Engaging Students with Gaps: The Whale and the Cigar

Abstract

Watching Arthur Miller and Dustin Hoffman talk with the movie director, the producer, and others about Hoffman's portrayal of Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman catches the interest of most senior-high-school students. If Dustin Hoffman is not Michael Jackson, he is still to contemporary students enough of a culture hero to capture their attention in this PBS documentary. Analysis of the documentary naturally leads to interest in the production itself and on to the text of the play and perhaps to another text, as well as the Frederic March film version. Questions abound at each step of the way: Why did Hoffman want to play the role of someone so much older? How did he take Miller's text and turn Willie Loman into a believable character? Is Willie a believable character? Why would anybody want to play Willie? How would you play Willie if you had to? Would you want to? How would your Willie feel about Linda, about Biff, about Happy? Does the suicide seem inevitable? What makes the relationship between Willie and his sons seem so bad? Would finding your father with another woman make you that upset? Would such a situation be dated? Students come back to the initial questions: Why did Dustin Hoffman want to play Willie Loman? What is there about Willie's tragedy that might have appealed to Hoffman? What is there about that tragedy that makes you feel as you do about the characters?