III. Character
Submission:
Assignments must be done in Microsoft Word. Combine the writing assignments for this
section in single document titled “Character.”
Include your name, class, and Course ID in the paper heading. Save the document as Character + Your Last
Name. Then e-mail the assignments as an attachment to [email protected].
Character
Assignment 1:
Read “Character” in The Bedford Introduction to Literature, pages
115-120.
Plot and character are closely related since characters can cause events to occur and events can cause characters to react. Meyer provides the following classifications of fictional characters:
- Protagonist – the main character in a work of fiction, the hero or heroine
- Antagonist – a character or force that opposes the protagonist
- Dynamic character – a character who changes as a result of the conflict
- Static character – a character who does not change
- Round character– a character who has depth and complexity
- Flat character – a character who embodies one or two qualities
- Stock character – a familiar character type
The protagonist is the character that engages our attention. The protagonist is usually a round character and is often a dynamic character. These characters engage our attention because they have complex personalities often composed of conflicting qualities. Miss Emily can be very daunting. She intimidates the Aldermen and the druggist. However, she is also psychologically fragile. Her need for love drives her to necrophilia. Protagonists are usually dynamic characters. Louise Mallard’s long repressed need for independence emerges as a result of her husband’s death. She experiences her first taste of
freedom, a feeling so powerful that she dies of a heart attack when Brently Mallard returns home.
The antagonist is a character or force that opposes the hero or heroine. Brently Mallard, the townspeople in “Rose for Emily,” and the mother in “Crash Dummies,” are examples of antagonists. Antagonists are usually flat, static characters. We know little of Brently Mallard other than that he represents the “powerful will” that opposes Louise’s freedom. The townspeople exert the social force that prevents Miss Emily from marrying Homer Baron. We get the feeling that the mother in “Crash Dummies” will continue her meaningless chatter through an infinite number of crashes. The mother may also be termed a stock character, a familiar character type – the domineering mother.
The Tragic Hero
In The Poetics Aristotle defines the qualities of a tragic hero. The tragic hero or heroine is a person of high stature, neither too good nor too evil, who falls as a result of a flaw or flaws in his or her character and who comes to recognize or understand the reasons for his or her fall.
A perfect tragedy should, as we have seen, be arranged not on the simple but on the complex plan. It should, moreover, imitate actions which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive mark of tragic imitation. It follows plainly, in the first place, that the change of fortune presented must not be the spectacle of a virtuous man brought from prosperity to adversity: for this moves neither pity nor fear; it merely shocks us. Nor, again, that of a bad man passing from adversity to prosperity: for nothing can be more alien to the spirit of Tragedy; it possesses no single tragic quality; it neither satisfies the moral sense nor calls forth pity or fear. Nor, again, should the downfall of the utter villain be exhibited. A plot of this kind would, doubtless, satisfy the moral sense, but it would inspire neither pity nor fear; for pity is aroused by unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like ourselves. Such an event, therefore, will be neither pitiful nor terrible. There remains, then, the character between these two extremes- that of a man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty. He must be one who is highly renowned and prosperous- a personage like Oedipus, Thyestes, or other illustrious men of such families. (Aristotle Part XIII)
Sophocles character, Oedipus, is Aristotle’s ideal tragic hero. Oedipus, the King of Thebes, is highly renowned and prosperous. His fall from kingship to blind beggar in the play incites “fear and pity” in the audience because he is neither completely virtuous nor evil but “a character between the two extremes” who falls, in part, as a result of flaws in his character. We might feel that Oedipus’s fall is the result of fate since it was prophesized that he would kill his father and sleep with his mother. The ancient Greeks believed in predestination, but only in the sense that the gods controlled the general pattern of a person’s life. How Oedipus meets his fate is determined by his character. In Sophocles’ play, Oedipus brings about his own downfall by searching for Laius’s killer in public. His decisions are based not on reason but excessive pride and anger. A king less concerned with the people’s adoration and more concerned with their welfare might have heard Creon’s news from the oracle in private and conducted a more discreet investigation. Oedipus’s extreme anger at Tireseus and Creon ironically serves to hasten his downfall. In an effort to calm the situation, Jocasta tells Oedipus that Laius was killed at the place where three roads meet, a fact that triggers Oedipus’s memory of killing a man meeting Laius’s description at that place.
Not all tragic heroes in literature fit Aristotle’s
model. Many of Shakespeare’s heroes,
while being “to the manor born” have more serious character flaws and do not
necessarily incite “fear and pity” in us.
Macbeth is an example of a hero who is morally corrupt, who kills
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (Shakespeare 1385)
Macbeth’s actions incite horror rather than fear and pity. Many modern tragic heroes like Willie Lowman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman are average people rather than rich and powerful members of the nobility. Miller argues than the every man can experience tragedy. “As a general rule…I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing – his sense of personal dignity. From Orestes to Hamlet, Medea to Macbeth, the underlying struggle is that of the individual attempting to gain his “rightful position in society (Miller 1225). Miller does not see that a hero requires a tragic or moral flaw as does Aristotle, but rather the hero is characterized by his or her “unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity” and acts “against the scheme of things that degrades them” (1226). At the end of Death of a Salesman, Willie sees suicide as the only way to prove his worth to his son, Biff. He believes that his life insurance will bring in money to support his family in a way he never could in life, and that the people who come from all over to his funeral will convince Biff that he was truly respected in the world. Willy explains to the imaginary figure of his successful brother, Ben:
Oh, Ben, that’s the whole beauty of
it! I see it like a diamond, shining in the dark, hard and rough, that I can
pick up and touch with my hand. Not like
– like an appointment! This would not be
another damned fool appointment, Ben, and it changes all the aspects. Because he [Biff] thinks I’m nothing, see,
and so he spites me. But the funeral – (Straightening up.) Ben, that funeral
will be massive. They’ll come from
While the nature of tragic heroes vary, their suffering connects us with the fundamental conditions of our existence: man caught in the web of fate, man struggling to balance his own desires with the needs of the state, or man struggling to maintain his personal identity in a materialistic world.
Assignment 2:
Read Trifles by Susan Glaspell in The
Bedford Introduction to Literature, pages 1248-1257. Write:
In your opinion, who is the hero of Trifles? Explain your answer by discussing the nature
of the character, the character’s conflict(s), and how the character responds
to the conflict. Your paper should be
approximately 1-1 ½ pages. Additional resources: Susan Glaspell The page contains links to Glaspell's newspaper articles on the Hossack case, "A Jury of Her Peers," Trifles," and "Stories in Fiction and in Fact: A Jury of Her Peers and the 1901 Murder Trial of Margaret Hossack".
.
Stock Characters
Stock characters are familiar character types. Traditionally, stock characters have been used in comedy to ridicule foolish behavior or social values. The mother in “Crash Dummies” is a stock character – the domineering mother. Many of the characters we see in soap operas and situation comedies are also stock characters. Television abounds with stock homosexuals who are effeminate, artistic, fashion conscious, and non-threatening to straight females. They are often great cooks, interior decorators, or hair dressers. These characters often promote stereotypes by exaggerating certain characteristics while never showing actual or more complex characteristics. David, a character who appears in the series, Six Feet Under, is not a stock homosexual character. David may have some of the stereotypical traits – he is slightly effeminate – but this trait is not exaggerated or the primary focus of his personality. David is an undertaker with an excellent head for business. He can be very tough, stubborn, possessive, loving, vulnerable, understanding, angry, confused, frustrated. In the series, David is shown having a complex but loving relationship with Keith, an ex-LAPD officer. Few stock homosexual characters are shown actually hugging, kissing, or having sex. That would make them too real. Instead, sexuality is usually suggested or implied and done for comic effect.
Often stock characters are used to contrast with round or
dynamic characters. In Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles, Mr. Hale a simple farmer.
We might expect Mrs. Hale to be a simple woman as well, but she is anything but
simple, and more than a match for the hard-nosed County Attorney Mr. Henderson. When contrasted with Mr. Henderson, for
example, we can see that she is not only a better investigator, we can see that
while he is only interested in the law, she is interested in true justice.
It can be argued that stock characters form the basis for all characters. Miss Emily, for example, is an aging spinster who foolishly falls in love with a younger man, and Mrs. Peters is a supportive but subservient wife who puts her husband’s career ahead of her own needs. We are familiar with these character types, but the fact that they defy our expectations gives them depth. We certainly do not expect Emily to be both a murderer and necrophiliac, nor do we expect Mrs. Peters to tacitly agree to hide the evidence that could convict Minnie Wright. Because they defy expectations, we have to look more deeply into their characters and see them as we see real people rather than character types.
Assignment 3:
Read Act I, Scene II of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William
Shakespeare in The Bedford
Methods of Character Development
Description
Meyer explains that writers create characters by “showing and telling” (118) using the basic methods of writing – description, narration, commentary, and dialog. In the following passage from “A Rose for Emily,” the narrator describes Miss Emily at the time the Aldermen came to ask her to pay her taxes:
They
rose when she entered – a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain
descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane
with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton
was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been plumpness in
another was obesity in her. She looked
bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid
hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges
of her face, looked like to small pieces of coal pressed in a lump of dough as
they moved from one face to another while the visitors started their errand.
(Faulkner 91)
Faulkner’s description of Miss Emily is a portrait of her at midlife after she has poisoned Homer Baron. The overall impression is appalling: she appears “bloated like a body long submerged in motionless water.” Her outward appearance which is deathlike and remote, frightening and pitiful, gives us a sense of her inner life.
Narration
In the next passage, Faulkner uses narration to tell us how Emily acted after her father’s death:
The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid, as is our custom. Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quietly. (93)
Commentary
The next passage contains the narrator’s commentary about the way Miss Emily acted at the time of her father’s death:
We did not say that she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will. (93)
While the description “shows” us a picture of Miss Emily and the narration “shows” us how she behaved, the commentary “tells” us the narrator’s opinion. As readers we can choose to accept or reject the narrator’s comments depending on whether we trust the narrator. In this case, the narrator’s observation is prophetic and helps explain why Emily might have killed Homer Baron.
Dialog
A writer can also have a characters show and tell about themselves through what they say or think. In the following passage, Miss Emily displays the daunting behavior of an aristocrat as she summarily dismisses the Aldermen.
“I
have no taxes in
“But
we have. We are the city authorities,
Miss Emily. Didn’t you get a notice from
the sheriff, signed by him?”
“I
received a paper, yes,” Miss Emily said.
“Perhaps he considers himself the sheriff…I have no taxes in
“But
there is nothing on the books to show that, you see. We must go by the –“
“See
Colonel Sartoris.” (Colonel Sartoris
had been dead for almost ten years.) “I
have no taxes in
“But,
Miss Emily –“
“Tobe!” The negro
appeared. “Show these gentlemen out.” (92)
Here Miss Emily speaks for herself and shows us a different side to her character. While she is living “submerged in the motionless water” of the past, she knows the past is powerful. She may be crazy, but she is also quite capable of defending herself. She knows the new Aldermen have no jurisdiction here where Colonel Sartoris still represents the traditions of the Old South. She uses the same side of her personality when she buys the poison, and presumably when she meets with the Baptist minister. This piece of dialog here also serves to advance the plot.
Writers can also create characters by revealing their thoughts. In “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” Robert Frost lets us overhear the speaker’s thoughts. We interpret the speaker’s thoughts in much the same way we interpret spoken dialog. The fact that at the beginning of the poem the speaker is concerned about being seen by the owner of the woods tells us that stopping causes tension or stress.
Assignment 4:
Read “Baglady” by A.S. Byatt
(163-166). Find one example of how Byatt creates characters
using description, narration, and dialog. Discuss what each example tells us about his
character. The paper should contain at
least 3 brief paragraphs.
The following is a sample answer: In the first paragraph of the story, Byatt creates the character of Lady Scroop
through dialog. She says, “the Company will send cars to take us all to the Good Fortune
Shopping Mall. I understand that it is a
real Aladdin’s Cave of Treasures, where we can find prezzies
for everyone and all sorts of little indulgences for ourselves, and in perfect
safety: the entrances to the Mall are under constant surveillance, sad, but
necessary in these difficult days” (163).
In this monologue, Byatt creates the
exposition for “Baglady,” by having Lady Scroop tell the wives of the directors of Doolittle Wind
Quietus that while their husbands are at a meeting, they will be going
shopping. Her use of the word “prezzies” marks her as a pretentious, upper-class, Brittish snob, but her concern for safety while shopping in
the Asian mall, reveals her shallow view of the world: “Things are fine as long
as the rich are safe to indulge themselves in shopping.”
Assignment 5:
Read “Home Burial” by Robert Frost in The
Bedford
The poem is basically a dialog in the form of an argument between a husband and wife who have lost a child. The speaker of the poem, however, also narrates, telling us what the characters do and think. The speaker sets the scene in the beginning of the poem.
He
saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before
she saw him. She was starting down,
Looking
back over her shoulder at some fear.
She
took a doubtful step and then undid it
To
raise herself and look again. He spoke
Advancing
toward her: What is it you see
From
up there always – for I want to know.”
She
turned and sank upon her skirts at that,
And her face changed from terrified to dull. (1033)
At this point in the poem, we don’t know what the conflict is, but we can sense that there is one. She sees something from the top of the stairs that she doesn’t want him to see or doesn’t think he can see. She starts down the stars, before she is aware of his presence, almost takes a step down, then goes back to look at “some fear.” He intrudes on this very private moment and asks what she is looking at. His use of the word “always” tells us that he has seen her looking out the window a number of times before. This time, however, he is determined to find out why. She responds by sitting down and withdrawing into herself. If we are careful readers, we assume that their behavior has something to do with the title, “Home Burial.” She sees something out the window having to do with the burial of someone close, since the burial took place at home, probably in the family graveyard. She sees something out the window that reminds her of her loss, and he is determined to find out what it is once and for all.
In reading dialog, it is important to sense the tone of voice. As readers, we have to be like actors because it is our responsibility to recreate the dialog by understanding how the characters feel and how they sound. Method actors, those who follow the teachings of Stanislavski, try to recreate emotions from their own lives that are like the emotions the characters feel. If you were to say the husband’s words, how would they sound? Is he gentle, somewhat angry, frustrated, afraid, at wits end? Does he feel conflicting emotions; that is, does he feel sympathy for her but sorry for himself? He makes it clear that he has seen her there before. This time, he is insistent on finding out the answer this time despite the fact that she cowers from him and withdraws. Perhaps he tries to be gentle, but his frustration with her causes him to enter into a physical and emotional area that she is either not ready or unwilling to discuss. The wife’s silence is just as important as the husband’s question. Try to imagine what this silence sounds like and how it might feel.
As you read and write about the poem, try to follow the emotional give and take of the argument. Look at what the characters say or don’t say, how they respond to each other, what their tone of voice might be, and how they behave in relation to what they say.
Assignment 6: Re-read Trifles by
Susan Glaspell in The Bedford Introduction to
Literature, pages 1248-1257. Write a
character analysis Minnie and John Wright.
Describe their marital relationship.
Why do you think Minnie kills her husband? Your assignment should be
approximately 1 – 1 ½ pages.
Susan
Glaspell creates Minnie Wright and her husband in an
unusual way. Neither character appears
in the play. In “Home Burial” and in most
other dramas, we learn about the characters by what they say and do, but in Trifles
all know about the Wright’s is from what other characters say about them. Everyone in the play has something to say
about them. The motivations of these
characters shapes the way they view the Wrights. Attorney Henderson, who is out to prove that
Minnie murdered her husband, has s number of negative things to say about
her. She is obviously a poor house
keeper judging from the way she left her kitchen. There are broken jars of cherry preserves,
unbaked bread, and a dirty roller towel.
Henderson should be interested in collecting the facts before deciding
to prove Minnie’s guilt, and like many unscrupulous politicians, he engage in
character assassination when he is unable to argue the facts. Lewis Hale knows both Minnie and John
Wright. He gives a factual account of
finding the body, but when he begins to discuss their relationships, Henderson
stops him. Mrs. Hale provides most
intimate details about Minnie’s character.
She was Minnie’s neighbor and friend, but they had not been close in
recent years. She is angered by Mr. Henderson’s approach and from the beginning
knows more than she tells the men. She
also, as Mr. Henderson says, is loyal to her sex. What she tells us about Minnie Wright is
motivated by numerous factors: friendship, loyalty, a deep understanding of
human nature, anger at Henderson, the facts, and the need to get Mrs. Peters to
help her bring justice to Minnie Wright.
Your analysis of Minnie’s character will have a great deal to do with
whether you think Mrs. Hale’s actions are right or wrong.
Assignment 7: Read the following poems in The
Bedford Introduction to Literature:
“Those Winter Sundays,” by Robert Hayden, page 703, “Nighttime Fires,”
by Regina Barreca (who was married to Michael Meyer
the last time I checked), page 719, and “My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke, page 908 Are the fathers in the poems flat or round characters? Explain your answer by discussing their characters in detail. Your paper should be approximately ½ to 1
page.
Poetry like prose often involves the creation of
characters. In “Those Winter Sundays”
the speaker tells us about his father, but the speaker is also a character in
the poem. The father is obviously a
difficult 
man
given the fact that the son says he rose “fearing the chronic angers of that
house,” and that he spoke to his father “indifferently” (703). The speaker, however, is writing as an adult
describing an experience from his childhood.
The comment at the end of the poem, “What did I know, what did I know/
of love’s austere and lonely offices?” is a reflection about his father who,
despite leading a difficult life, rose early even on Sundays to start the fire
in the furnace so the family would be warm when they got up. This commentary also indicates that the
speaker understands the difficulty of fatherhood now that he is a father.
Regina Barreca also creates a speaker who is looking back on an experience, but the commentary is implied rather than stated directly. There is a contrast between what the speaker felt at the time – “It was festival, carnival” (719), what the mother felt as she watched the father not the fire, and what the father felt both before and after the fire. The father, who is out work, likes to wake up the family to go see the houses of wealthy people burning at nighttime. If there was a Cadillac in the driveway, so much the better. The mother is afraid for him and her children. The image in the last two lines of the poem, tells us that both the speaker and the father have different feelings on the drive home: “I could see his quiet face in the/ rearview mirror, eyes like hallways filled with smoke” (719). How you respond to this image will determine how you feel about the father.
The father in “My Papa’s Waltz is often seen as being abusive. He comes home drunk, waltzes around the kitchen with his son holding on for dear life, busts a knuckle, scraps the son’s ear, and beats on the son’s head with his dirty hands. How do we know whether or not the father is abusive? The answer lies in the words the speaker uses, the rhythm of the poem, and the way the speaker addresses the words to his father.
Assignment 8:
Read “Miss Brill” in The Bedford Introduction to Literature,
pages 294-97. Write a character analysis
of Miss Brill. Contrast what Miss Brill
thinks about herself to the way that the young couple sees her. Do you see Miss Brill as a tragic figure? Your paper should be approximately ½-1 page.
Miss
Brill goes to the park each Sunday. She
watches the people, and she listens to the band. On this particular Sunday, she has an
experience that shatters her self image.
As you read the story, you will note that the narrator follows Miss
Brill’s thoughts. The judgments that she
makes about others reflect more on her own character than to do on those whom
she observes. How accurate are her
judgments? Although her judgments may
seem insightful, is there reason to believe that her ideas about others are based
on illusions that she has about herself?
She sees herself as “an actress” (261).
What kind of actress is she?
Assignment 9a:
Read Chapter 2 of In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien. Write a brief list of the characters
introduced in this chapter. Try to
identify them in terms of their relationship to John and Kathy Wade and explain
what their testimony indicates about their characters. Your paper should be approximately 1 to 1 ½
pages. Post your discussion of Richard Thinbill in Discussion 3 on WebCT.
Assignment 9b:
Read the entries in Discussion 3 on WebCT concerning Richard Thinbill and revise your response to Thinbill's character based on what you consider the most important ideas in the discussions.
Tim O’Brien’s approach to character development in Chapter 2 – Evidence is unusual. Chapters 6, 12, 16, 20, 25, and 30 are also called “Evidence” and provide the same kind of information – physical evidence and testimony by the key people involved. O’Brien uses personal testimony to develop the characters of John and Kathy Wade. The testimony given by these people also tells us something about how different people viewed John and Kathy and their relationship, and it tells us something about their characters. Understanding their characters, in turn, helps us to weigh the evidence they give. The first piece of testimony by Richard Thinbill is mysterious: “You know what I remember? I remember the flies. The millions of flies. That’s what I mostly remember” (8). It is a strange comment that seems disconnected from anything else we have read so far, a fragment, a piece of evidence that we might later connect to the larger story. Using the footnotes in the chapter, however, you might be able to determine the signifiance of this comment.
O’Brien’s method of constructing narrative and constructing
characters from fragments has its parallel in modern art. The collage is an approach to constructing a
work of art based on assembling fragments. Images, and fragments of images are
juxtaposed in a composition like “Pipes, Glass, Bottle of Vieux
Marc.” Critic Lucy Flint tells us that
the collage “multiplies 
meaning”
(Lucy Flint on the art of collage ). The fragments,
which consist of various types of media, violate our perception of “normal”
reality. Tim O’Brien achieves a similar
effect by presenting his story and developing his characters by using
juxtaposing fragments. This method allows the viewer to make his or her
connections between the fragments. The
viewer like the reader participates more actively in the artistic process and
may drawn connections and conclusions that are different from those of the
artist. The collage also allows us to
see what are very often familiar images and experience them in a different way
so that we may discover something new about them and about ourselves. In Picasso’s work we may see that various
facets of our lives are all related and interconnected in multiple ways. The elements have artistic, cultural,
political, ideological, economic, and social relationships and connections, and
the lines between them are not as clear cut as we may think. We need to look at the relationships and
connections between the elements in In the
Lake of the Woods in the same way.
The My Lai Massacre, an event that occurred in a distant war and has
almost been forgotten impinges on the lives of all off the characters.
One final comment. All art works are composed of fragments. The way in which the artist composes and arranges the fragments has a great deal to do with our understanding and emotional reaction. Picasso’s collage may appear to be confusing at first, as is Tim O’Brien’s use of testimonial fragments; however, Picasso shows us that this is the way we often “see” the world without being consciously aware of it. The world does not arrange images, sounds, and words for us in neat picture, simple melodies, and romantic stories. Instead, the world presents these things in a jumble, which we can process either unconsciously into separate elements or consciously combine and recombine to examine their interconnections. In the end, life is a mystery. My Lai is a mystery. And the fate of Kathy and John wade is a mystery.
Works Cited
Aristotle. The Poetics. Internet Web Classics, Ed. Daniel Stevenson. 2000. 4 Oct. 2000. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html.
Barreca, Regina. “Nighttime Fires.” The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 7th ed. Ed. Michael Meyer. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2005. 703.
Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 7th ed. Ed. Michael Meyer. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2005. 90-97.
Frost, Robert. “Home Burial.” The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 7th ed. Ed. Michael Meyer. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2005. 1033-1035.
Mansfield, Katherine. “Miss Brill.” The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 7th ed. Ed. Michael Meyer. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2005. 294-297.
Miller Arthur, Death of a Salesman. The Bedford Introduction to Literature.
7th ed. Ed. Michael Meyer. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2005.
1798-1862.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd. ed. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Houghton Mifflin Company. New York: 1997. 1385.