Category: Death Of A Salesman

Death of a Salesman is a play written by Arthur Miller in 1949. The play focuses on the last 24 hours of the main character, Willy Loman’s life. It also shows flashbacks which include memories that Willy has experienced. In this essay, I will analyze the main themes along with the structure of the play and how the characters are revealed within the text.

The main themes in this essay are betrayal, abandonment, the American Dream, and family. As a young boy, Willy is abandoned leaving him to be engulfed in the idea of the American Dream, the idea of working hard and being determined, to live a life that is filled with wealth and joy. Although the concept of the American Dream is the same for everyone, what people view it as can be different. For example, what one person class as a life that is better, richer, and overall fulfilling, others may disagree.

Willy believes that the way in which to achieve his American dream is to be well-liked and to be the perfect family to everyone who looks at them from the outside. ‘I won’t have you mending stockings in this house! Now throw them out!’ (Miller 1949). This quote helps to reiterate how Willy wants himself and his family to look smart, well-dressed, and overall perfect to the outside world. It also helps to show how Willy spends money that he doesn’t have on items that he doesn’t need because they are well-advertised. He does this so that he can create an impression of success. He doesn’t tell his family that they cannot afford many of the things that they own. However, when they find out they put up with it so that they don’t upset him.

Throughout the play, we learn how Willy has been abandoned and betrayed throughout his life, whether it be by his work, his family, or his friends. We first see the theme of abandonment when Willy’s dad leaves him and his brother Ben in search of his own American Dream of wealth, leaving Willy with no father figure to look up to. Ben then abandons Willy just like their father did. He did this to search for their father. ‘Can’t you stay a few days? You’re just what I need, Ben because I have a fine position here, but I’well, Dad left when I was such a baby, and I never had a chance to talk to him and I still feel kind of temporary about myself.’ (Miller 1949). This quote shows how Willy has missed his brother and wants to know more about his father because due to his age when he left, Willy doesn’t remember anything about his father. The phrase ‘you’re just what I need’ (Miller 1949) helps to show just how important family is to Willy.

The next sense of abandonment and betrayal is apparent when Biff catches Willy, having an affair. ‘You fake! You are a phony little fake! You fake!’ (Miller 1949). This quote helps to show that he feels betrayed by his father and shows how Willy puts up a front and that his life has been built upon illusions and pretense. Biff does not see the point in going home and pretending that everything is normal and therefore he abandons his family to go and find work away from the town he grew up in. This leaves Willy to assume that Biff’s betrayal comes from his discovery of Willy’s affair. ‘You – you gave her Mama’s stockings!’ (Miller 1949). This shows how Biff sees what his father has done as a betrayal of his mother’s love. The stockings now represent all the lies and secrets that Willy has told, and this now haunts him forever. When Biff leaves Willy feels as though he has been betrayed by his son. Willy constantly feels betrayed by his sons. This is shown again when Biff and Happy, his other son, abandon him for two girls when they have already promised to have a meal at the restaurant with him.

It is not just his family that Willy feels abandoned by. All his old clients have either retired or died and nobody knows him anymore, which eventually leads to his employers abandoning and betraying Willy; by firing him. ‘I was fired, and I’m looking for a little good news to tell your mother, because the woman has waited, and the woman has suffered. The gist of it is that I haven’t got a story left in my head, Biff. So don’t give me a lecture about facts and aspects. I’m not interested. Now what’ve you got to say to me?’ (Miller 1949). This quote shows how Willy is emotionally exhausted from all the abandonment and betrayal that he has suffered in his life. Yet he still wants to make his wife happy by asking Biff to lie about how his interview went. This again shows just how important family truly is to Willy.

Biff refuses to lie for Willy which leads to the fact that throughout the play Biff is the only character who seems to change, and it is this change that creates the final catalyst in the drama of the last interaction. In this final interaction, Biff confronts his father with the truth. He tells him that he isn’t special and that due to his upbringing, he finds it hard to listen to orders, meaning he cannot hold down a job for a long period of time. However, with Willy being the tragic hero that he is, he is unable to accept anything that Biff says. The only part of what Biff says that Willy understands is that Biff does love him even though he disagrees with how he lives his life. ‘Isn’t that ‘ isn’t that remarkable? Biff ‘ he likes me!’ (Miller 1949), ‘He loves you, Willy’ (Miller 1949). These quotes suggest how shocked, yet happy Willy is to find out that his son loves him. However, this motivates Willy to commit suicide because he wants Biff to achieve his full potential with the money from Willy’s death. All Willy has ever wanted to do is to provide for his family, and he thinks that killing himself is the only way to do so. However, this can also be seen as ironic because even though Willy sees it as helping Biff to achieve in life, Biff could see it as his father abandoning him just like how Willy’s father did to him.

The play is split up into three parts. These are Act I, Act II, and the Requiem. From the start of Act I up until the end of Act II only 24 hours pass. However, it feels like a lot longer and this is because, throughout the two acts, we watch as Willy retreats into his memories, with the flashbacks in the play spanning around 16 years. This storytelling technique means that the audience is given the full spectrum of what Willy has experienced throughout life, which helps them gain a sense of sympathy for Willy from the start through to the end.

Throughout the play Miller uses past-time switches, these help the meaning of what the audience sees on stage to be altered so that they can see what is truly happening. Each memory has something to do with what is happening in Willy’s present-day life. Although the play follows a rather straightforward structure, these past-time switches mean that it becomes more complex. By using these past-time switches, Miller can incorporate both real and remembered time into the play, with Willy’s flashbacks taking the audience out of the present day and into remembered time. The earliest memory is Willy talking to Biff and Happy in the garden, and the last is Biff discovering Willy’s affair. The fact that the first and the last flashbacks involve family; reiterates the importance of family that Miller is trying to show throughout the play. Willy is a man who fears the truth and is obsessed with his image, therefore; Miller uses flashbacks to reveal the secrets of his deep past to the audience watching on. If the audience met Willy as an oppressive parent who mocks his neighbors and puts up a front to not reveal his true income, instead of a frail man in his sixties, then it would reduce the impact of Willy being a tragic hero. By introducing Willy as he did Miller helped to build up the tension throughout the story and again allows the audience to feel sympathy for Willy.

Miller’s description of Willy as the tragic hero shows how heavily the play is influenced by Greek tragedy. Willy fits into Aristotle’s role as the tragic hero as he portrays the different personality traits that define this type of character. These are hamartia (a tragic flaw that causes the downfall) because he is completely committed to the American Dream and refuses to accept the reality that surrounds him; Hubris, as he shows excessive pride towards himself and his family; Peripeteia (reversal of fate that the hero experiences)), this is shown within the discovery of this affair and the loss of his job; Anagnorisis (an important discovery), because he realizes that he may never be as successful as he would like to be; Nemesis (an unavoidable punishment), because he committed suicide due to his excessive amount of pride; and lastly Catharsis (fear and pity from the audience), which is shown by poor attendance at his funeral and because Biff doesn’t fulfill his father’s wishes with the insurance money.

In conclusion, the main themes of abandonment, betrayal, the American Dream, and family are all frequently included throughout the narrative. Willy and Biff’s relationship highlights all these themes. The play is structured in a way to reveal how the characters behave and think about reality as well as to show how the importance of family can impact a man’s life.

“Suicide as a deviant way of success: A study of Psychosocial approach in the Death of a Salesmen”

Arthur Miller’s ”Death of a Salesman” portrays the miserable conditions inflicting the lives between lower-class people and upper-class people during the 1940s in America. The story setting takes back to the ‘financial depression’ when the USA is held between the great world wars, by that time most Americans were optimistic about a renewed vision of the ‘American Dream’ meaning that anyone can achieve financial success and material comfort that lies at the heart of ‘Death of Salesman’. Though Miller achieved success by portraying an ordinary salesman (Willy Loman) as the Protagonist who is struggling to rise to the social ladder in a capitalistic society, who is very much betrayed by ‘American Dreams’ and moves on to the relentless pursuit of happiness that eventually brings his tragic end. Henceforth, this drama not only expresses the character’s psychological and subjective world but also shows the harsh social situation. It is important to analyze Willy Loman’s suicidal death.

The goal of this paper manages to analyze the cause of Willy Loman’s death from a societal and psychoanalytical perspective creating a link: between a social tragedy, Willy’s obsession with the American Dream, and his family’s tragedy.

Willy’s livelihood is quite familiar in our present era, people are facing similar problems to the way Willy had at that time. We discover that his life revealed some social problems veiled within personal and family tragedy, clustered with ethnic and money-oriented society causing our reflection on the current time.

As some critics claim that Death of a Salesman uses flashbacks to present Wily’s memory during reality “the more he indulges in the illusions, the harder it is for him to face reality” (Koon, Helene).

Willy Loman dreams that he would be a successful businessman like Dave Singleman, someone with money and status. Willy’s idea of having a successful life is to stand out to society and to be well-liked, and his frequent flashbacks show that he could measure happiness with money and popularity.

One analyst states that “society tries to teach that if people are rich and well-liked, they will be happy/../Because of this, Willy thought that he would be happy. He was never bothered to be happy for what he had” (Sarkar, Saurav. The American Dream in Context of The Death of Salesman, Academia).

Discussion

Willy Loman’s death as a social tragedy is influenced by the concept of Darwin’s Theory “the survival of the fittest”; portraying how the real society is not fair to everyone, especially to those middle-lower class people. According to Georgy Luckas, leading critic and theorist in the sociology of arts and literature states that “within a capitalistic society everything keeps up for its own price, the search for a protagonist for values is to come across some defeat, that is the depth of currency merits and triumph for currency”(Fatemah P. Sahari, pg-83). Unfortunately, that is how Willy slowly became the victim of the capitalistic society that had first used and that discarded him.

Howard: Oh, I could understand that, Willy. But you’re a roadman/../We’ve only got half a dozen of salesmen on the floor here.

Willy: Howard, all I need to set my table is fifty dollars a week.

Howard: No, it’s a business kid, and everybody is gonna pull their own weight.

Willy: I put thirty-four years in this firm/./ I can’t pay for my insurance!

You can’t eat the orange and throw that peels away- a man is not a piece of fruit.

(Arthur Miller, The Death of a Salesman, Act-2, pg.83)

Explaining from the above line mentioned, Willy, who has been under the influence of money worship and various desire, the capitalistic-minded people would like to try by all means to ensure their survival and success in society. Howard seems not to bother how men like Willy may survive because he has his own business to be succeeded. He also views his employee as a leftover fruit, easily eaten, and throws the peel away. Regardless, of how hard work Willy had to go through for the company, Howard merely cared about his worth of struggle and refused to provide him one more chance.

A family tragedy is led by a man who does not have a true sense of himself and is blinded by the realization of what a terrible life he is leading. He does not even realize how much his family loved and cared for him. Willy is angry at one of his sons named Bliff who has failed in life in front of his father and Willy represses his current memories quite often the time when he had a happier relationship with his sons. In Fraued’s perspective, this is called the ‘pleasure principle’ meaning when an individual seeks pleasure and forgets the pain. Thus, Willy is the perfect example of a person who is affected badly by the repression of his pleasure principle, and Arthur Miller wanted to use Willie as an example for America displaying how a working salesman has drastically aided his own repression. Willy has been educated by the principle of the ‘American Dream’, that to work hard and reach one’s goal. He admired his father and Ben, whose adventure in Alaska and success in the jungle, gave Willy some hope that he may find success in the city. He did have ambition but could able to understand the business world and his real needs. So, he wanted his son to live a wealthy and decent life; surprisingly, their dreams collide as they hit down to throat, city to country, reality to idealism, and so did their idea of reality.

Biff is this idealistic boy, who knew that the business world is not for him and he is disgusted by the business community and prefers country life because he finds city life quite ‘dead’. Hence, he returns home to readjust his path, and Willy finds it a failure.

Biff (with rising agitation): Hap, I’ve had twenty or thirty different kinds of jobs since I left home before the war/../This farm I work on, it’s spring there now see? And. They’ve got fifteen new colts. There is nothing new inspiring or beautiful.

( The Death of a Salesman, Act-1, pg.16)

Biff finds it a pleasure to work on that farm and he admits how he wasted his life by working in other jobs, and he does not want to repeat the same regret. However, it seems Happy is an attention-seeking child who wanted to continue his father’s legacy, to be a successful salesman. On the other hand, Linda is an obedient wife. Although, Willy cheated on her by having a secret affair to seek his “pleasure principle”. Linda and Willy never had a conflict, but on a deeper level, their miscommunication created their family falls down. Thus, Freud would agree with the psychoanalysis of Willie that he likes to seek pleasure, and that way he can run away from the problems of his home, and his family, and losing his touch with reality.

Willy’s obsession with American Dream establishes an odd belief that a ‘well-liked and ‘personally attractive’ man like his brother Ben, who undoubtedly and deservedly acquire the material comfort offered by the American Dream in the business world; as Ben mentioned to the Lomans that, “I discovered after a few days that I was heading due south, so instead of Alaska, I ended up in Africa/../Principally diamond mines”. (The Death of Salesman, Act-1, pg. 37).

We can also see how various character achieved their own Dreams in many, such as Howard Wagner who inherited his father’s company. As well for Bernard who used to be this studious child and “not well-liked” as Willy mentioned to his son (Biff), “Bernard can get the best marks in school, I understand, when he gets out in the business world, you are going to be five times ahead of him” (The Death of a Salesman, Act-1, pg.25). Eventually, Bernard did end up being a successful Lawyer through his hard work. Overall, Willy’s vision of the Dream, which is influenced by Ben’s success, believes that any man who is manly, and charismatic, deserves success and will naturally achieve it. In the end, Willy and his sons fail to achieve that Dream, not because Will is unable to achieve financial success, but rather because he is consumed in the dream so deeply that he ignores the tangible things around him, sinking in his subconscious mind. This marks Willy’s tragic fall when he is fully detached from his wife and sons, the love for his family, and following after hope that someday he will bring security to his family. This psychological instability of Willy is the actual result that society is imposing on him, drifting him further to escape into the world of thoughts, as it is the safest shelter he could find. At the end of the play, Willy sacrifices himself in order to get his family the money from his life insurance policy. Literally, Willy kills himself for money, which demonstrates a strong meaning that American Dream is a powerful inspiration but it can turn any human into a living product whose sole value is his own worth.

Conclusion

Willy’s twisted picture of dreams and values ruined his life, as well as his family. He never realized that he lived in a world of dreams and illusions, leading it to fetal tragedy. Arthur Miller wanted his reader to understand there is intense competition in this current society, and we must strive to know ourselves better, be dedicated to our goals, and move on forward with our life while keeping pace with the rapid society.

Work Cited

1. Arthur Miller, The Death of a Salesman, published by Penguin Classic (2000).

Baradacco’s text article talks about dreams and how they are the inner source of inspiration for leaders. The author tries to show how dreams can go wrong and ruin an individual’s life. This is elaborated by Arthur Miller’s play, The Death of a Salesman which brings out the two sides of a dream.

The prepositions revealed are that dreams are provoking and that they are also deeply disturbing. The text relies on the play to expound the dream metaphor but focuses on the negative beat of dreams that go wrong. The aspects and the ideologies given in the Baradacco’s article are supported in the paper.

The author’s point of view is that dreams that go wrong devastate families, leaders, and organizations. From the play used in the article, dreams can be clearly stated, dominant or single, based on a multitude of aspirations and hopes. I concur with the idea that dreams give hope and aspiration and that they can be many or single. According to Badaracco “dreams are slow acting poisons” (2006).

Dreams can break a man and literally eat them away, destroying the relationships one had because of an unachievable dream set by the individual. According to Redpath (1998), dreams give human beings ideas that are at best, pure imagination, if not impossible.

From the text, Willy has a dream of his family and the career as a salesman from where he has to divide his time between his career and his family. Long separations can cost a relation as seen in the article. In my view, this is absolutely true because relationships need companionship and this can only be achieved through closeness.

Hope keeps people going because they believe things will change tomorrow. This is what keeps Willy going and when this hope fades, the emotional feelings of hopelessness have to be released. To achieve a dream, support is required to enhance the development and realization. This is what Linda Willy’s wife does by paying the bills and giving him hope instead of being negative.

This kind of support is essential in building and nurturing a dream. At the end of the play, the author notes that Willy is fired, devastated and then commits suicide. In my opinion, failure to achieve one’s dream after dedicating a lot of time can be devastating and may lead to emotional and psychological breakdown.

This phenomenal escapade is what is happening to us and the people close to us. This is because we are forever chasing the American dream whereby success is only defined through status, celebrity, and money.

The projection of the organization that Willy works as uncaring is a clear definition of today’s organizations. Career has robbed off many families in the modern society as it did to Willy.

Remorse and conscience are human traits imbedded deep in our systems and at one point they have to surface. This is what happens when Willy cheats on his wife and lies to his son but he is haunted by his actions. Obsession with a glamorous life drives Willy to an early grave.

Dreams are supposed to be realistic and achievable. What is portrayed in the article is unrealistic dream that can never be achievable. Unrealistic dreams waste resources, time, and energy and lead to defeat. According to Chapman (2002), dreams need to be fulfilling and realistic if one is to succeed. Dreams can poison the mind especially when they seem beyond our reach.

The story in the play tells and shows the reality that exists between delusions and dreams. To me, Willy had delusions and not dreams because according to Holmes (1999), dreams have to come true and showcase the desires of our heart as long they do not hurt us, if not others.

Willy is a night dreamer, unlike Linda who dreams with her eyes open, making her a leader. Leadership comes with responsibilities that one has to be liable to. Multitude dreams can break hopes and the aspirations of an individual. This is what happened to Willy. It is totally agreeable that too many dreams can lead to little happiness and wreak family life. The family is the pillar of the society and leadership begins here.

The failure by Willy as a family man makes him a failure as an individual as well because he has evaded his responsibilities. Leadership is about being responsible and answerable to others. What Willy lacked is priorities in his life; he only pursued a dream that was not real, a dream that was upheld on the realities of yesterday instead of following his heart.

It is true that the dreams of Willy are not his but are merely based on mass culture.Redpath (1998) acknowledges that impossible dreams are nothing but imaginations that are beyond the outer limit. Dreams are sustained by our egos which can be misleading and unrealistic. Dreams need to be healthy and it is true that dreams need to develop and evolve.

Lastly, the article by Badaracco is an eye-opener on what leadership is all about. It expresses well how dreams can ruin one’s life. The aspects and basics used by the author to explain the concept of dreams through Willy and his family is what actually happens in the modern society.

It can be used to educate people and warn them on the dangers of unrealistic and multitude dreams. It is a learning experience that society can adopt in developing their aspirations and hopes. The inner knowing of what one wants makes dreams come true in future (Chapman, 2002).

Reference List

Badaracco, J. (2006). Questions of character. Boston: Harvard Business School Press

Chapman, J. (2002). Live your dream: Discover and achieve your life purpose. Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page Books

Holmes, E. (1999). How to change your life. Deerfield Beach, Fla: Health Communications. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Redpath, P. A. (1998). Masquerade of the dream walkers: Prophetic theology from the Cartesians to Hegel. London: Sage.

The author Arthur Miller as analyzed through the book “Death of a sales man” and the author Flannery O’Connor as analyzed through the book “A good man is hard to find” are both similar because the authors are inclined towards tragedy. In other words, their works both end disastrously.

However, the circumstances surrounding these downfalls are very complex and dependent on the dissimilar surroundings that the two writers were focusing on. In Death of salesman, the author talks about a delusional and self obsessed man. However, his tragedy was partly a direct result of his own inadequacies.

Therefore, Miller breaks away from the traditional form of tragedy because the protagonists’ ruin was his own undoing. He was under the misconception that greatness could be achieved merely through one’s personality yet this was not so; such kind of thinking led to his self destruction.

In this regard, the death of the protagonist also causes readers a sense of despair because the main character was not transformed prior to his death. All lessons are to be learnt by the audience only.

On the other hand, author O’Connor focuses on growth or transformation in her main character (Votteler, 53). Initially, the grandmother is a selfish and overbearing individual who wants to bully the whole family into going for a vacation at her choice destination.

Her selfish ways are also seen when she attempts to save her own life during the encounter with the Misfit. However, at the end of the story, grandmother is overcome by grace and soon realizes that she has been living a pretentious life. Therefore, although this play is still a tragedy in that the main character died, the author created a different twist to her character by illustrating that she has undergone a transformation and is now more charitable and graceful.

O’Connor and Miller also resemble one another in their attempt to depict an everyday person. Readers can relate to both types of writings because the characters embody everyday Americans.

Miller and O’ Connor also want to bring back their characters to reality and if this eventually involves some form of violence or even their own demise, then the authors were willing to take it there. In Death of the salesman, Arthur Miller continually illustrates the importance of taking reality seriously through Willy.

Willy asserted that in order to be successful, one should be well liked (Miller, 1949). However, when he soon finds out that this was not insync with reality then he immediately looses hope. Also his continual resistance to technology and the new developments in society put him at odds with it.

He believes that he has more worth if he were dead than if he were alive. Eventually, this despair causes his tragic end. O’Connor also stresses the importance of reality through the grandmother. This protagonist has been living under the illusion that she is the perfect Christian.

She has her mind fixated on her own ways and does not really care about the perspective of the people around. Since grandmother’s head is so deeply separated from reality, the only aggressive way of bringing her back is through an act of violence.

The violent acts of the ‘Misfit’ eventually caused the protagonist to look at herself and realize that she is indeed a mirror image of the hardcore criminal who has attacked them in their trip. Even the murderer remarks that grandmother was meant to be a good person the only thing she needed was to be shot everyday. In other words, O’Connor sacrifices the life of the main character in order to prove a point on reality.

To this author, violence was the only way that grandmother would ever look at herself for who she really is. Likewise, Miller saw that Willy’s end was the only way that readers could identify with the importance of reality (Sandage, 2005).

These writers’ literary works may also be viewed as commentaries on society. Miller wanted to despise the individualistic nature of American culture, corporations and its people.

These entities have become carried away with image/perceptions rather than solid character. Many Americans can identify with the protagonist Willy because salesmanship has permeated all aspects of American’s lives. Everyone seems to be in a continual quest to be the best but this is never really possible for everyone.

Nothing drives this point home like Willy’s situation. Similarly, O’Connor also gives a commentary about society. She wanted to illustrate that most people lack an understanding of true spirituality. They are obsessed with self preservation and may border on being deceitful and egotistical.

The authors also had mostly unlikeable characters in their works. O’Connor chose Grandmother – who was always quite petty and dominating – for a reason. She wanted to illustrate that even the worst of us deserve a little grace.

There were plenty of opportunities for the protagonist to mend her ways and become graceful but she chose not to take up those challenges because of her spiritual blindness.

Many characters in this story also miss critical moments of truth because of this blindness, however, when they finally do, it is clear to realize that even the most unlikeable individuals still deserve grace.

Similarly, Arthur Miller has used an unlikeable character to drive his main point across. Willy thinks that he and his sons are likely to succeed in the business world owing to their greatness.

He thinks that likeability is all one needs to be successful. This grave misconception causes the audience to realize how pitiful Willy is. Furthermore, as the play continues, Willy’s mental state gets further and further away from the norm. He is always resisting change and often questions any new technological developments.

These are all issues that make his character seriously flawed. However, in the midst of all this, the author is still able to make his main point which is that the frantic and often self obsessed American culture has its casualties and never really offers real solutions to problems.

Comparison of O’Connor, Miller and Faulkner

Faulkner is similar to O’Connor in terms of his description of the American South at that time. It may be true that the South may have changed from 1939 when Faulkner wrote “A barn is burning” and 1952 when O’Connor wrote “A good man is hard to find”, nonetheless; these authors were still writing about a region that was rarely the focal point of literary works.

In fact, these writers sparked off a lot of controversy because of this. O’Connor’s protagonist comes from the South and she was representative of what actually goes on in most households there.

Non southerners misunderstood the Grandmother and wrote her off as nothing more than an evil character. However, when a Southerner reads about her, one can easily relate to her because it is likely that the reader also has a relative who is just like Grandmother. In fact, this makes Southerners more sympathetic towards the protagonist in “A good man is hard to find” because they all realize that she means well (Oschshorn, 1990).

Miller and Faulkner are also quite similar because they both utilize protagonists who are not sure about themselves. In Miller’s “ Death of salesman”, Willy is a product of the harsh corporate system that used him down to the last drop then poured him out once he was of no use to them.

His identity is therefore shattered because he can no longer be the salesman that he was so used to being. He is in dire need of curving out a new identity but his inability to do so has caused him his demise. The same thing goes on in William Faulkner’s Barn burning. Sarty is struggling with his identity as well.

He does not know whether to take actions based on loyalty to his father or whether to focus on his own moral principles (Faulkner, 154). This individual is quite confused and even goes through an emotional rollercoaster. At the beginning, Sarty sticks to his family inclinations when he expresses solitude and support to his father.

He stretches this loyalty when he becomes a partial accomplice to his dad’s ill actions by fetching the fuel to be used in lighting the fire. However, he eventually sheds off this identity of a good son by listening to his inner conscience. The story is therefore characterized by a continuous battle to find himself as a person.

Faulkner also resembles O’Connor because protagonists in both narratives get to redeem themselves or to find themselves. Sarty avoids becoming a victim to his father’s manipulations, threats, paranoia and selfish thinking by running away from him.

It is these inadequacies that bring Sarty and the family much discomfort; his father causes them to become poor plus they are always in a state of transit. Eventually, this protagonist sees his dad for who he really is and thus frees himself from such bondage. Similarly, Grandmother also goes through a similar experience by the end of the narrative.

At first, she is driven by her own needs and thinks that she is the ideal Christian. Eventually, she redeems herself when she sees a reflection of herself in the hardcore criminal who had attacked her family (O’Connor, 1955).

Generally, all three writers focused on tragedies but these were dependent on the ideals prevalent at the time of composition i.e. modernist and realist thoughts. Their portrayal of the tragedies was also dependent on their themes and the ends that the authors were trying to achieve at any one time.

Works Cited

Sandage, S. (2005) Born losers: a history of failure in America. Cambridge: HUP

Miller, A. (1949). Death of a salesman. NY: Viking press

O’Connor, F. (1955). A good man is hard to find. NY: Harper

Oschshorn, K. (1990). A cloak of grace: contradictions in a good man is hard to find. Studies in American fiction

Faulkner, W. (1939). Burn Burning: selected short stories of William Faulkner. NY: Modern Library

Votteler, T. (1969). O’Connor, Flannery on her own work. Gale research Inc, 21(5): 1-67

Introduction

Authors often use such themes as family relations in their literary works. Arthur Miller and August Wilson also resorted to this eternal issue. Their vision, their works Death of a Salesman (Miller) and Fences (Wilson), was praised by many people and is now regarded as conventional. Both plays received many awards and Pulitzer Prize among them.

In-depth analysis of human relationships made the two plays significant literary works. The two authors illustrate hardships of aged men who fail to reveal their affection and care towards their family members. Apart from the depiction of relationships between family members the two authors also touched upon such issues as social and economical hardships and their impact on peoples’ relationships, insanity and death. The two plays explore the same themes which can be regarded as eternal since even nowadays they are up-to-date.

The importance of the main themes of the plays is unquestionable

I have chosen the plays Fences and Death of a Salesman because they deal with issues which are topical at present. People face similar problems in modern American society. Economical hardships made people more concerned with earning money rather than paying attention to building proper relationships with their family members.

Moreover, people tend to close themselves into their shells. Thus, the main characters of the two dramas were the major decision makers in their families. They tried to be the real heads of their families. Unfortunately, this led one of them to insanity and the other one to alienate himself from the rest of the family. Admittedly, when people face problems in outer world the only way to overcome these issues is to construct metaphorical fences around their families which will support come what may.

The two plays have very much in common in terms of the themes revealed. They are written at different times but dwell upon the same issues. The issues remain unsolved because they are really ever-lasting. Perhaps, only in several hundred years people will see the only possible solution which was suggested by Miller and Wilson in the twentieth century. Thus, the main reason I chose the plays is that the themes disclosed in them are really important for people.

Family relationship is the main theme in the plays

The major theme of the two plays is family relationships in hard times. Both families have certain financial constraints. The both protagonists of the plays believe that a “man got to take care of his family” (Wilson 38). This seemingly perfect formula is not realized by them. Troy Maxson and Willy Loman focus on things that are not of primary importance.

Of course, it is essential for the head of the family to earn enough money to bring up his children and support his wife. Nevertheless, the two protagonists fail to fulfill the most important part of being a father and a husband: to build proper relationships with their children and wives, to support not only financially but psychologically. In both plays children get tired of their fathers indifference and the lack of their support.

This distance between the father and the children is better revealed in Fences where Troy’s wife, Rose, that their family consists of “halves” (Jacobus 884). The family has three children from three mothers. The father is alienated from all of the children and his wife. Troy is concerned with racial issues and social injustice, his mistress Alberta and his glorious sport past.

Troy stipulates that he has to take care of his family though none of his children or wife has his support. Cory, his son wants to achieve something in his life playing football, though his father does not want him “to get all tied up in them sports” (Wilson 34). Tory believes that there is no place for non-white people in sports since he was once rejected. Troy is disappointed in his first son, and simply hands in his born out of wedlock child to his wife, Rose.

Miller’s protagonist Willy is also somewhat alienated from his family. Just like Troy Willy fails to keep the proper relationship with his children who do not feel their father’s support. However, in this play the father is eager to be a good father, but makes only mistakes. He has tried to find the way to make money for all his life: “Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there’s nobody to live in it” (Miller 10). Another excuse for Willy is his insanity. He cannot possibly pay much attention to his family since his own brain alienates him from reality.

The plays have other themes in common

Building fences is an important theme in the plays

The theme of building relationship with other people is supported by another theme: fences. Both protagonists of the plays created fences around themselves. They isolate themselves from the rest of the world. For instance, Troy only sees obstacles and does not want to find the way out.

He tries to rebel but fails – he loses his job. He does not believe that his son will not succeed in sport because Troy constructed a fence when he could not make it out in sport himself. Willy’s fences are even more substantial. His mind starts creating barriers. His children try to stand their father’s insanity though they fail.

Willy is alienated from his own children because of his mental disorder. It is important to add that these fences do not make Willy and Troy invisible and invincible. Vice versa, the fences prevent them from seeing the real world. They do not estimate situations correctly. Eventually, they both lose their jobs and this makes them build new, more substantial fences.

Thus, one of the greatest fences Troy and Willy has built is their reluctance to accept changes. They would like to live dreaming about their past success. Troy is fond of his sport career. He is proud of it. However, he does not want his son to devote his youth to sport, because Troy does not believe in changes.

He still thinks that it is impossible for a colored boy to make a good career in sports. Willy is also concerned with his past success. Of course, in the play he is not that successful salesman as he used to be. Perhaps, this is the reason why he does not like changes as well.

Insanity is also dwelt upon in the plays

The two plays also highlight the theme of insanity. Of course, this issue is revealed in different ways and insanity plays quite different roles in the plays. However, this theme is very important for both plays. Thus, in Death of a Salesman the main character becomes insane because of the hardships he had to overcome. His insanity is manifested by his talks to imaginary people. This insanity alienates the protagonist from his children.

Of course, it leads to his death. As far as the play Fences is concerned, it is necessary to point out that it also pays significant role. To my mind, the insanity of Troy’s brother Gabriel positively influences Troy’s life and gives him salvation. Gabriel’s insanity enables Troy to build his house.

In the end Gabriel opens heaven’s gate for his brother. Thus, Troy’s fences are destroyed (metaphorically, of course), he becomes less alienated from his family after his death. Eventually, the family members try to be respectful to their fathers after their death.

The authors would appreciate each other’s works

In my opinion, the authors would appreciate each other’s works since the plays reveal burning issues and evoke many thoughts. Both plays deal with certain disappointment in life which led to worsening of family relationships. Of course, if the plays were identical the authors would not like them. However, Fences and Death of Salesman depict similar problems in families pertaining to quite different worlds. The Lomans have some financial problems but still have more opportunities than the Maxsons who have to face racial intolerance and suppression. Thus, both writers reveal different facets of the same social and personal issues. This could be the main reason why Miller and Wilson would like the works of each other.

Conclusion

On balance, the plays Fences and Death of a Salesman contain several similar themes. Both plays’ main theme is the family relationship in the times of changes. Apart from this the plays dwell upon such issues as success, insanity and personal alienation. Attention to such important themes makes the plays best examples of the perfect literary works which can inspire people to act or react.

The works like the two plays can help many people think of their own problems from the different angle. Moreover, I am sure that many people will find the necessary solutions for their real life issues.

Works Cited

Jacobus, Lee A. Bedford Introduction to Drama. Boston: Bedford / St. Martins, 2008.

Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin Books Ltd, 1998.

Wilson, August. Fences. New York: Penguin Books USA Inc., 2010.

In Act One of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, the main character Willy Loman tells his wife Linda, “I’m well-liked in Hartford. You know, the trouble is Linda, people don’t seem to take to me” (Miller TBD). The self-contradiction implicit in this line demonstrates Miller’s masterful use of indirect characterization to divulge Willy Loman’s delusion, and ensuing nervous breakdown and suicide, over the course of the play. It is the incremental revelation of delusion through self-contradiction that creates the magnetism of this character, Willy Loman, a tragic protagonist that continues to enthrall, despite the passage of over half a century.

Miller does not make the reader immediately aware of Willy Loman’s mental and emotional frailty. In the initial scenes, Willy comes across as absent-minded and slightly bumbling, but relatively stable. Small clues peppered throughout Act One however tell us Willy no longer listens to himself, nor to anyone else, and has completely severed his connection with reality. These clues begin innocently, as in Willy’s self-contradiction on page TBD:

WILLY: Biff is a lazy bum!…

LINDA: I don’t know. I think he’s still lost, Willy. I think he’s very lost.

WILLY: Biff Loman is lost. In the greatest country in the world a young man with such–personal attractiveness, gets lost. And such a hard worker. There’s one thing about Biff–he’s not lazy. (Miller TBD)

Again, on page TBD, Willy’s self-contradiction appears in the line “Chevrolet, Linda is the greatest car ever built,” followed by “That goddam Chevrolet, they ought to prohibit the manufacture of that car!” a few pages later (Miller TBD).

Innocuous self-contradictions such as these escalate to full-fledged disassociation as the play progresses. Willy’s delusion becomes harder to suppress. Cocooned at home with his devoted wife Linda, who supports his delusion, Willy feels very little interference from the outside world. But having both grown sons Biff and Happy at home places pressure on his fictionalized account of their youth, as Biff’s line – “we never told the truth for ten minutes in this house” – epitomizes (Miller TBD).

Nevertheless, Willy dismisses his wife’s adoration and seeks instead the respect of his sons – an impossible goal. When Biff and Happy abandon Willy in the restaurant, his self-contradiction can no longer shield him from reality – his sons think he is a joke, and he’s dead broke. We receive a chilling glimpse into the totality of Willy’s disassociation from reality on page TBD with the lines spoken to his dead brother Ben:

Ben, that funeral will be massive! They’ll come from Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire! All the old-timers with the strange license plates — that boy will be thunderstruck, Ben, because he never realized — I am known! Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey — I am known, Ben, and he’ll see it with his eyes once and for all (Miller TBD).

Death of a Salesman maintains its relevance and appeal, as the popularity of recent productions attests [1]. This is due, in part, to Miller’s conscious use of indirect characterization for full tragic effect. To see a man lie to himself for a lifetime, only to come finally to the truth – poor, old, and rejected by his own offspring – speaks to primal human fear.

References

Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. Print.

Death of a Salesman was introduced to readers in the middle of the 20th century. This play was written by Arthur Miller and considered to be one of the best works of that time. While reading it, people have an opportunity to observe the realities of both modernism and postmodernism.

Modernism can be seen in several elements of the play. First of all, it rejects totality, which is characterized by increased guidance. The concept of the American dream seems to be nonsense in this way since modernism treats the existence of societal structures (national identity, for instance) as something useless and fruitfulness. A similar situation can be observed in the play Death of a Salesman. One of its characters, Willy Loman, speaks about the American Dream, stating that this concept has no sense if it is considered only from a financial point of view, but it is actually so. Hence, Willy fails in his life because he does not manage to become rich. In addition to that, it is possible to observe the reality of modernism in Miller’s work when focusing on the influence of technology and progress on a workplace. Willy is a salesman who uses those selling approaches that are out of fashion. He does not understand the necessity to emphasize individualism and sticks to generalized concepts. The man fails to keep up with the time, which makes him uninteresting for buyers (Miller 6). As a result, he does not have an opportunity to reach success in his business. In this way, it can be seen that Willy lives in the modernist world, but he does not yet realize its features and is not willing to follow them.

According to postmodernism, metanarratives, such as the American Dream, are also treated as a great lie. The protagonist lives in a world of false dreams, which prevents him from reaching them and becoming satisfied. The same is true for the relationships between the characters. Willy has good contact with his two sons from the very beginning, but the situation worsens with the course of time. Therefore, the protagonist faces one more failure because of his inability to understand the realities of the postmodern society. The love of his family also turns out to be a concept that is measured by money. As Willy becomes unable to support his relatives, he decides to commit suicide in order to allow them to obtain insurance costs.

The postmodernist era is characterized by the consumer and technological society. The sense of isolation is spread, and human power is substituted by the advanced equipment, which leads to depression (Miller 12). Willy is frustrated since he becomes a victim of technology. He is not perceived as an individual and serves as an element that connects production and consumption. The major issue is that the man does not have a chance to return to his previous life. He is an average citizen of a postmodern society who is not ready to live in the new materialized world and fails to become successful in it. Because of social pressures, the protagonist faces the necessity to alter his way of thinking. The stream of conscious is observed in the play, which allows understanding Willy’s experiences. It is typical for postmodern works, so it is not surprising that Miller makes use of it.

Thus, it can be concluded that Miller’s play can introduce modernism and postmodernism to its readers. The author uses the protagonist, Willey, to show the word he created, which was a new type of narrative for that time. Miller emphasizes that it was significant for people to reject their traditions and initial perceptions of different concepts to find a place in the new word. Those who fail to implement such alterations, including Miller, do not become prosperous and cannot reach the success of the materialistic society.

Work Cited

Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. Penguin Plays, 1998.

Introduction

One of the reasons why Miller’s play Death of a Salesman is being often referred to as representing a particularly high dramaturgic value is that, it is not only that this play contains a number of truly innovative themes and motifs, but that play’s staging itself accounted for nothing less than triggering a ‘revolution’ in the field of dramaturgy. In this paper, I will aim to explore the validity of an earlier articulated thesis at length.

The significance of themes and motifs

The significance of themes and motifs in Miller’s play cannot be effectively discussed outside of what happened to be the particulars of playwright’s biography. Therefore, before we proceed with exploring how historical context influenced play’s thematic sounding and what accounted for the qualitative specifics of its first production in 1949; we will need to make a brief inquiry into Miller’s biographical background.

Arthur Miller was born on October 17, 1915, in New York. In its turn, this partially explains why most of his dramaturgic works feature essentially ‘economic’ motifs – Miller’s formative years were strongly influenced by the Great Depression (Jacobson 248). After having graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, Miller worked as a shipping clerk in an automotive parts warehouse, while being often required to take an active share in promoting these parts to the potential customers.

After his graduation from the University of Michigan, Miller returned back to New York, where he started to participate in a number of theatrical projects, such as Federal Theater Project – hence, gaining an insight into the essentials of a theatrical production. Around the same time, Miller also began exploring his potential in playwriting.

Miller’s first critically acclaimed play was 1947 All My Sons. It was namely this particular play, which marked the beginning of Miller’s preoccupation with exposing the inconsistencies of a so-called ‘American dream’, which author never ceased referring to in terms of people’s highly irrational and emotionally damaging pursuit of riches. All My Sons instantaneously established Miller as one of America’s most prominent playwrights of all times.

Nevertheless, it was after the staging of Miller’s tragedy Death of a Salesmen in 1949, that he gained himself the status of a ‘cult figure’ in American dramaturgy. As it will be illustrated later in the paper, there were a number of objective preconditions for this to be the case.

Throughout the course of his life’s latter phases, Miller never ceased being strongly affiliated with dramaturgy. Even though his consequential plays, such as 1961The Misfits, 1969 In Russia, 1994 Broken Glass and 2002 Resurrection Blues, were not quite as successful with the audiences as Death of a Salesmen, they nevertheless did strengthen Miller’s fame as one of the greatest playwrights of all times. Arthur Miller died in 2005.

The production of the play

The first production of Death of as Salesman took place on February 10, 1949, at the Morosco Theatre in New York. The production was directed by Elia Kazan (who previously directed the production of A Streetcar Named Desire), with Lee Coob playing the character of Willy Loman, Mildred Dunnock playing the character of Linda, Artheur Kennedy playing the character of Biff, and Cameron Mitchell playing the character of Happy.

This production turned out to be a huge success, which in turn contributed rather substantially towards play’s popularization throughout the world. According to Most: “The popularity of Death of a Salesman is unmatched in the history of American realism. Within a year of the Broadway opening, productions had been mounted in Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden… Play has seen three successful Broadway revivals since its opening in 1949” (548).

It appears that there were two major prerequisites, which caused the first production of Miller’s Death of as Salesman to end up being instantaneously referred to as nothing short of a revolutionary theatrical event – the fact that Miller’s play parted with the conventions of dramaturgical tragedy and the fact that the staging of Death of as Salesman combined the elements of expressionism and realism (something that has never been done before).

Whereas, prior to Miller play’s first production in 1949, it was assumed that the act of a tragic hero had to radiate the spirit of nobleness, after 1949, this effectively ceased to be the case.

After all, even though that the process of main character Willy Loman’s mental deterioration, resulting in his ultimate demise, could indeed be discussed in terms of a high tragedy, Loman did not fall victim to the external circumstances (as it is being usually the case in classic tragedies) – main character’s death came as a result of him being intellectually inflexible.

Hence, one of the essential aspects of Miller’s dramaturgic genius – the fact that he proved that, just as it is being the case with existential decline of socially prominent individuals, the existential decline of many ordinary people is being just as capable of emanating the acute spirit of a high tragedy. As it was noted by Otten: “One way or the other Death of a Salesman provokes critical wars about the viability of tragedy in the modern age and particularly in American culture” (281).

Therefore, there is nothing odd about the fact that every consequential staging of Death of a Salesman at Morosco Theater used to attract ever-larger crowds of spectators. Apparently, the members of viewing audiences sensed that the themes and motifs, explored throughout Miller play’s entirety, were strongly related to the very essence of their own psychological anxieties.

This, however, only partially explains the nature of Miller play’s instantaneous popularity with the viewers. What also contributed to this popularity is the fact that, as it was mentioned earlier, the first production of Death of a Salesman featured the elements of expressionism and realism, inseparably fused into one dramaturgic compound. In order to achieve this, both: Miller and Kazan had to find the way for Willy’s flashbacks and daydreams to be integrally incorporated into unraveling of the plot, without undermining plot’s plausibility.

In other words, they were striving to combine what previously used to be thought of as utterly incompatible: the methodology of Naturalist production, which aims: “To completely remove the barrier separating theatre from life, to create an illusion so powerful that it would render the theatrical medium absolutely transparent” (Williams 289), and the methodology of Expressionist production, concerned with the process of actors creating a semantic content of their own, without having to make sure that the viewers perceive this content as being realistically plausible.

In its turn, this posed the playwright and the director with the challenge of ensuring a realist sounding of play’s clearly expressionist elements, such as the scenes in which Willy cuts short his conversations with Linda, Biff and Happy, in order to reflect upon the remarks of his long-deceased brother Ben, who appears out of nowhere.

Initially, Miller proposed to go about designing these onstage-shifts, from the actual reality of Willy’s world to the ‘reality’ of his daydreaming, by the mean of taking a practical advantage of ‘curtain drops’, during the course of which, the onstage sets and actors’ clothes would be rapidly changed.

This was the actual reason why, even though play’s original script made provisions for the utilization of some sort of expressionist setting, as plans for play’s production entered the organizational phase, Miller decided that it would make so much more sense having the onstage sets designed according to the principle of minimalism.

According to Murphy: “He (Miller) has mentioned his first notion of the set_, in keeping with his idea for the play as The Inside of His Heady… As the play took shape, however, he dropped this notion in favor of a minimal set, which he has variously described as ‘without any setting at all’” (10). Kazan, however, convinced Miller to choose in favor of a traditional set – the first production of Death of a Salesman featured the setting of a regular middle-class house.

The onstage switches from the actual reality to the imaginary reality have been achieved by the deployment of a rather innovative theatrical technique: “Whenever the action is in the present the actors observe the imaginary wall lines, entering the house only through its door at the left. But in the scenes of the past these boundaries are broken, and characters enter or leave a room by stepping ‘through’ a wall onto the forestage’’ (Miller 12).

To foster the realness of abrupt transitional switches from one reality to another even further, Kazan supplemented play’s staging with contextually appropriate changes in stage’s illumination and with contextually appropriate music, which emphasize the spatial aspects of plot’s unraveling (Kimbrough 157). Thus, even though that play’s action took place within the spatial framework of two alternative realities, viewers did not experience much of an emotional discomfort, while exposed to actors’ performance.

Therefore, it will only be logical to conclude this part of the paper by reinstating once again that the overwhelming success of Death of a Salesman first production was dialectically predetermined. It is not only that this production helped audience’s members to come to terms with their of subconscious anxieties, related to the much advertised notion of an ‘American dream’, but it also provided other playwrights and production directors with the insight into the whole new realm of theatrical opportunities.

Further popularity of the play

During the course of forties and fifties, it was assumed that the values of a so-called ‘American dream’ are being equally appealing to just about all Americans. During this time, Americans never ceased being subjected to the governmentally sponsored propaganda of such a ‘dream’.

Therefore, it does not come as a particular surprise that, through forties and fifties, most American citizens did in fact believe that their foremost existential agenda was solely concerned with the blind pursuit of riches, as something that had a value of ‘thing in itself’ (Mcconachie 4).

Nevertheless, given the fact that the extent of one’s successfulness in trying to become rich at any cost, relates to the extent of his or her endowment with nobleness in counter-geometrical progression, there is nothing odd about the fact that, while chasing a vaguely defined ‘American dream’, many Americans could not help sustaining an acute emotional trauma.

And, as psychologists are being well aware of, this type of an emotional trauma causes people to begin suffering from a split-personality disorder – something that Miller was able to illustrate rather persuasively (Olson 330).

As it was pointed out by Weales: “The distance between the actual Willy and the image Willy is so great… that he can no longer lie to himself with conviction; what the play gives us is the final disintegration of a man who has never even approached his idea of what by rights he ought to have been” (171).

Thus, the character of Willy Loman is best discussed as essentially an extrapolation of ideologically brainwashed people’s failure to live up to the standards, forcibly imposed upon them by a consumerist society: “Willy does not understand the corruptness of the (American) dream… he dies in defense of the imperative that consumes him” (Otten 36).

This is another reason why even today, the theatrical productions of Death of a Salesman never cease attracting huge crowds. Apparently, people’s exposure to the themes and motifs, contained in this particular play, helps them to realize a simple fact that money is not the most important thing in life – hence, helping them to adequately address life’s challenges.

It is needless to mention, of course, that during the initial phases of the Cold War, Miller’s theatrical exposure of what accounts for the unsightly effects of people’s compulsive strive to attain material riches, balanced on the edge of being declared ‘anti-American’ (Reeves 48).

After all, during the course of fifties and early sixties, many American citizens ended up in jail, simply because they were not particularly enthusiastic about taking an active part in McCarthyist ‘witch-hunt’, the activists of which were perfectly serious about trying reveal those who did not share the foremost value of Capitalism (greed) as ‘masked Communists’ (Reno 1069).

Therefore, it is fully explainable why, after having watched the productions of this Miller’s play, many Americans were able to substantially expand their intellectual horizons.

The reason for this is simple – in Death of a Salesman, Miller succeeded in divulging the sheer inconsistency of consumerist, patriarchal and sexist worldviews, which American policy-makers of the time were trying to forcibly impose upon just about everyone in this country (Gibson 98).

He was able to show that, contrary to the ideological conventions, peddled by the self-appointed representatives of America’s ‘moral majority’, one’s chances to ‘strike it rich’ have more to do with the concept of blind luck than with the concept of entrepreneurial industriousness – hence, the essentially existentialist (progressive) sounding of Death of a Salesman (Martin 104).

Conclusion

I believe that the earlier provided line of argumentation, in defense of a suggestion that the keys to Miller play’s popularity with the audiences, have traditionally been its ‘realistic-expressionism’ and the unconventional sounding of its themes and motifs, is being fully consistent with paper’s initial thesis.

It is not only that Miller succeeded in enlightening viewers as to the fact that people’s continuous exposure to a value-based behavioral ethics is being quite capable of driving them towards insanity, but he also succeeded in establishing a number of truly innovative principles of a theatrical production. Therefore, there is nothing surprising about the fact that even today; a substantial number of theatrical critics continue regarding Miller’s Death of a Salesmen as one of the finest products of American dramaturgy.

Bibliography

Gibson, James. “Intolerance and Political Repression in the United States: A Half Century after McCarthyism.” American Journal of Political Science, 52.1 (2008): pp. 96-108. Print.

Jacobson, Irving. “Family Dreams in Death of a Salesman.” American Literature 47.5 (1975): pp. 247-258. Print.

Kimbrough, Andrew. “Death of a Salesman.” Theatre Journal 55.1 (2003): pp. 156-158. Print.

Martin, Robert. “The Nature of Tragedy in Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’.” South Atlantic Review 61.4 (1996): pp. 97-106.

Mcconachie, Burce. American Theater in the Culture of the Cold War: Producing and Contesting Containment, 1947-1962. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2003. Print.

Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin, 1998.

Most, Andrea. “Opening the Windshield: Death of a Salesman and Theatrical Liberalism.” Modern Drama 50.4 (2007): pp. 545-564. Print.

Murphy, Brenda. Miller, Death of a Salesman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Print.

Olson, Eric. “Was Jekyll Hyde?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66.2 (2003): pp. 328-348. Print.

Otten, Terry. “Death of a Salesman at Fifty – Still ‘Coming Home to Roost’.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 41.3 (1999): pp. 280-310. Print.

Otten, Terry. Temptation of Innocence in the Dramas of Arthur Miller. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2002. Print.

Reeves, Thomas. “McCarthyism: Interpretations since Hofstadter.” Wisconsin Magazine of History 60.1 (1976): pp. 42-54. Print.

Reno, Raymond. “Arthur Miller and the Death of God.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 11.2 (1969): pp. 1069-1087. Print.

Weales, Gerald. “Arthur Miller: Man and His Image.” The Tulane Drama Review 7.1 (1962): pp. 165-180. Print.

Williams, Kirk. “Anti-Theatricality and the Limits of Naturalism.’’ Modern Drama 14.3 (2001): pp. 284–99. Print.

Arthur Miller is one of the most successful playwrights of the postwar era in the United States. His play Death of a Salesman, first performed in 1949, won the Pulitzer Prize in the same year. It appears that almost every discussion of American drama of the twentieth century includes this play by Miller. It is still performed on the stage worldwide, and people meet it with acclaim, proving that its conflicts are familiar not only to the Americans. The purpose of this paper is to describe the type of sales the main character was occupied with, to analyze social and economic peculiarities of the described period of time and to find out why the main character decided to make a career in sales.

The main character of the play is Willy Loman, a sixty-three-year-old man who works as a travelling salesman. Although the author never tells us what exactly Willy sells, it becomes clear that he is very exhausted and disappointed in his current job which cannot lead him to success. The neighborhood where Lomans live also proves that Willy’s hopes and expectations in life failed. Despite his lack of success in sales, Willy believes that fame and fortune is more likely to be reached by someone who is good-looking, claiming that being smart is not enough (Miller 21). He also tends to cheat in his sales asking his lover, a secretary of his client, to help him. This is one of his main traits, and it explains clearly why he was not successful enough in his job. He lies to his wife about the money he made in sales, though it is obvious that the truth will be out as soon as his wife counts his commission. In fact, his commission is barely enough to cover family’s expenses, and he is jealous of more successful salesmen.

The story takes place after the Great Depression and the Second World War which greatly influenced the American culture and the business climate in the United States. The Depression was the reason for many people being unemployed and barely having enough to eat that caused some of them, failing to follow the American Dream, commit suicide. It was the time when many people in the United States “felt both that the country had failed them, and that they had failed personally through errors of judgment or insufficient hard work” (Hays 42). Still, the years after the Second World War were in general ones of stability and prosperity for the white middle class. When Miller’s play Death of a Salesman was written and first performed, people still remembered sacrifices of the hard times, but it made them buy new things following the notion of American dream which is one of the major attributes of American culture. It benefited business climate and caused the popularity of such jobs as a travelling salesman that could give some prosperity to an individual and it was the reason Willy had chosen it. His decision to become a travelling salesman can be explained by the wish to be a good farther and family provider because his own father, who was also a salesman, abandoned him.

After describing the type of sales the main character was occupied with, analyzing social and economic peculiarities of the described period of time and finding out why the main character decided to make a career in sales, it becomes obvious that the main character represents the mistaken American Dream. He is the victim of his environment with the wrong set of values. Personal attractiveness is more preferable to him than hard work and honesty. It leads him to the tragic death, but even his decision to commit suicide to provide his family with money might be a failure because the insurance company might refuse to pay money to the family of a self-murderer.

Works Cited

Hays, Peter L. Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015.

Miller, Arthur. The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays. Penguin, 2015.

“Death of a Salesman” is a play written in 1949 by an American playwright, Arthur Miller. The play is based on both Miller’s personal experiences and the theatrical traditions in which he was instructed in. “Death of a salesman” revolves around the Loman family with Willy Loman, the father, who also works as a salesman as the main character.

Willy Loman has indulged himself in a myth of being well-liked and being attractive to succeed in the business world. He believes that personal talent is not as important and actually uses this myth against his neighbors and friends, Charley and Bernard, who he does not consider to be physically attractive.

Due to this belief implanted in them, the Lomans lead an unpleasant and unfulfilled life while their neighbors enjoyed success. Willy is also in a delusional mental state and is caught in between the past and the present in which he keeps having hallucinations and reveries.

He lives in a flimsy fantasy world which is full of excuses and daydreams as he desperately attempts to make sense of himself, his hopes and the world that once held so much promise.

In the play, Miller uses different styles and devices to bring out Willy’s situation, and what it is all about and symbolism is one of these styles. Here is an analysis of symbolism in the play: Willy Loman’s character, including his salesman career, symbolizes an ordinary man in American society.

He acts as a representation of the ordinary man leading a fruitless life in a flourishing nation. Somehow, Willy reflects the dilemma of the common man fighting for his survival and trying to pay his bills yet live like everyone else. This is mainly observed when he is caught in a dilemma on how to pay his last mortgage payment.

Besides, Charley, his neighbor constantly gives him money to take home to his wife as if it was his salary as his salesman job is fluttering around him and he does not earn enough from it.

In one of their conversations, he even tells Charley that a gentleman is valuable more when he is departed than when he is living. It’s ironical that in the end, he commits suicide so that his family can get his life insurance money to pay for the mortgage.

Contrary, Charley’s character symbolizes the voice of reason in Willy’s deluded world. Charley who is Willy’s neighbor and only friend is a successful man with his own sales business. He tries to offer Willy a job several times and even after Willy is fired, but Willy turns down the offers as he regards it as an insult to his image. However, Charley is only trying to help him out, but Willey couldn’t appreciate that.

In one of the scenes, Charley is present during one of Willy’s daydream and as he tries to talk to him convincingly, but instead Willy yells back at him. This confuses Charley, and he decides to leave him alone as he does not understand what is going on. Apart from his family, only Charley and Bernard, his son, attend Willy’s funeral.

In the play, leaves are often seen to appear around the present setting during Willy’s reveries. These leaves are a representation of the leaves from the two elm trees which were situated next to the house in the early days. This was before Willy cut them down to build a hammock for him to relax with his family.

The trees were also cut down to pave the way for the development of the apartment blocks around their neighborhood. When Willy first moved into the neighborhood, the air was clean and fresh and the atmosphere, serene and quiet. However, in the present day, development and construction of new apartments have taken over, and the atmosphere is no longer the same, it been over-exploited and polluted.

In parts of the flashbacks, Biff and Happy are dressed in high school football sweaters. This is a symbol of the hope they had and the success that seemed so close during that time. Biff was the star of his high school football team and was even invited to attend three universities during his senior year.

Bernard even begs Biff if he could carry his helmet as he goes for the Ebbets Field game in his senior year. (Miller 165) notes that “In the scene at Frank Chop’s house, Happy goes on to brag to the woman he’s flirting with that Biff is a quarterback with the New York Giants, which is a lie.”

The jungle, which is constantly mentioned in connection to Ben, is symbolic of life. Willy even says “The woods are burning! I can’t drive a car!” (as cited in Miller, 22) when he has a foreboding sense of his life crashing around him. Ben is Willy’s dead brother who had gone to Africa, discovered a diamond mine in the jungle and became very successful.

Ben says in the play “When I was seventeen, I walked into the jungle. And by twenty-one, I walked out. And by God, I was rich!” (as cited in Miller, 49). He asked Willy to go with him at the time but he refused, and that became the cause for deep regret for the rest of his life.

In the same context, there is an appearance of diamonds which symbolize success. Willy idolizes Ben as he seems to be living the American dream while he is stuck in a rut he can’t pull himself out of. As the play comes to an end, Uncle Ben refers to the jungle by saying that “You must go into the jungle and fetch a diamond out” (Miller 65). Willy keeps wishing that he had followed Ben to Alaska and then Africa, then he might have been just as rich.

Stockings are another form of symbolism depicted in the play. They symbolize Willy’s infidelity and his uncaring attitude towards his wife.

Willy gives the stockings that his wife mends, to his mistress as gifts. During one of his flashbacks, Willy hears “The Woman’s” laughter and becomes agitated. He immediately gets angry and starts shouting at his wife, Linda, and Bernard. He even orders Linda to throw out the stockings and reprimands her for mending them.

His infidelity also costs him his relationship with his son when Biff accidentally found Willy with his mistress. Biff is dejected, and he loses all respect for his father. Consequently, the guilt Willy feels is the cause of his tense relations with Biff and his disconcerted behavior around his wife.

The recorder is another form of symbolism that is used in the play. When Willy goes to his boss, Howard Wagner, to try and get him to relocate him to the New York office, Wagner does not give him time to talk. (Miller 45) Says that “Instead, he interrupts him and makes him listen to his wife and kids on the wire recorder. This recorder and the voices in it symbolize the success that Willy has always dreamed of and wished he had.” In all his endeavors, this success seems to elude him even though he never gives up hope.

Willy goes on and tells Wagner that he would get a recorder as well, which is a symbol of his pride since there is no way he could afford to buy one. Eventually, his boss does not listen to him, turns down his plea and ends up firing him.

In the play, tennis rackets have also been used as a form of symbolism. They are a figure of Ironic metaphor of Bernard’s success. Bernard is seen going to take part in tennis with an associate of his, who owns a tennis court. This symbolism is seen as ironic because a glimpse from the past projected that the Loman brothers would be the ones to be successful in the sports department.

From the first act, Bernard would continuously be seen trying to intervene in Biffs academic life, which he did not seem bothered with as he was busy concentrating on his football vocation. In the end, due to neglecting his grades, Biff ends up losing football as well, whereas Bernard, who focused more on his books, becomes successful even in sports.

The flutes and flute music have been used to symbolize the far gone and good times when Willy was a stable person. They bring nostalgia and memories of the old times when he was younger and with great hope for immense success in the business world, comes the future. For instance, in one of the scenes where Willy goes into a reverie, he is talking with his brother Ben about his father, who used to manufacture and sell flutes.

Ben brags about how their father was a great man and inventor, and it is obvious from this talk that Willy’s father was just as successful as his brother is. Willy is therefore left wondering why the same fate did not befall him as he believes that his family is of a thriving heritage.

In the last Act, as the play is about to come to an end, Willy is seen planting seedlings in the garden. (Miller 47) notes that “The seeds symbolize a natural process of growth that prevails in nature and the garden is symbolic of Willy wanting to leave something as a commemoration of him.” He hopes to leave something that people will look at and be reminded of him as a great man.

He plants the seeds in the hope that the garden will one day grow into something substantial enough in contrast to his life which he considers a failure.

As he plants the seeds, he has a conversation with Ben about a $20,000 deal that would give Biff a good startup boost in his life and his business. In the end, this deal he is talking about ends up being his life insurance.

In conclusion, Miller uses symbolism in the play to bring out the hopelessness in the Loman’s family. Through this, the audience can empathize with them and their situation. It becomes evident how the ‘American dream’ myth can adversely affect a person as they try to pursue it.

Work Cited

Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. Oxford, UK: Penguin Classic, 1998. Print.