For many decades, plays have themed family dysfunction to help real-life families manage their own relationships. According to Laurence Smardan in the journal article "The Use of Theater in Teaching Family Relations", Greek plays were able to educate young people by using family drama and tragedy to teach aspects of interpersonal relationships. within the family. Most family plays end on a tragic and realistic note, whether it involves a death or a traumatic experience affecting family members. Many protagonists had good intentions towards the people around them, even if their actions could hurt others. Many people were afraid to talk about the internal family issues they were facing at the time, so plays provided a way to talk about controversial family issues. Two plays in particular, Hamlet and Death of a Salesman, feature the main protagonist and his family members affected by their selfish actions. In Hamlet, the play features two dysfunctional families torn apart by revenge and the death of their fathers. In Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, it shows a father unable to accept his reality due to mental illness, creating a deep impact on his family relationships, especially with his sons. Analyzing both plays, I determined which characters are well-meaning but flawed, which characters lack redeeming characteristics, which family is more functional, and which family is more dysfunctional. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"? Get the original essay In Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the father has good intentions toward his family, but he has many flaws, not realizing that his actions are causing harm to his family. Willy being fatherless, he tried to find an identity in the only male character in his life, Ben, his older brother. Due to the need for a father figure, he seeks advice and approval from Ben on how Willy raises his two sons, Biff and Happy. Willy's problems as a father come from the fact that he himself is a fatherless son because he was abandoned by him as a child. Not only that, but his brother also disappeared, causing him to lose his identity as a man. Not only does he struggle with the identity of being the best father figure to his sons, but his constant harassment for his unrealistic idea of ​​perfection begins to cause stress within his family. Although his role as a father wasn't the best and could have been interpreted as dysfunctional, his character means well to his family. He ultimately wanted to be loved and appreciated by his family members and wanted them to have a better life than him. Another aspect of Death of Salesman is that the real problem was the father and not really the wife and two sons. Both sons had a relatively good relationship with their mother and intended to visit her, even though they had both moved away. The main problem was that the mother did not like the fact that both sons, especially Biff, were going to the house to spend time only with his mother. In this case, the mother thought that if they were not there to visit her father, she would not allow this kind of disrespect. She said that if they come to visit us, it's for both of them, otherwise they shouldn't visit us at all. Later, the mother begins to explain her reasons and slowly begins to mention thatWilly had already attempted suicide a few times, so she was worried. Biff and Happy did not believe that Willy would do such a thing, but Biff began to believe that Willy was sick because of his actions. The father was also not supportive of Biff and his professional lifestyle. He had high expectations of him because of his physical characteristics and thought he could do better than working on a farm. According to Harold Bloom in Bloom's Guides, "Biff can find a satisfying job on a ranch in Texas, but every spring finds himself suddenly trapped in doubt about not being able to go anywhere! This is because Willy made constant comments about manual labor and even said "Even your grandfather was better than a carpenter... Go back to the West!" Be a carpenter, be a cowboy, have fun! This caused Biff to no longer respect manual labor and treat it as something worthless. Biff always thought Happy was better because even though Happy had followed in the footsteps his father suggested, he was still overall unhappy. Happy tells Biff, “I don’t know what I’m working for. And yet, damn, I'm alone. It seems like Happy is constantly trying to please his father and doing what he says, but he is completely lost in life. Although Happy makes quite a bit of money in his business, he is still confused because of his father's advice. He thought that following what his father said and succeeding would allow him to reach a state of happiness, but unfortunately it didn't work out for him like that. He is actually unhappy no matter how many women he manages to get and even mentions his desire to find someone with substance. In William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, it shows the events of a family which gradually becomes dysfunctional after the death of old Hamlet, and his brother takes the throne, causing havoc in the events. In the play, negative and dark traits within the family are revealed to the audience as we get to know them. Each member of the family seeks revenge with their own righteousness, which causes a chain of accidental deaths. The main character, Prince Hamlet, lacks any redeeming qualities as he is weakened by the guilt of his father's death and the rejection of Ophelia, who is the love of his life. His goal is to kill Claudius, who reveals that he killed his own brother, King Hamlet, by poisoning his ear. Hamlet considers Claudius wicked, doubtful and selfish for marrying his father's wife and he is incomparable to old Hamlet. Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius, who is the father of Laertes and Ophelia, when he tries to kill Claudius instead. Claudius tells Polonius' son Laertes that Hamlet killed his father and he sets out to avenge his father's death on Hamlet. Hamlet combines political corruption at the Danish court as well as the power of emotion in a family crisis. The characters in this play had a sense of unreality due to the assumption that they could trust their family members and loved ones. Hamlet's delay in killing Claudius was due to his Christian beliefs, and he did not want to murder Claudius while he was praying because he wanted him to go straight to hell. It seems that Hamlet struggled with his Christian beliefs throughout the play and therefore this is the main reason why many of his actions were delayed. Hamlet's ghost constantly warns Hamlet to focus on his goal, but Hamlet is distracted and is behind on killing Claudius, so he is the source of the chain of deaths after his death. The most functional family is the family in the play Death of a Salesman. Willy wanted more than just..