Death in Literature (Class)

Friday in my American Literature class, we started reading and discussing “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller. For those of you who haven’t read it, it is basically about a salesman and his struggles for success in the work world. We talked about how tough losing a job is, the feeling of failing to provide for your family, and the emotional and psychological stress that joblessness can cause. In the book, Willy, the salesman, is contemplating suicide because of this “failure” feeling. My professor brought up the topic, but seemed to say that the idea of that was somewhat absurd.

What an outrage! I felt like he was completely dismissing Dad, which I had talked to him briefly about at the beginning of the semester. Dad’s career was plagued with unemployment, but, like Willy in “Death of a Salesman” it wasn’t his fault. More than one boss fired him because they were worried he would take their job, or because they just didn’t like him. When Dad was let go in January of 2005, he couldn’t handle it anymore. Satan used that loss of a job to destroy Dad’s self-confidence as the breadwinner of the family. Satan was allowed to blind Dad from relying on God for the needs of our family. Dad felt that the best thing for him to do would be to take his own life, so that he could at least provide through the life insurance what he felt he couldn’t through a job. The loss of a father is no small thing to be dismissed, and that what I felt my professor was doing.

Later, as I thought about things more, I realized that my professor couldn’t relate, and even though he knew most of what was going on, he probably wasn’t sure or comfortable trying to talk about that. So, I wasn’t outraged anymore, I just felt mellow because I started missing Dad again.

But, life continues…especially in Christ.