For many decades, plays have focused on family dysfunction to help real-life families deal with their relationships. According to Laurence Smardan in the journal article "The Use of Drama In Teaching Family Relationships", Greek plays were able to educate young people with the use of family drama and tragedy to teach aspects of interpersonal relationships within the family . Most family comedies end on a tragic and realistic note, whether it's a death or a traumatic experience that affects family members. Many of the protagonists have good intentions towards the people around them, even if their actions may hurt others. Many people were afraid to talk about the internal family issues they were dealing with at the time, so plays made it possible to talk about controversial family issues. Two plays in particular, Hamlet and Death of a Salesman, show the main protagonist and family members affected by their selfish actions. In Hamlet, the play shows two dysfunctional families torn apart by revenge and the death of their fathers. In Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, a father is shown who is unable to accept his reality due to mental illness, creating a profound impact on his family relationships, especially with his children. In analyzing both works, I identified characters who mean well but are flawed, characters who lack redeeming characteristics, the most functional family, and the most dysfunctional family. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, the father has good intentions towards his family, but is very flawed and does not realize that his actions are causing harm to his family. Since Willy is fatherless, he has tried to find an identity in the only male figure in his life who is Ben, his older brother. Because of his need for a father figure, he seeks Ben for advice and approval on the way Willy is raising his two sons, Biff and Happy. Willy's problems as a father stem from him being a fatherless child himself because he was abandoned by him as a child. Not only that, but his brother also disappeared, causing him to lose his identity as a male. Not only is he struggling with the identity of being the best father figure for his children, but his constant annoyance at his unrealistic idea of perfection begins to cause stress within his family. Even though his role as a father wasn't the best and could have been interpreted as dysfunctional, his character has good intentions for his family. Ultimately he wanted to be loved and appreciated by his family members and wanted them to have a better life than him. Another aspect of Death of the Salesman is that the real problem was the father and not really the wife and two children. The two children had a relatively good relationship with their mother and had intended to visit her, even though both had moved away. The main problem was that the mother did not like the fact that the two children, especially Biff, went home to spend time only with his mother. In that case, the mother felt that if they hadn't been there to visit her father as well, she wouldn't have allowed that kind of disrespect. He said if they come to visit them, it's for both of them, otherwise they shouldn't visit them at all. Subsequently the mother begins to explain her reasons and slowly begins to say that Willy had already done somethingsuicide attempt, and therefore that she was worried. Biff and Happy didn't believe that Willy would do such a thing, but Biff began to believe that Willy was sick because of his actions. His father was also not supportive of Biff and his work lifestyle. She had high expectations of him for his physical characteristics and thought he could do better than work on a farm. According to Harold Bloom in Bloom's Guides, "Biff can find a satisfying job on a Texas ranch but every spring he suddenly finds himself trapped in the doubt of getting nowhere!". This is because Willy constantly commented on manual labor and even said “Even your grandfather was better than a carpenter… Go back to the West! Be a carpenter, a cowboy, have fun!”. This led Biff to disrespect manual labor and treat it as something useless. Biff always thought that Happy was better off because, although Happy had followed in the footsteps his father suggested, he was still unhappy overall. Happy tells Biff, “I don't know what the hell I'm working for. And yet, damn it, I feel alone. It seems like Happy is constantly trying to please his father and does what he says, but he is completely lost in life. Even though Happy makes good money from the business, he is still confused due to his father's advice. He thought that following what his father said and being successful would allow him to reach a state of happiness, but unfortunately for him it didn't work out that way. He's actually unhappy no matter how many women he gets and even mentions wanting to find someone with substance. In William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, it shows the events of a family that gradually becomes dysfunctional after the death of Old Hamlet, and his brother takes the throne, causing chaos of events. There are negative and dark traits within the family in the play that are revealed to the audience as we get to know them. Each member of the family seeks revenge for their own justice which causes a chain of accidental deaths. The main character, Prince Hamlet, lacks redeeming qualities because he is weakened by guilt over his father's death and rejection of Ophelia, who is the love of his life. His goal is to kill Claudius, who is revealed to have killed his brother, King Hamlet, through poison in his ear. Hamlet sees Claudius as evil, questionable, and selfish for marrying his father's wife and is incomparable to the old Hamlet. Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius, who is the father of Laertes and Ophelia, when he is actually trying to kill Claudius. Claudius tells Polonius' son Laertes that Hamlet killed his father, and sets out to avenge his father's death on Hamlet. Hamlet combines political corruption in the Danish court with the power of emotion in a family crisis. The characters in this play had a sense of unreality due to the assumption that they can trust family members and those close to them. Hamlet's delay in killing Claudius was due to his belief in Christianity, and he did not want to kill Claudius while he was praying because he wanted him to go straight to hell. It seems that Hamlet struggled with his Christian beliefs throughout the play and so this was the main reason why many of his actions were delayed. Hamlet's ghost, constantly warns Hamlet to focus on his goal, but Hamlet is distracted and delays killing Claudius, so he is the source of the chain of deaths following his death. The most functional family is the family in the play Death of a Salesman. Willy wanted more than simply to prosper with money, he instead wanted to gain respect and honor in his home. He wanted to persevere in the love of his children, especially with.
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