Essay Questions

In what way might this novel be described as cinematic?

The visual eye of Miller the playwright is on full display here even though the literary form is substantially different. One of the strengths of the story is the way in which Miller incorporates that intuitive visual sense to create descriptive imagery easily capable of producing a cinematic realization in the mind from the words on the paper. One particularly effective example occurs once the “new element” is no longer merely moving around the periphery of Newman’s existence, but is now literally moving into his neighborhood. Stunned into silence merely by the sight of a man with a black skull cap and beard sitting on a porch down the way, the scene expands outward to take on a very cinematic aspect that chillingly builds tension as efficiently as if watching it play out on a big screen:

“The Blighs had stopped talking and were sitting motionless, staring across at the old man. The orphan boy was whispering into Mr. Kennedy’s ear while they watched the stranger. Across the street Carlson stood frowning with his hose in his hand. Newman’s eyes moved from porch to porch. All the faces were turned the same way. Only the hissing of the hoses sounded on the street.”

What small architectural detail of Newman’s house is situated early in the narrative as foreshadowing of suspicious paranoia which builds into a tidal wave of prejudice and discrimination against him by his neighbors?

Newman is most assuredly not a rebel without a cause openly flaunting his nonconformity. He is portrayed early on, however, as possessing a latent desire for expressing his individualism. The means of expressing is almost absurdly safe and insignificant in detail, yet ironically will prove to be enough to spur tiny flickering flame of suspicion about him among his conformist neighbors. The flicker will eventually ignite into a conflagration of paranoia, but it all begins with something as stupidly insignificant as shades of color and a preference for hinge placement:

“Standing for a moment beside his garbage can, he glanced up at his shutters which he had painted a light green. The other houses all had dark green shutters. Then his eye moved to his window screens, which he had hinged at the sides so that they opened like doors instead of swinging out from the top as others on the block did.”

What is the symbolic meaning of the strange carousel in Newman’s dream about the carnival which opens the novel?

An alienating atmosphere permeates the carnival in Newman’s dream. A carny barker is soaked in sweat and the carousel features garish purple and green coloring but no actual people even though it is going around and around. What is most disturbing of all is the realization that the carousel is being operated by a gigantic subterranean factory. The painted horses and carriages move forward and backward like a normal merry-go-round, but everything about it is completely off and more than a little sinister. In fact, it is terrifying to Newman, primarily because he can’t work out the factory operating beneath the amusement ride. As the story plays out, the symbolism comes into, well, focus: prejudice and discrimination is being manufactured by the guerrilla tactics of the underground factory. It is usually unseen—unperceived—because everybody is just enjoying the ride and not stopping to think or consider the way in which their being shook back and forth by external forces seemingly beyond their control.