The comparison between T.S. Eliot's Burnt Norton and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
...hat whatever we decide in our lives, we cannot change the choices we had previously made. In Death of a Salesman, this is a concept Willy Loman struggles with a lot. He feels guilty for the mistakes he has made and this forces him into a world of denial, guilt and shame. In the seventh and eighth line, the poem states the universal "what if", meaning whatever might have been remains in a perpetual mystery. Several times throughout the play, Willy questions what things would have been like if he had made different choices. For example, he begins to fantasize about what it would have been like if he had taken the job offer in Alaska. Biff also questions himself and he is not as confident as he used to be when he was in school. Happy is another character who, despite his success, speaks of being lonely and happy even though he has everything he wanted (an apartment, a good job, a car). Lines 11 to 13 in the poem also reiterate the same meaning in the play: "Footfalls echo in the memory, down the passage which we did not take, towards the door we never opened." The contrasts between dreams and reality are also a common theme in both pieces of work. Lines 6 to 8 state that only in the real world are we plagued with the choices we never made. This is a colorful contrast to dreams, where the consequences of our actions can be careless and free. In dreams, we can vividly fantasize the notion of going back in time or into the future. Willy often escapes to a dream world where things are no longer harmful to him. Lines 9 and 10 define another harsh reality; that whatever has happened and whatever could have happened point to opposite ends, always in the present. This is the lesson Willy cannot accept. He refuses to believe that whatever he has done or wanted to do are situations that have to be dealt with in the present. Willy believes that his solution is to run from it by dreaming or fantasizing that things are the same way they used to be. Dreams are again brought up in the poem towards the end when the author speaks of the "rose garden", an idealistic utopian realm where regret and denial do not exist. Again, this relates to the characters' dilemmas in the play. The primary characters are all seeking to find their personal "rose garden". Loss and success are prevalent in both poem and play. Although obscurely, there are several instances in which the poem portrays the contrast between loss and success. In the 4th and 5th line, the author speaks of unredeemable time. This presents the contrast between loss and success because all time is lost if it not redeemable. Also, decisions made in the past present a loss as they are forever unchangeable if the longing for repairing previous mistakes exist. In the play, this is often the case with Willy. ...