【正文】 his two sons were breezy and cheery and everyone respected and revered him. When Willy buries himself in his interior world, all the sceneries on the stage are shadowed by darkness, only a beam of intense white light illuminating his face. The distinct contraction of white and black makes a sharp indiscrimination, just as a closeup shot in a movie. In the end, lighting also dissects the whole stage into several parts to suffice the specific requirements. For example, as the reality and fantasy alternatively take place, lighting on the stage will bee bright or dark in succession, therefore, making the focal point stood out. 12 Chapter 2 Characterization Set in a mon American family, Death of a Salesman depicts a senior citizen?s memories, fantasies and dreams and puts on a modern tragedy: Willy Loman, the main character, sincerely and firmly believes in an achievement of success driven by individual charisma and painstaking hardworking. However, things don?t turn out the way he wants. After rendering a nearly lifelong service to the pany, he gains neither the promised shares nor a decent job with stable salaries. What?s worse is that, suffering from age and psychological infirmity, he is dismissed by the younger boss, who has borne a grudge for his poor sales. Living from hand to mouth and up to his neck in debts, he bees delirious, murmuring about the past. Although stuck in the predicament, he believes, naively, that he will leave a premium for his sons to open a sporting goods store. Driven forward by that pipe dream, he dies in a car crash. In this play, the dramatist adopts a approach of multiple personality to expound his hero, Willy Loman?s intricate mentality and ardent psychological struggles, which is also used in Shakespeare?s reputable tragedy King Lear. Willy Loman and Multiple Personality Disorder In Death of a Salesman, Miller employs this method to analyze Loman?s multilevel and multiform ego and resultantly reproduces his subtle and flighty states of mind, all of which pose a heartfelt and heartrending symphony. Moreover, his multiple personality is not only a token but also an externalization of his psychology, which externalizes 13 the character?s personal feelings and makes them explicit images tangible and audible to the audience. For example, Willy sees more than one time the Boston hotel and room and hears of the woman?s laughter. And the most appropriate example happens in the restaurant in Act Two. Subject to his dismissal, Willy es to the arranged rendezvous to meet his sons and wishes to hear good news that Biff has lent some cash, which, in fact, Biff has failed to borrow. When Biff tries to console him and to let him realize that Success is not a necessity, Willy turns down Biff?s advice and blames everything on himself. At the same time, the day when young Biff flunked math and went to him recurs to him. It is 。 monotonous and soft tunes belongs to Linda and when the lustful melody plays on, the audience are aware of the woman?s entrance. In the end, music in this play is endowed with strongly dynamic movements and, in a sense, suggests the tracks of characters? mental activities. For instance, the scene of Willy?s suicide goes as follows: Willy(uttering a gasp of fear, whirling about as if to quiet her): “Sh! (He turns around as if to find his way。 7 principally conceived in the pressure brought about by the tall buildings surrounding Willy?s house and in other scenes, Howard?s office and the hotel in Willy?s remembrance. For example, quote, “Before us is the Salesman?s house. We are aware of towering, angular shapes behind it, surrounding it on all sides. Only the blue light of the sky falls upon the house and forestage。 and the use of illusion to embody man?s subconsciousness. Therefore, the thesis tries to study the play from three aspects: stage design, characterization and plotting. In Chapter 1, the thesis analyses the stage settings which cross the boundaries of time and space, the stage lighting creating a sense of unreality, the artful exercise of music and the shifts of lighting colors to indicate different characters and situations. In Chapter 2, it discusses Arthur Miller?s masterful approach to construct Willy and Ben?s character features from two perspectives: multiple personal disorder and dramatic fantasy. The third chapter puts its emphasis on his virtuosity in the use of spatiotemporal changes and psychological externalization. Under a close scrutiny, the study is intended to bring to the full play the eternal enchantment of Death of a Salesman. 5 Chapter 1 Stage Design As one of the most prominent American playwrights in the 20th century, Arthur Miller is renowned in the literary circle for his plays dealing with social and moral problems. His masterpiece, Death of a Salesman, is reputed as the epitome of classic American dramas in the history of dramatic position, a play which confines itself to exposing business corruption, domestic disputes, collapse of citizen morality, or the illusional American Dream. According to J. T. Nourse, Miller has skillfully bined the merits of Henrik Ibsen?s plays, Expressionism and Experimentalism, so that his plays boast wellconstructed and pact plots, unrestrained and unlimited flows of stream of consciousness and psychological analysis, on account of which he imprints his surpassing and skillful stage design on the audience?s minds. As an arena to mount a play, the stage plays an important role in a dramatic performance. Generally speaking, a stage functions as follows: providing space for anizing and presenting dialogues and actions, serving as a melieu for their recurrence and demonstrating the underlying sense and significance in them. In addition, one stage consists of a