Death of a Salesman - Themes analysis

Abandonment
Willy's life charts a course from one abandonment to the next, leaving him in greater despair each time. When Ben leaves to Alaska, Willy develops a fear of abandonment, which makes him want his family to conform to the American dream. His efforts to raise perfect songs, however, reflect his inability to understand reality. The young Biff, whom Willy considers the embodiment of promise, loses his trust in Willy and Willy's ambitions for him when he finds out about Willy's adultery. Biff's ongoing inability to succeed in business furthers his estrangement from Willy. When, at Frank's Chop House, Willy finally believes that Biff has landed a job, Biff shatters Willy's illusions and abandons him.

Death of a Salesman - Themes analysis

The American Dream
Willy believes wholeheartedly in what he considers to be the promise of the American Dream - that a "well-liked" and "personally attractive" man in business will indubitably and deservedly acquire the comforts offered by modern American life. Oddly, his fixation with the superficial qualities of attractiveness and likability is contradicting with a more gritty, more rewarding understanding of the American Dream that identifies hard work without complaint to be the key to success. Willy's interpretation of likability is superficial - he childishly dislikes Bernard because he considers Bernard a nerd.

WHAT IS CLASSICAL CONDITIONING?

Learning: a relatively permanent change in behavior due to experience.

Classical conditioning: a procedure during which an animal or person learns to associate a reflex response with a new stimulus.

Classical conditioning schedule: the steps in the procedure to condition a new response.

Unconditioned stimulus (UCS): the stimulus that produces a reflex response, such as the food for Pavlov’s dog.

Unconditioned response (UCR): the reflex response to an unconditioned stimulus, such as Pavlov’s dog’s salivation.

Conditioned stimulus (CS): a new stimulus presented with the UCS, such as the bell in Pavlov’s experiment.

Conditioned response (CR): the response that is learnt; it now occurs when the CS is presented, such as Pavlov’s dog’s salivation.

Extinction: a conditioned response dies out.

Spontaneous recovery: a conditioned response that has disappeared suddenly appears again.

Generalization: the conditioned response is produced when a similar stimulus to the original conditioned stimulus is presented.

Discrimination: the conditioned response is only produced when a specific stimulus is presented.

Sampling method	Advantages	Disadvantages
Random	No researcher bias Likely to be representative	Time-consuming
Opportunity	Quick and easy	Not likely to be representative and may have researcher bias
Systematic	Simple procedure with no researcher bias	Sample may not be representative
Stratified	Very representative	Very time-consuming

WHAT ARE SAMPLING METHODS?

Random sample: every member of the target population has an equal chance of being selected for the sample.
Opportunity sampling: people who are members of the target population and are available and willing to take part.
Systematic sample: every ‘nth’ member of the target population is selected for the sample.
Stratified sample: to obtain this type of sample, the different subgroups in the target population are identified; then people are randomly selected from these subgroups in proportion to their numbers in the target population.

Seeing as my blog is looking extremely boring, even for a revision blog, I am going to be putting random pictures of people/ things every now and then. Yep.