Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1994. [Vol. 2.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 22)

STUDIES - Mária Kurdi: "You just have to love this world." Arthur Miller's The Last Yankee.

money and, in Karen's words, his "refusing to amount to anything and then spending money on banjo lessons." (17) Karen, in turn, has become repelled by her husband's cruel and expensive pastime activities, hunting and fishing, while there is also a slight hint that he neglects her. As Graham Hassell concludes, "that soul-destroying chimera the American Dream" is to blame for the two women's illness: "The pursuit of happiness via wealth has failed to gratify Karen; not pursuing wealth has disillusioned Patricia."

1

2 Rather strangely, contradicting the fact that they are the hospitalized patients, the women characters appear to be less hopeless here than the husbands were at the end of Scene One. Tying up with her husband's reference to the crucial importance of their relationship in viewing her illness, Patricia has started on the way to recovery because of her budding awareness that "I-must-not-blame-Leroy-any more." (16) Karen turns out to have a suppressed talent for different forms of exercise, table tennis and tapdancing. Reminding one of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, she wishes she could raise vegetables like her family did in earlier times. Most promising of all, however, is the two women's mutual contentment to have a partner to talk to in the other. Their forming relationship is a kind of eyeopener to both. Speaking to Karen about her husband's falling short of her brothers' handsomeness, Patricia is brought to face the fact that they were suicides because of "Disappointment We were all brought up expecting to be wonderful, and ... just wasn't" (21) (An unmistakable echo of Death of a Salesman, again, is quite clear here.) At the same time, Karen is reminded of her talents and advised not to be ashamed of being an inmate in a place like that Later her husband quotes her in reference to Patricia's influence: "She says you made her realize all the things she could be doing instead of mooning around all day ... " (34) In the complex movements of the quartet, this second turn establishes a step forward compared to the deadlock of the first one. Miller's developing his play in scenes between two people seems to be in harmony with what Brecht claims in his Orgánum

: "... the smallest 1

2 Graham Hassell, review of The Last Yankee in Whafs On, 12 May 1993, reprinted in: Theatre Record, 489. 69