Advanced Placement English “Final Exam” Essay

Advanced Placement English “Final Exam” Essay

A common theme throughout classical literature is the theme of unmet expectations. As humans we dream so much and yet rarely attain these expectations, goals or dreams. The creation of superheroes simply further illustrates this human desire to reach our goals. We want so much to be more than we are, to not be insignificant, to make a difference in the world. We want to be remembered. We want to be loved. We want to accomplish our deepest desires and realize all our dreams. This is why this theme in classical literature is so prevalent. We all share this same desire, to fulfill all the expectations we have of life and more.

In The Death of a Salesman, Willy, the main character, is a man who dreams the American dream. He thinks that if he is wealthy, he has succeeded in life. It is his desire to be well liked by everyone and he feels that if he isn’t well liked by many people that this is also a sign of failure. These are important components of his vision of success. If he feels the attainment of his American Dream is threatened in any way he lashes out verbally against the threat. For example, Willy says “I was thinking of the Chevy. (slight pause.) Nineteen twenty-eight… when I had that red Chevy—(Breaks off.) That funny? I coulda sworn I was driving that Chevy today. (Miller 1378)” This is a fantasy of Willy’s, but the car is a symbol for the hope he had in the past. Willy hoped that his dreams would be fulfilled and he still does. This is why he lashes out against any threat to his dreams. An example of Willy lashing out can be found in this quote “I’m not going to pay that man! That goddamn Chevrolet, they ought to prohibit the manufacture of that car!” (Miller 1387) This quote comes after Willy making a statement as to how wonderful a car the Chevy was. Continuing with Willy’s vision of the past, he envisions two trees in his front yard. They are a connotation for growth and vitality, which is represented in Biff and Happy during their high school days. The fact that they were cut down represents the apparent loss of opportunity for Willy’s boys. The quote this comes from is;
“Willy: The street is lined with cars. There’s not a breath of fresh air in the neighborhood. The grass don’t grow any more, you can’t raise a carrot in the back yard. They should’ve had a law against apartment houses. Remember those two beautiful elm trees out there? When I and Biff hung the swing between them?
Linda: Yeah, like being a million miles from the city.
Willy: They should’ve arrested the builder for cutting those down. They massacred the neighborhood.” (Miller 1378). The Loman family in general tends to make excuses or deny reality in someway to create a disillusionment that they are successful and that their expectations are being met. When in fact, their expectations aren’t being met. This is shown in a quote from happy;
“Happy (enthused): See, Biff, everybody around me is so false that I’m constantly lowering my ideals…” (Miller 1378) This is an example of verbal irony. Happy blames others for his lack of success, when he himself is the cause of it. Ironically he puts on a front when he says this, even though he claims everyone around him is false. He himself is denying the reality of his situation at his workplace. He also sleeps with the wives of the executives in order to make himself believe he truly is successful.

The Loman’s denial of reality is a form of escape. They don’t want to have to face their problems and their faults, so they run away and this inevitably leads to unmet expectations, because they long to change, they just lack the courage to take this desire and turn it into action. When Linda buys Willy a new type of cheese, Willy becomes very upset because, as was stated before, he fears making a huge change in his life, although he ironically at the same time wants nothing but change in his life in order to realize his dreams. It is because Willy never makes a decision between these two extremes that he becomes a tragic figure, without resolution. This quote symbolizes willy’s fear of change.
“Linda: (trying to bring him out of it): Willy, dear, I got a new kind of American type cheese today. It’s whipped.
Willy: Why do you get American when I like Swiss?
Linda: I Just thought you’d like a change—
Willy: I don’t want a change! I want Swiss cheese. Why am I always being contradicted?” (Miller 1377)

In The Dolls House, there are two characters whose expectations are not met. These characters are Dr. Rank and Nora. Dr. Rank is a man who thirsts for something he knows he can never have. Somewhere deep inside of him he wants to be able to experience a long, happy and fulfilling life. However, he lays aside these hopes, these expectations, when the doctor tells him he is soon to die. Nora and Dr. Rank have a discussion in which Dr. Rank’s true feelings about Nora are revealed, but they also talk about what Dr. Rank’s father liked to eat while he was alive.
“Nora: (by the table, left): He was so infatuated with asparagus tips and Pate de foie gras, wasn’t that it?
Rank: Yes- and with truffles.
Nora: Truffles, yes. And then with oysters, I suppose?
Rank: Yes, tons of oysters, naturally” ( Ibsen 1231)
Dr. Rank mentions within this quote that his father likes to eat a ton of oysters. This word is a pun. The word Oyster can mean the actual shell that people enjoy eating, or it can mean something from which benefits may be extracted. The oysters symbolize all the women his father had sex with (he “extracted benefits from them”). Because the oysters symbolize this, it can also be interpreted as verbal irony because the thing that his father extracted benefits from, was the same thing which crushed his son’s hopes and dreams.

Nora’s expectations on the other hand are hinged upon Torvald. She expects Torvald to understand why she took the loan from Krogstad. She expects Torvald’s love for her to surpass his desire for prestige and honor from his friends. At the end of the play these expectations are crushed. Krogstad only sees her as an incredibly selfish woman who is out to ruin his reputation. He worries about his well-being over hers. This is the moment which Nora shakes off her mantle of disillusionment and leaves Torvald in order to discover herself. However, before everything came crashing down around Nora’s ears, she pleads desperately with Torvald.
“Nora: Yes, take care of me, Torvald, please! Promise me that? Oh, I’m so nervous. That big party—You must give up everything this evening for me. No business—don’t even touch your pen. Yes? Dear Torvald, promise?” (Ibsen 1237) This quote represents Nora’s delay tactics, to try to delay Torvald from opening the mailbox and finding the letter. However it is also a connotation of Nora’s desire that Torvald will fix everything. She wants so badly for everything to remain as it is, for her world to remain stable. When she pleads with Torvald to help her with her dance, she is also pleading in earnest with him to right everything that has gone wrong.

In Wuthering Heights, Cathy and Heathcliff both have expectations which are not met. For Heathcliff these expectations take the form of Cathy’s acceptance of him and Hindley’s supposed assigned subservient role to him. Catherine and Heathcliffe had been playing around the Linton’s house when Catherine was bitten. The Linton’s took her in and nursed her back to health. When Catherine came back from the Linton’s and greeted Heathcliff, the first thing she says to him is a comment on how odd and dirty he looked. Heathcliffe draws back from her angrily saying “You needn’t have touched me! I shall be as dirty as I please: I like to be dirty and I will be dirty.”(Bronte 48) He is thrown off by how different Catherine looks when she arrives and when she says this to him he takes it that she doesn’t like the way he is anymore. He expected her to accept him the way he always was and was bewildered and offended when she didnt. Also the fact that Heathcliff says he likes to be dirty is symbolic (symbol) of his character. He is considered to be dirty morally and a bad influence on Catherine. Another expectation of Heathcliff’s is that Hindley will always remain in a subservient position to him. Since Heathcliff’s adoptive father forced Hindley to treat Heathcliff with respect, Heathcliff expects Hindley to continue to do this after his father dies. When he sees that Hindley doesn’t retain his subservient role he becomes enraged and screams a dire warning full of foreshadowing. “I’m trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don’t care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!” (Bronte 54)

For Cathy, she expected people to care about her well being and love her. She also expected Heathcliff to care about his son’s wellbeing. When she realizes that Heathcliffe doesn’t care that his son is ill cathy explodes in a rage of resentment. “ I know he has a bad nature” said Catherine: “ he’s your son. But I’m glad I’ve a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me, and for that reason I love him. Mr. Heathcliffe, you have nobody to love you; and however miserable you make us, we shall still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty arises from your great misery! You are miserable, are you not? Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him? Nobody loves you-nobody will cry for you when you die! I wouldn’t be you!” ( Bronte 263) This quote shows that Linton is a symbol for Cathy. He is a symbol of hope to her, as long as he is alive, she will take refuge in her love for him because she refuses to believe that there is a place in the world where no one loves her. When Linton dies her hope of warmth from other human beings dies with him. At this point in time she cries out at Heathcliff “.you have left me so long to struggle with death, alone, that I feel and see only death! I feel like death!” (Bronte 269) Evidently this is where she loses hope. In a Simile, Cathy sums up her feeling of utter rejection and loss of will to continue fighting Heathcliff.

Broken dreams come in many forms and the characters in literature react in different ways to their unmet expectations in life. This is also true in real life. Some people can deal with disappointment better than others. Where some may see a dead end, for others there is another door to go through. For Cathy she saw a dead end in her situation which blinded her for a while to the fact that Hareton cared about her. And also sometimes it is better to let go of our dreams instead of becoming a Nora, clinging to a false life and to false truths, or a Willy, whose unwillingness to let go of his dreams proved fatal to him.