The Vainberg Experience

     Less is More: Line Analysis        Sometimes, one needs to deviate from their usual gambit to refresh their brain. In this case, I am the “one” that I am referring to. My brain feels cluttered and cloudy so I’m going to refresh it with the leisurely activity of line analysis, which is something that I unironically enjoy doing. Today’s lucky winner of “works I’m going to tarnish with my vile touch” is Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. This play is an excellent tragedy of the common man, and the issues and themes it tackles are still very much relevant in our present day. The particular line I want to analyze is spoken by Biff: “What woman?”      Two words and a punctuation mark. That’s it. Somehow, these two words find a way to contain more layers than a pothead’s Chipotle order. Let’s contextualize it first. The line comes amidst a dispute between Biff Loman and his mother, Linda Loman. Their dispute is the result of straine...

Service and Self Discovery      It is a very human thing to repress and ignore desires of the heart that we deem “wrong” or “dissonant”. Oftentimes, we are not even cognizant of said desires and they hide away in our unconscious minds- until something pulls them out. This phenomenon was exemplified in the short story “Three Girls” by Joyce Carol Oates. One of the story’s most important facets was its two parallel storylines that converged and influenced one-another as the story drew to its conclusion. Two girls, the narrator and her friend (for now, no spoilers), saw Marilyn Monroe at the Strand , a bookstore in NYC. Upon realizing that it was Marilyn Monroe undercover, they made it their mission to do everything they could to protect her anonymity. They realized that Marilyn Monroe wanted more than anything to have the chance of abandoning her idolized persona and just live as herself. This conflict Marilyn Monroe was experiencing was the first of the aforementioned tw...