Rise And Fall
- Toven Bella
- Jan 9, 2019
- 2 min read
Updated: Jan 16, 2019
The theme of Life and Death represents each of the main character's journeys and how they eventually overcame it with the end of their own lives. The Moth, Hamlet and Willy Loman controlled their lives up until their fate occurred.
In Virginia Wolf’s Death of a Moth, a moth is the main character but can be compared to the lives of humans. This text is an excellent display of how life is a struggle for most humans and death is their only option. The life of the moth consists of one intention only of attempting to escape the windowpane, but never ends up achieving it. Hence, all living things will come to an end as their death is inevitable.
In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet is an indecisive and inaction minded character. His main purpose is to seek revenge for the death of his father by killing Claudius. He spends the majority of his life in hesitation and inaction, as he never decides to seek the courage only until the end of the play. His act of killing Polonius rooted Laertes' intention to fight with him, resulting in his inevitable death. Only if Hamlet could have taken action earlier when he had the chance, he could have potentially saved his life.
In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman shares similar traits with Hamlet as he does not take action and lets his life opportunities go by. The main reason causing this distress is from his regret of not living up to his financial potential. He constantly compares himself to his brother who is successful financially. He spends the majority of his life attempting to give his sons the life he never had, but never ends up being successful in that either. Instead, he commits suicide as a result of his underachieved life.
The Death of a Moth, Hamlet, and Death of a Salesman has proved to possess the similar theme of Life and Death through these specific examples. Death is like an unexpected hit you don't see coming. These main characters lived their lives in regret and/or struggle; which ultimately led to their inevitable deaths. Death is the end to all their problems.
Exploring the theme of life and death allows for a very interesting comparison between these three plays or short stories. I was interested in your analysis of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. The theme of life and death is not as obvious, but definitely present in this play. Since Willy feels that he hasn't accomplished anything important in his life, he wants to give the opportunity that he missed to his sons and fill their lives with success. In a sense, we see a metaphorical giving-of-life from Willy to his sons (especially Biff). However, Willy is unsuccessful at giving his sons the life that he wanted them to live. The part that I believe Willy was missing was…
I agree with that conclusion that death ends their problems, but I would argue that the moth didn't have much of the same problem as the other two. The moth had a problem that it couldn't control as much as the others. The moth did not have a chance at life while Hamlet and Willy both had the opportunity to succeed but failed to take that chance. But I do agree with your arguments that death did solve their problems. The moth was trapped and died and did not have to struggle anymore, and the others do not have to worry about their problems damaging them anymore.
Life and death is absolutely a prevalent theme throughout the three literary works. I like how you started with the moth, which is a symbol of the inevitability of death. Hamlet and Willy share similar qualities, as they both lack action and lose opportunities, which ultimately leads to the inevitability of their deaths. It is important to note that Willy's neighbor, Charley, has offered him a secure job and he rejected it. Willy is like a stubborn child, as he still believes that he is at the uppermost in his profession. The American Dream is trapping him, and this eventually leads to his suicide. Similarly, Hamlet is confined by his own indecisive mind. His irresolute mind causes him to miss…
The connection you made between the three characters is a really good insight, about how all their problems were solved with the finality of death. Death can be seen to be really scary for a lot of people since we don’t know what it will bring. I think the point you made that was very interesting to me was that death was actually embraced by these characters. Instead of having death causing problems, the finality of death was actually the solution to all their problems. In a way, it is ironic that the one thing most people would want to avoid is what these characters actually want. When I read your post, it reminded me of the phrase “The enemy…
I totally agree, I can see there is a clear connection through all these books, seeing that all the characters die in the end. But the theme of death is much more relevant in all these stories and carries out throughout the entire story not just the unfortunate ending that they all share. Furthermore I'd like to point out that although they all share the same theme of death they don't all share the theme of life. This especially clear in death of a salesman, Willy Loman never lived because he never let himself live. Willy was never satisfied with his life so he ignored his reality right up until his death only finding a sliver of happiness over t…