On Expressionism in Death of a Salesman
解讀《推銷員之死》中的表現主義
開題報告有關說明
1.開題報告作為畢業論文答辯委員會對學生答辯資格審查的依據材料之一。此報告應在指導教師指導下，由學生在畢業論文工作前期內完成，經指導教師簽署意見審查後生效。
2.開題報告內容必須按院系統一設計的電子文件標準格式列印，禁止列印在其它紙上後剪貼，完成後應及時交給指導教師簽署意見。
3.學生查閱資料的.參考文獻應在5篇及以上(不包括辭典、手冊)，開題報告的字數要在1000字以上。
4.有關年、月、日等日期的填寫，應當按照國際GB∕T7405-94《資料元和交換格式、資訊交換、日期和時間表示法》規定的要求，一律用阿拉伯數字書寫。如“2006年12月28日”或“2006-12-28”。
5.開題報告與學生畢業論文一起由院系存檔。
一.本課題的來源及研究意義
“Death of a Salesman” talks about a tragic hero-Willy Loman. Moved by Arthur Miller`s sincere inquiry into common life of Willy Loman in the American society, I began to collect relevant information about Arthur Miller`s works, especially the book—“Death of a Salesman”. Because of the limited resources, my survey mainly concentrates on the domestic journals. According to my survey, I find most of articles are about the disillusionment of the American Dream and tragedy in “Death of a Salesman”. There are few of articles dealing with techniques adopted in the play. And if it comes to the artistic techniques, the focus is mainly on some expressionistic techniques used in the play, such as dream, stream of consciousness, but there is no systematic analysis of the expressionistic techniques adopted in the play. So it is necessary to make a systematic analysis of expressionism. And the previous studies provide new, more effective study methods and more appropriate angles for me to provide a more comprehensive, systematic perspective on the study of “Death of a Salesman”
二.本課題的基本內容
Arthur Miller is one of the most famous dramatists in contemporary American literature. He writes a lot of plays and influential essays that do a good deal in fostering his reputation as an international playwright. “Death of a Salesman” is Arthur Miller`s masterpiece. It is a drama set in 1949 in New York city and Boston. It is a tragedy of American Dream. The play is grouped in realism, but it also contains elements of expressionism, that is to say, much of “Death of a Salesman” is conveyed expressionistically through Loman’s mind and memory. This paper discusses the background information about expressionism. The great emphasis is laid on expressionistic features in depicting the character in “Death of a Salesman”. And the thesis also deals with some expressionistic devices such as design of stage setting, changeable music and light and talks on the play’s language characteristics which expose in theatrical and psychological terms, the Willy’s mental activities. Through the analysis, it can be seen that externalization of inner psyche almost alternates the whole drama.
三.本課題的重點、難點及創新點
The expressionists are not interested in normal life living at the normal level. Instead, they strive to show human being`s exceptional and extreme mental and psychological situations, especially their state of ecstasy, In order to be free to create their own subjective universe, they always adopt absurd, dream-like and fantastic devices. Illusions, dreams and fantasies are always mixed together. Also “Death of a Salesman’’ mainly try to externalize Willy’s psychological activities, so I choose the study of the externalization of Willy`s inner psyche as the focus, that is, flashbacks in the form of consciousness in the drama. So Arthur Miller mixes up the normal pattern of time and space, furthermore he combines Willy’s nice memories and amazing illusions with his miserable reality by means of flashbacks in the form of stream of consciousness.
The difficult point is that two techniques of connecting some seemingly irrelevant past scenes with present events. First, Miller emphasizes the link between the past and the present. Second, Miller makes use of the free association to connect the past with the present.
The innovative point is that the music used on the stage is characterized, that is, through different music theme of different individual not only sets off the mood but also helps to express the character`s inner psyche and the character`s personality.