that system...All we have to change is how we think about water..." (292). 
• Anecdote: 
• "One boy uses hooks and straps to sling water containers on either side of his bicycle- a five gallon bucket bungee corded onto the back..." (220).
• "Many girls walk off with five- gallon buckets balanced on their heads- 42 pounds of water gliding off into the dawn, steadied on their hands..." (220).
• Imagery: 
• "IN THE MODERN AND AIRY TERMINAL A at Detroit's Metro Airport sits a smooth black slab of granite. It looks something like a black river rock except for it size. Positioned on the floor, the disk is an oval, the height of a low table, and about forty feet across" (293).
• " IT IS 63 DEGREES, the sky is clear blue and bright, the air has the freshness of spring in the mountains, when it still gets cool each night and each day has to warm up from scratch. I can hear the waterfalls roaring faintly in the distance" (310). 
• Personification: "When you think of the qualities of water that are so appealing- the energy, the playfulness, the adaptability, the variety of mood, the artistry, and also the sheer everyday usefulness.." (312). 

5. Questions

1. What is Charles Fishman's purpose of capitalizing the beginning words of paragraphs?
2. Why does Fishman begin most of his chapters with a story or reference? Can that be considered to be part of his writing style?
3. How many purposes do you think Fishman had throughout his book? 

6. Quotation

"Girls don't go to school because they have to fetch water.Girls drop out of school because the schools have no working bathrooms" (246). 

The Big Thirst, Chapters 5-7

1. Precis:

In The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water, by Charles Fishman, the importance of water on Earth is highlighted. Fishman continues to elaborate emphasize ways in which water is helpful and the various ways it is used. He gives staggering facts about the production of Coca- Cola, the long process of getting clean wool, and the "yuck" factor of water. As he does in his earlier chapters, Fishman gives examples of the mass use of water and reminds us that each gallon of water that we use "has an economic value". In the last chapters he stresses about the issue of other countries not having an efficient use of water and tragic event that occur in arid regions such as in Australia. He speaks about deaths that occur from people who have no access to water, such as a couple who both died due to lack of water and also a boy who went seventeen hours without water in hundred- degree heat who died as well. With his accounts on such heartbreaking stories it makes the audience take time to acknowledge how lucky they are to be able to access tap water at any time of the day they desire. Charles Fishman's purpose is to remind everyone of the many ways we use water in which many cases it is often gone to waste and not taken into much consideration. He also wants to remind all of us how lucky we are to be able to access clean water however, that there is a limited source and that we must begin to take smart actions to preserve the water we have. 

2. Vocabulary:

• bales (n.): great evil
• lanolin (n.): wool grease especially when refined for use in ointments and cosmetics
• spigots (n.): the plug of a faucet
• percolating (v.): to cause (a solvent) to pass through a permeable substance (as a powdered drug) especially for extracting a soluble constituent
• altruism (n.): unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others
• hermetic (adj.): impervious to external influence
• incandescent (adj.):  white, glowing, or luminous with intense heat
• emporium (n.): a place of trade
• benign (adj.): of a gentle disposition
• harrumph (v.): to comment disapprovingly
• acrimonious (adj.):  caustic, biting, or rancorous especially in feeling, language, or manner
• visceral (adj.): dealing with crude or elemental emotions
• halcyon (n.): a bird identified with the kingfisher and held in ancient legend to nest at sea about the time of the winter solstice and to calm the waves during incubation
• ludicrous (adj.): amusing or laughable through obvious absurdity, incongruity, exaggeration, or eccentricity 

3. Tone: Logical, Informative, Worried

4. Rhetorical Strategies:

• Epigraph: "When you start to think like we think, you don't see water in the pipes. You see dollar signs." -Eric Berliner, IBM water manager in Burlington, Vermont (112)
• " The "yuck factor" is a deeply ingrained psychological thing." -Alan Kleinschmidt, manager of water operations, Toowoomba, Australia. (145)

• Compare & Contrast: "IBM, in fact wants to do for water what Apple's iTunes has done for music. At the simplest level, iTunes is just what the corporate IT types would call a "dashboard: for managing your music..." "That's exactly what IBM wants to offer for water users"..."(One crucial difference, of course, is that iTunes is a closed system, valuable that hermetic water is the original open- source system.)" (131)

• Statistics: "In fact, the amount of bottles water bottled waters sold- which grew by 8.6 percent in 2004, by 10.8 percent in 2005, by 9.5 percent in 2006- peaked in 2007.

• Simile: "But running out of water is like slipping off the edge of a cliff-it's hard to be saved." (147)
• "That's like waving a red flag in front of a bull" (154)

• Imagery: "You can stand on the beach, looking south directly across the mouth of the Murray. The river comes in from the right, the sand dunes part, and the Mighty Murray meets the Indian Ocean. In the opening are huge windswept breakers..." (194)

• Anaphora: "Six gigaliters of water is an amount hard to imagine." "Six gigaliters of water is 6 billion one- liter bottles..." "Six gigaliters of water is really a lake of water." (185)

5. Discussion Questions

1. What exactly does "purple pipes" mean when it is talked about in chapter 5?
2. Why does Fishman begin certain phrases with all words capitalized? 
3. In which ways do you think chapter 6 relates to the overall theme of the book with the added information of the "yuck factor"? 

6. Quotation:

"What's really interesting about the business of water is that people who start to take the economic value of water seriously immediately start to use water differently, and also think about it differently." (144) 

"The Big Thirst" Chapters 1-4

1. In Charles Fishman's The Big Thirst (2012), he speaks on the importance and incredibly big role that water has in our everyday lives. He describes it to be marvellous, mysterious, charming, the most important substance in our lives, etc. Fishman delivers the fact that people do not know much about water and do not take water for granted because we cannot even notice it enough to even care. Fishman presents the various ways in which water is used, from providing a outlet source to our flat-screen TVs to filling up our water guns for a little fun. Through the first chapter of his book he manages to immediately illustrate the many ways in which we use water and gives an outstanding demonstration of just how big water is. It makes one be thankful to have a good source of water by him providing us facts about the number of kids how die from the lack of water or the use of contaminated water to countries having droughts. Continuing with the significance of water, he discusses upon the issue of water being wasted such as in Las Vegas with the enormous water fountains they have all over including banks and grocery stores. His purpose is to bring great value to water once again by reminding everyone of the many ways water is used, the many ways can waste it and the limited source we are in risk of having. The audience he seems to have is everyone, from little kids to elderly people because everyone who is on this Earth uses water and hardly takes the time to appreciate it. Everyone needs to be reminded of how great water is. 

2.Vocabulary

• filigree (n.):  ornamental work especially of fine wire of gold, silver, or copper applied chiefly to gold and silver surfaces
• opaqueness (adj.): hard to understand or explain
• blasé (adj.):  apathetic to pleasure or excitement as a result of excessive indulgence or enjoyment 
• corroding (v.): to weaken or destroy gradually.
• meniscus (n.):  the curved upper surface of a column of liquid
• vintner (n.): a person who makes wine
• seismology (n):  : a science that deals with earthquakes and with artificially produced vibrations of the earth
• ephemeral (adj.): lasting a very short time
• elixir (n.):  a substance held capable of prolonging life indefinitely
• gondola (n.):  a long narrow flat-bottomed boat with a high prow and stern used on the canals of Venice
• allure (v.): to entice by charm or attraction
• profligacy (adj.): to be wildly extravagant
• ostentation (n.): excessive display
• aerate (v.):   to supply or impregnate (as the soil or a liquid) with air
• turf (n.):  the upper stratum of soil bound by grass and plant roots into a thick mat

3. Tone: concern, angry, informative

4. Rhetorical Strategies

Personification: "Water speaks a whole range of languages..." (26)

"Water is a team player..." (50)

Allusion: "The Old Testament considers water so primal a substance, so fundamental a tool of creation that the Bible does not mention God creating water." (22)

Anaphora: "Water is transparent, and also reflects light.

Water is soft and soothing, and also hard as concrete.

Water is confusing, and also threatening; gentle, and fierce.

Water is the source of like, and also often a source of death.

Water is all-important, indespensable, but almost always free, or essentially free." (49)

"There is no sign of water. There is no sound of water. There is not only no drama..." (96)

Aphorism: "Water is charming." (49)

"Ice floats." (42)

"With water." (45)

"Then something strange happened" (79)

Epigraph: "Water is H2O, hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, 

But there is also a third thing, that makes it water

And nobody knows what it is." (1)

-D.H. Lawrence, "The Third Thing"

Imagery: "We all know how it feels to be so grungy that nothing but a good shower will make us feel better. We know how it feels to be so thirsty that only water will really satisfy us. And we know exactly how the water will taste- really how the water will feel- going down, in that first swallow." (25)

5. Discussion Questions

1. What exactly does Fishman mean when he refers to water as being sexy? 
2. By every quotation that Fishman provides in the beginning of each chapter, what is he trying to accomplish from them?
3. How will society react if all water on Earth disappeared? Will it make them realize they did not appreciate it and it's importance?
4. What encouraged Fishman to write about water?
5. In which ways does Fishman organize his writing? 

6. Quotation

"Water is both mythic and real. It manages to be at once part of the mystery of life and part of the routine of life."