An essay on the unwelcome truth that even love can play a role in disaster. Written in reference to Keats’ Isabella and Miller’s Salesman.
In this short essay, I will be debating whether part of the tragic genre is the unnerving idea that even love can bring about disaster. Indeed, this question presents a theory of causality between love and disaster, and how much truth to this there is will be determined by its evidence in two literary texts. First, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the great 20th century Tragic playwright, and second, Isabella by the Romantic poet John Keats. In Death of a Salesman, I will present the view that Willy’s idolisation of his son Biff, his “love”, is a factor in his downfall. In Isabella, I will present the view that the title character and her lover were reckless, leading to their affair being caught and the tragedy of the play, but that the primary cause of suffering in the poem was the responsibility of her brothers, the villains.
In Death of a Salesman, we are presented with the platonic love of Willy for his son Biff, which prevents him from being able to accept Biff as being less than what he idealises him to be. Willy continually states that Biff has a “greatness” and compares him to Greek ideals of manhood like “Hercules” and “Adonis”, both of whom were stereotypically masculine, displaying traditional ideas of heroism. By viewing Biff in the same light, Willy idolises his son too much and places pressure on him to live up to these ideals, which are mythical and therefore impossible to match. He remembers instances where Biff has triumphed, such as the “Ebbets Field game” of football where Biff was Captain, dressed “all in gold” whilst the audience chanted his family name “Loman! Loman!”, evidently one of Willy’s fondest memories (it’s a repeated motif) and proudest moments – he still keeps the “silver trophy”, one of the only standout furnishings in the stage directions describing the Loman house. It’s important to note that Willy has not even kept the “diamond watch fob” which his estranged brother left him, one of his only mementos (he “pawned it” according to Linda to pay for Biff’s “radio correspondence course”, demonstrating the level of Willy’s investment in Biff’s prospects), yet retains the silver trophy, which he could also sell during their times of financial hardship. Granted, diamond is more valuable to pawn than silver and Willy does have a closer relationship with his son than with his brother, but it still bears significance that Willy would forsake all other treasures, except the trophy, the symbol of his Hubris when it comes to Biff. He won’t part with it because it represents the moment when Biff matched his idolisation, and this failure to relinquish the trophy acts as a metaphor for his failure to relinquish his romanticised view of what Biff could become.
It is this persisting belief which prevents Willy from seeing Biff as he is, a self-professed “bum” who finds himself incapable of “taking orders” since Willy “blew [him] so full of hot air” (a colloquialism meaning the pluming up of false pride). He is trapped by his Father’s expectations for him to be financially successful so that when he’s fulfilling his true desires (to work beneath the “sky” “outdoors”) he feels that he “oughta be makin’ [his] future”, the idea that Willy has infused him with. In the last act of the play, Willy refuses to accept that Biff is not an “Adonis” and that he’s not destined for stereotypical “success” through enterprise. Biff begs him to “burn that phony dream” because he’s “just what [he] is”, he can’t match up to Willy’s idealistic view of him and wants acceptance of that fact so that he too can escape it, without guilt. Yet, after Biff leaves, Miller reveals in dialogue that nothing has changed, for Willy states “that boy is going to be magnificent”, and his brother, a hallucination who therefore acts as an extension of Willy’s thoughts, claims this will be aided by “20,000 behind him” in an insurance payout (Willy intends to commit suicide and pass it off as an accidental death so that his family can claim financially). Willy still clings to this idolisation of his son in the framework of financial success in the city, continuing to believe that all he needs is capital. Tragically, Willy’s hamartia is his ignorance of his son “as he is”, which allows him to continue his course of events, as the challenges and pleas offered by Biff weren’t enough to convince him out of such delusions. It is with that ominous line of Willy’s referring to Biff’s magnificence that audiences are made aware there’ll be no real anagnorisis for him.
In Isabella, disaster could be interpreted as coming as a result of Isabella and Lorenzo falling in love, a forbidden affair, which leads to the reaction of the villains in the play and the destruction of the main characters. The lovers are said by Keats to meet “all close” on “all eves”, indicating a frequently recurring, amorous rendezvous every night, which implies a lack of caution aside from being “before dusk”, under cover of darkness. One may argue that this is their first error, whereby their hubris makes them feel secure and like they have little need to take care, perhaps as a result of their feelings being so strong and all-encompassing. Keats does describe how Isabella “spoilt” her “half-done embroidery” with Lorenzo’s name, demonstrating how all of her tasks are infused with her thoughts about Lorenzo, and he is said to “outwear” the night to hear her “morning step”, implying that he deliberately stays awake at night in the hope that she’ll walk past his door, without caring for his own health. It may then be postulated that their love is so strong and obsessive that it prevents them from protecting themselves, a flaw which damns them to be violently parted. Isabella’s “sly” Brothers “found by many signs” the relationship, describing a certain ease to the discovery which could only have come through recklessness. It would be unfair to claim that the protagonists were careless by nature (although Isabella is described as “simple”, a parallel to her “sly” brothers who are more cunning and secretive than she is capable of being, a trait which would have been useful to her). Instead, I argue that it is their overpowering love which causes such negligence. The Brothers therefore enact cold revenge, and “kill Lorenzo” out of “jealous[y]”, which leads to Isabella’s eventual descent into madness, cutting the head of Lorenzo from his carcass and “watering” it with “tears” in the “Pot of Basil” in which she stores it, and her death “forlorn”, after it’s stolen from her. Certainly, the descent from the characters being described as “twin roses” (romantic imagery for the rose symbolises passion) into Isabella “kissing” her dead lover’s “cut away” head would be widely accepted as a downfall, to use the terminology of the tragic genre. Thus, Lorenzo and Isabella’s fates are partially brought about by their extreme infatuation with each other, which causes them to be blind to the potential consequences of their actions if found, since it is this which enabled them to be so easily discovered by the Brothers, the antagonists who would do them harm.
However, their love is not the reason for their downfall, since the external villainy of the Brothers and their reactions are what caused the conflicts. They are said by Keats to have intended to marry Isabella to “some high noble and his olive trees”, the olive trees being a symbol of wealth emphasized here, which demonstrates their enterprising, greedy nature and intentions for Isabella: growing their wealth. She’s little more than an asset. Marriage as an institution was used in this way during the 18th century, to open up communication between two families for the purposes of business, in a way that would be bound by religious faith and the sanctity of marriage. This intent fits with their description as “ledger-men” (accountants) who “set sharp racks at work” by turning an “easy wheel”, thus torturing their slaves into labour “for them”. So these two men are shown to have ideals for how Isabella should be wed, which explains their reaction at her love with one of their “servant[s]”, which would mean she would no longer be a virgin and would thus be unfit for marriage according to the customs of the time. They share “jealous conference” and “bitter thoughts” with eachother, and two men so inclined to pragmatism and ruthless capitalism are unlikely to react favourably to such an affair below class, especially considering their “hungry pride”. Their family is “enriched with ancestral merchandise”, implying that they are upper class, so for Isabella to have a relationship with the lower-class Lorenzo is to damage the nobility of her family. This pride is defined as their main motive for killing Lorenzo, since it was undermined by his disloyalty to them as their subordinate, and his ruining of their marriage plans. He is even described as having to “atone” for his “crime”, demonstrating the legal imagery with which the Brothers mercilessly view the situation, treating romance as a misdemeanor and passing a death sentence for love. It’s their interpretation which leads them to “kill Lorenzo”, for they are characterised as “cruel” and pursue only financial and prideful gains. Therefore, it is not love which is the cause of the tragedy in the poem, but the reaction of the malevolent characters in antagonism. The brothers react with hatred rather than compassion, and the lovers should not be blamed for their downfall at the hands of Lorenzo’s executioners.
Thus, I make my case that tragedy indeed can come about, at least partially, from love, but that the characters should still not be blamed for this, and that other factors often play a role. In Death of a Salesman, Willy’s idolisation of his son leads him to be incapable of seeing who he truly is, disintegrating their relationship and preventing Willy from finding peace with his son before his suicide, which may even have saved him. But Willy cannot necessarily help this, for he is growing senile and such feelings are founded on good intentions. In Isabella, there is an element of recklessness which comes from the strength of the two lovers’ infatuation with eachother, since they lose any cautious aspect, but the tragedy only comes from the way this interacts with the external conflicts of the poem, whereby the villainous brothers don’t want them to be in a relationship and therefore take the option of violence to revenge themselves. It is simply a story of love perishing at the hands of evil, not necessarily love causing tragic events, although such love did play a role. Love is a factor in tragedy, and reminds us of how it can be corrupted by events into becoming a harmful force, but disaster takes its shape in tragedy not as a loving force, but an evil one, which triumphs over goodness in tragic texts. It’s the supplanting of love which makes for the truly great tragedies.
Collected Essays 