Death Of Salesman
Arthur Miller is one of the most renowned and important American playwrights
to
ever live. His works include, among others, The Crucible and A View from
the
Bridge. The plays he has written have been criticized for many
things, but have
been praised for much more, including his magical
development of the characters
and how his plays provide "good theater". In
his plays, Miller rarely says
anything about his home life, but there are at
least some autobiographical"hints" in his plays. Arthur Miller is most noted for
his continuing efforts
to devise suitable new ways to express new and
different themes. His play Death
of a Salesman, a modern tragedy, follows
along these lines. The themes in this
play are described and unfurled mostly
through Willy Loman’s, the main
character in the play, thoughts and
experiences. The story takes place mainly in
Brooklyn, New York, and it
also has some "flashback" scenes occurring in a
hotel room in Boston. Willy
lives with his wife Linda and their two sons, Biff
and Happy in a small
house, crowded and boxed in by large apartment buildings.
The three most
important parts of Death of a Salesman are the characters and how
they
develop throughout the play; the conflicts, with the most important
ones
revolving around Willy; and the masterful use of symbolism and other
literary
techniques which lead into the themes that Miller is trying to
reveal. Arthur
Miller was born in Manhattan on October 17, 1915 to
Isidore and Augusta Barnett
Miller. His father was a ladies coat
manufacturer. Arthur Miller went to grammar
school in Harlem but then moved
to Brooklyn because of his father’s losses in
the depression. In Brooklyn he
went to James Madison and Abraham Lincoln High
Schools and was an average
student there, but did not get accepted to college.
After high school, he
worked for 2 ½ years at an auto supply warehouse where he
saved $13 of his
$15 a week paycheck. He began to read such classics as
Dostoevski and his
growing knowledge led him to the University of Michigan.
While at the
University of Michigan, Miller worked many jobs such as a mouse
tender at the
University laboratory and as a night editor at the newspaper
Michigan
Daily. He began to write plays at college and won 2 of the $500
Hopwood
Playwriting Awards. One of the two awarded plays No Villain
(1936) won the
Theater’s Guild Award for 1938 and the prize of $1250
encouraged him to become
engaged with Mary Grace Slattery, whom he married in
1940. Miller briefly worked
with the Federal Theater Project and in 1944 he
traveled to Army Camps across
Europe to gather material for a play he was
doing. His first Broadway play, The
Man Who Had All the Luck, opened in
1944. Since then he has written 13 award
winning plays and more than 23
different noted books. He had two children with
Mary Grace Slattery, Jane
and Robert, but divorced her and in 1956 married
Marilyn Monroe. He then
divorced her later that decade, and, in 1962, married
Ingeborg Morath and
had one child with her, named Rebecca. He now lives on 400
acres of land in
Connecticut and spends his time gardening, mowing, planting
evergreens, and
working as a carpenter. He still writes each day for four to six
hours. His
father always told him to read. He once said, "Until the age of
seventeen, I
can safely say that I never read a book weightier than ‘Tom Swift
and the
Rover Boys’, but my father brought me into literature
with
Dickens"(Nelson, Pg. 59). His father’s good-natured joking was used
to
invent the character of Joe Keller’s genial side. After the Fall (1947) is
a
play written by Miller where he sneaks in some small autobiographical
notes. The
character traits exhibited by the main woman in the play indicate
his mother’s
early encouragement to his literary promise. The Depression
still troubles him
today, especially for the hard times that he went through
as a child. In an
interview, he once said, It seems easy to tell how it was
to live in those
years, but I have made several attempts to tell it and when
I do try I know I
cannot quite touch that mysterious underwater, vile thing.
(Welland, Pg. 38) His
parents could not afford college for him, so the
Depression affected his life in
many ways. Miller hated the McCarthy
Witch-hunt trials of the early 1950’s,
and once was called before that
tribunal but was acquitted of all charges. His
play, The Crucible, is a very
powerful allegory to the McCarthy trials. He has
used the American industry
many times in his works and criticizes such social
aspects of American
society as it’s bad moral values and people who put too
much importance on
material wealth. Miller especially admired Henrik Ibsen, the
great Norwegian
master of the "well-made", or tightly constructed, ordered
play. Miller was
familiar with the works of Eugene O’Neill, Clifford Odets,
and Thornton
Wilder as well as that of such European Experimentalists as
Bertholdt
Brecht. All My Sons, Miller’s first drama to receive critical
acclaim seemed
to largely follow Ibsen’s style and form, the theme and even
plot are based
on some of Ibsen’s greatest works. Miller’s plays received a
broad audience
and made the dialogue as plain as possible for the "common
man" to
understand. One critic, Euphemia Wyatt, once said, "I think the
closest
parallel to Death of a Salesman is Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, where every
action
in the present works toward revelation of the past" (Welland, Pg.
38).
Miller believed that an ordinary person is able to serve well as a
tragic hero
if he gives up everything in the pursuit of something he wants
intensely.
Miller’s tragic heroes are usually confused. For example,
Willy is confused
about success and happiness. His "solution" to these
problems of committing
suicide is a highly questionable one, at the least.
But, Willy is planning on
committing suicide for the betterment of his
family, which is an admirable
objective. He is willing to sacrifice
everything he has, specifically his life,
for his convictions, which makes
him, with using Miller’s definition, the
epitome of a perfect tragic hero.
Miller used very creative and original formats
in almost all of his works.
For example, he has Willy holding two conversations
at the same time, which
shows the problems going on inside of his head. When
Willy is reminded of
the Boston hotel room incident, he relives the event and
feels all the pain
like it had just happened. "His language is sometimes
considered banal and
lacking emotional power" (Moss, 125). Some critics
believe that Miller has
been too negative towards American society by showing
mostly only the worst
of what people can do. Also, he has been criticized by
saying that he only
shows the inhumane, mechanical workings of a business, never
the loyalty that
a company shows to its hardest workers. Some critics say his"common man" heroes
are "little" and in the worst case, just common
people. It has also been said
that his heroes are not genuinely human enough to
qualify as tragic figures
at all. He has also been criticized for using
untraditional techniques like
the Act One "Overture" in The Crucible and the
"Requiem" in Death of a
Salesman. Miller always tries to find new forms of
style to explore new and
different themes. Among these themes Miller takes into
effect the vital
contemporary issues of his time. Even those who disagree with
his literary,
political, or social views say that he does care about society and
tries to
tie in morals with his works. Many also say his plays provide "good
theater",
that his stories effect them emotionally, as well as mentally, and
that they
"stir the heart". A critic who, while working for The New York
Times,
once called Death of a Salesman "one of the finest dramas in the whole
range
of the American theater" (Corrigan, Pg. 94) and John Gassner saw it as"one of
the triumphs of American stage" (MacNicholas, Pg. 106). So, it can
be stated
that Miller’s works command attention. Death of a Salesman won
the
Pulitzer Prize, the Drama Critic’s Circle Award and many others when
it opened
in 1949. Symbolism, foreshadowing and conflict are 3 of the many
things that
Miller does best. All of these literary techniques have added
a tremendous
amount to Death of a Salesman and many others of his works. The
play begins when
Willy Loman, a salesman over 60, enters his house
unexpectedly, and tells his
worried wife, Linda, that, on his way to
appointments in New England, he kept
losing control of his car. She urges him
to ask Howard Wagner, Willy’s young
boss, for easier work in town so he will
not have to drive as far anymore,
"Willy, dear. Talk to them again.
There’s no reason why you can’t work in
New York" (Miller, Act 1, Scene
1). She also happily states that their two
grown sons, Biff and Happy, are
upstairs and sharing their old room. Willy is
concerned that Biff, 34 years
old, just quit another job out west. The entire
conflict between Biff and
Willy can be proven as starting at their meeting in
Boston. When Biff saw
his father, the man he idolized, with another woman,
Biff's faith in him
was shattered. To Biff, Willy was a hero, but after this
scene, he denounces
him as a fraud. When Biff gets home, he burns his University
of Virginia
shoes, which represented all of Biff's hopes and dreams. Biff no
longer has
feelings for Willy as Linda says, "Biff, dear, if you don't have
any feeling
for him, then you can't have any feeling for me"(Act 1, Scene
9). Linda
believes that, since she loves Willy, Biff cannot come and just see
her
because it would hurt Willy too much. Biff had believed in his father
as
being a great man, and he realizes that he was wrong. When Linda asks Biff
what
is wrong between him and his father, Biff recoils and says that it is
not his
fault. Biff does not want to tell Linda that the whole problem is
because of
Willy's betrayal of her, so he just keeps it to himself and
becomes the object
of her anger. Willy's problem with society is that modern
business is
impersonal. Even though "business is business"(Act 2, Scene 2),
Willy
should have been treated like a human being, not just a faceless
employee.
Howard, the owner of the business that Willy works for,
believes that if an
employee does not bring in profits, than that they are
expendable. He takes no
interest whatsoever in Willy's past selling records,
his association with his
father, or with pledges made years ago. Howard's
only concern is with the
efficient operation of his firm, and he represents
the cold, practical
impersonality of modern business. Charley tries to tell
Willy about this,
"Willy, when're you gonna realize that them things don't
mean anything? You
named him Howard, but you can't sell that. The only thing
you got in this world
is what you can sell. And the funny thing is that
you're a salesman, and you
don't know that"(Act 2, Scene 6). It was hard for
Willy to hang onto his
personal dignity and to live with himself as being
such a poor supplier of his
family's needs. He was trapped in a situation and
saw himself as a failure.
Society forgot Willy Loman existed and did not
help him when he needed it, and
his mental state made it impossible for him
to help himself. Willy believed that
he had to sell himself more than he had
to sell his products. His whole outlook
on life was wrong; he believed in
attributes that a good salesman would be
attractive, a good storyteller, well
liked and that when he died everyone from
far and wide would go to his
funeral. He got this idea from the story of Dave
Singleton, who
represented, to Willy, the epitome of success as a salesman.
Willy is
having mental problems, delusions of his long-dead brother Ben, whom he
has
many advice-searching conversations with. Ben represented success to Willy
by
Ben's dignity, status and wealth, not his attributes, "There was a
man
started with the clothes on his back and ended up with diamond
mines"(Act
1, Scene 4). The lies he keeps telling other people and the
dreams he has for
success actually begin to convince Willy that he was a
great salesman who was
known everywhere he went, "...'cause one thing, boys:
I have friends. I can
park my car in any street in New England and the cops
protect it like their
own"(Act 1, Scene 3). His deteriorating condition is
exposed many times,
but is most prominent when he is talking with both
Charlie and Ben at the same
time. Another example of the conflict inside of
Willy is his repeated references
to suicide. In Charley's office, Willy says,
"Funny, y'know? After all the
highways, and the trains, and the appointments,
and the years, you end up worth
more dead than alive"(Act 2, Scene 6). Willy
has already been contemplating
suicide, but this is the first, straight-out
mention of it. He takes suicide to
be an honorable thing, something that
would help his family greatly. His mental
condition makes him forget the fact
that suicide is a cowardly option for
getting out of his responsibilities.
The climax of the story is after Happy and
Biff return home from the
dinner with Willy and the whole family has a big
argument. Biff tells Willy
that he is sorry for hurting him and says, "If I
strike oil I’ll send you a
check. Meantime, forget I’m alive" (Act 2,
Scene 14). The father-son
conflict between them ends in this conversation. It is
the most emotional
part of the play and where Willy is relieved of some guilt.
The
denouement of the play is when Willy realizes that Biff loves him and
has
always loved him. Willy also believes that Biff could one day be a very
wealthy
man, if only he had some money to start with. Willy believes that the
twenty
thousand dollars that his life insurance policy is worth is enough.
With these
thoughts, and his mental problems affecting his thinking, he takes
his car and
commits suicide. The conclusion to Death of a Salesman takes
place at Willy’s
funeral where only his closest friends show up. This only
proves even more so
that Willy’s dreams were unrealistic. Biff offers Happy a
chance to break away
from their father’s far-fetched dreams, but Happy does
not take the offer.
Charley tries to comfort Linda, but she wants to be
alone with Willy. They all
leave and Linda tells Willy’s grave that the
mortgage on their house is
finally paid off and that she is hurting that he
won’t be there to share it
with him. The right term for the language in Death
of a Salesman is probably
describing it as "Modern American". The speech is
in the relaxed talking
language of modern America, "Gee, I’d love to go with
you sometime, dad"
(Act 1, Scene 3). The Lomans live in Brooklyn, but the
famous "Noo Yawka"
accent is barely heard. The characters use the common
speaking slang of
conversation. But, when Happy tries to impress the two
prostitutes at the
restaurant, he speaks in a more formal tone, "Why don’t
you bring-excuse me
miss, do you mind? I sell champagne, and I’d like you to
try my brand. Bring
her a champagne, Stanley" (Act 2, Scene 7). Most of the
action takes place
inside of Willy’s disturbed mind, as he relives crucial
scenes from the past
even while groping through present-day encounters. The
rest of the action takes
place in the kitchen and two bedrooms of Willy’s
modest Brooklyn home. It was
once in a suburban area but is now crowded in by
high apartment buildings,
"The way they boxed us in here. Bricks and
windows, windows and bricks" (Act
1, Scene 1). The kitchen has a table in
it with three chairs and a refrigerator.
No other fixtures are in the
kitchen. There is a living room in the house, which
is not fully furnished.
The boys’ bedroom has a bed with a brass bedstead and
a straight chair. On a
shelf over the bed is a silver athletic trophy. This
setting shows the
monetary restrictions on the Loman family. Howard’s office
is filled with
expensive things that make him feel "rich". This setting is
another way for
Miller to show the spite he feels towards people who put too
much emphasis on
material gain. One of the things in his office is a recording
machine which
Howard is obsessed with, "This is the most fascinating
relaxation I ever
found" (Act 2, Scene 2). Frank’s Chop House is a small,
family run business
with a small dining room. This setting is important because
it serves as the
location where Biff and Happy desert their father. The Boston
hotel room has
a bed, bathroom, and a small dresser. This setting serves as the
place where
Biff loses all his faith in his father, "You fake! You phony
little fake! You
fake!" (2, 13) Willy is a broken exhausted man in his 60’s,
soon to end his
life. He exaggerates and lies throughout his life to appear more
well off.
This stems from his feelings of failure. He worked steadily for
thirty-six
years at a job and has paid off a long-term mortgage. Even though he
has
supported his family, his own huge aspirations make him feel like he has
been
a failure. He also has bad moral values and continuously gives his
children
the wrong advice. Willy had, at one point in his life, been a very
confident
man, but is now weak of both mind and body, as Linda expresses
here, "But
you’re sixty years old. They can’t expect you to keep traveling
every
week." (1, 1). He wants Biff to love him but knows why Biff is so angry
with
him. He wants Biff to have a good life so decides to kill himself and
get the
insurance policy for Biff and Happy. Once he sees that Biff loves
him, he says
"Biff, he likes me" (2, 14), with a great look of joy on his
face. Biff
probably changes for the best as the play progresses. From a
lying, stealing
person in the beginning he changes in the end to where he is
reaching for a more
realistic idea of what his life is all about. Biff cared
for his father and was
deeply hurt to see that his father, the man he admired
most, was capable of
infidelity and lying to his wife. He tended to go to
extremes, though. His
passionate insistence, toward the end, that he is
"nothing," or that he and
his father are both "a dime a dozen," still sounds
a little like the
uncompromising disclaimer of the younger Biff who had
sobbingly burned his
sneakers. Now he sees his father’s dreams as "All, all
wrong." Yet
although he still talks a little like the sports hero, he is now
groping toward
a more realistic, more mature self-appraisal. He realizes that
neither Willy nor
Happy will ever even get that far. Happy, at first,
seems to understand life
better than either Biff or Willy, but then it is
shown that he is a very
accomplished liar. He has all but convinced himself
that he is slated to become
his store’s next merchandise manager. He cannot
quiet his own scruples, he
knows he is wrong when he takes bribes, and he has
some sense of guilt regarding
the seduction of other men’s fiancées, but does
not stop either practice. He
refuses to face unpleasant truths and is always
trying to impress people.
Whatever occasional admissions he makes, he
will not give up his dream world or
his shabby sexual affairs. He may talk of
changing his ways or getting married,
but he never sounds convincing. He is
finally seen rejecting Biff’s invitation
to start anew and prefers to justify
Willy’s illusive dream of coming out"number-one man" (Requiem). Unlike Biff,
Happy learns relatively little from
witnessing his father’s collapse. Linda
is primarily a wife rather than mother
in this play. If she is seen as
motherly, her ministrations are for Willy rather
than her sons. She is
forever soothing, flattering and tactfully suggesting
courses of action to
Willy. She is almost always patient and kind to him,
ignoring his minor
outbursts and considerately accepting with grace such obvious
deceptions as
the burrowing of money from Charley. Linda loves Willy and regards
his
suffering with compassion. But she humors him as a child rather than
meeting
him squarely as an adult. Yet the same mild-mannered, gentle Linda
can be
surprisingly blunt and harsh, though, when she talks with her sons.
She once
tells Happy to his face that he is a "philandering bum" (Act 1,
Scene 9).
After the restaurant disaster, she denounces both her sons
fiercely, flings away
their flowers and imperiously orders them out of the
house. Her one thought is
Willy. If their presence cheers him or helps
him in some way, she is glad to
have them around, but if what they do further
upsets her already disturbed
grown-up "child," then the sons must go and not
return. Bernard and Charley
contrast strikingly to the Lomans. Unlike Willy,
Charley lays no claim to
greatness, but is content. He goes along calmly and
quietly, undistinguished but
relatively content. His salvation, he once
declared, is that he never took any
interest in anything. That, of course, is
not literally true for he shows
unusually generous consideration to Willy and
wants to help him, "I am
offering you a job" (Act 2, Scene 6). He set himself
a modest goal and is
satisfied with modest achievements. Bernard is no match
athletically to the
Lomans, but gets good grades and is forging ahead
brilliantly. When he is last
seen, he is heading to Washington, DC to plead a
case in front of the Supreme
Court. Willy stands in wonder as Bernard
leaves and asks Charley why Bernard was
not bragging, Charley replies, "He
don’t have to- he’s gonna do it" (Act
2, Scene 5). Charley, on his part,
takes issue with Willy on such vital matters
as the importance of being well
liked. Yet it is he who in the end defends Willy
to Biff in almost melodic
terms. Willy sneered at Charley, insulted him, and
then borrowed sizable sums
from him, but Charley can say with vehemence,
"Nobody dast blame this
man" (Requiem). This father-son combination is an
exact opposite of Happy and
Willy, they understand right and wrong. The
symbolism in Death of a Salesman
is a major aspect of the story. One of the
symbols, specifically, Biff’s
sports shoes with the University of Virginia
printed on the sole, represent
his confident dream of a bright future through an
athletic scholarship. When
his dreams are shattered, he destroys the shoes in a
fit of angry bitterness.
The stockings mentioned throughout the play stand for
infidelity. They
represent Willy’s attempt to look impressive outside the home
by giving a box
of brand new ones to the woman he has an affair with. Linda
darns her own
stockings and that makes Willy feel like a bad provider for his
family along
with reminding him of his affair. Ben’s African cache of
diamonds, to Willy,
stands for his insurance policy. It is the great pile of
gold waiting for him
if he takes the opportunity. Ben is always seen looking at
his watch and this
symbolizes the time that Willy has to take the opportunity.
Finally, Ben
says, "Time, William, time!" (Act 2, Scene 14). With that, Ben
is telling
Willy to go through with his decision. The opportunity that they
keep
mentioning is Willy committing suicide. Another symbol, Dave Singleman,
the
famous salesman, stands for success. He was everything that Willy ever
dreamed
of being. Willy wanted his funeral to be like Singleman’s, with
hundreds of
people showing up and telling each other how great Willy was. One
literary
technique that Miller used well in Death of a Salesman is
foreshadowing. One
time, Willy says to Charley in his office, "Funny, y’know?
After all the
highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years,
you end up worth
more dead than alive" (Act 2, Scene 6). Charley realizes
what Willy is
implying and replies to him, "Willy, nobody’s worth anything
dead" (Act 2,
Scene 6). This shows how Willy has already made up his mind
to commit suicide.
Also Willy’s Chevrolet and the rubber tube serve as
the means for him to do
that. These two things also are hints to the outcome
of Willy’s life. Another
literary technique Miller used is called flashback.
The flashbacks are used as
revelations of things mentioned in the present-day
conversations. They serve as
a tool to help the reader understand the
background to the story. Willy is often
caught reliving the Boston hotel room
scene, and is also sometimes reminded of
the better times he had with his
family when he was younger. A final literary
technique Miller used well is
irony. The reader sees that the problem between
Willy and Biff is that
Biff has lost all faith in his father. Linda often
wonders why Biff hates his
father so much, and never knows what is really going
on. Biff: Because I know
he’s a fake and he doesn’t like anybody around who
knows! Linda: Why a fake?
In what way? What do you mean? Biff: Just don’t lay
it all at my feet. It’s
between me and him-that’s all I have to say. (Act 1,
Scene 9) Linda has
no idea of what is behind Biff’s dislike for his father,
and is sometimes
confused by it. One theme Miller expresses in Death of a
Salesman is the
corruption of modern business. Willy has worked for over 30
years for the
Wagner Company, and, even though, to Howard, "Business is
business" (Act 2,
Scene 2), Willy’s plea of slightly more consideration as a
human being is
wrenching and serves to underscore this theme. Even Charley says
that
personal association does not count for much, but contradicts this when
he
offers his broken friend a job. Another theme expressed is unethical
practices
and questionable morality. Willy seems undisturbed by the news that
Biff has not
been studying. He passes off some of Biff’s actions, such as his
cheating on
exams and stealing the football, as being "examples of
initiative". Willy
also tries to excuse his infidelity by saying "She’s
nothing to me, Biff. I
was lonely, I was terribly lonely." (Act 2, Scene 13).
Willy also says nothing
to Biff when he tells him that he stole a football
from his school locker-room
and also Oliver’s personalized pen. Willy, Biff,
and Happy all lie repeatedly
throughout the play, with only Biff feeling bad
about what he had done. We see
that this family falls apart and that this
theme should serve as a moral to
anyone who reads it. A final theme seen in
Death of a Salesman is family
solidarity. Early on in its history, it is seen
that the family is very happy
and that the two sons admire their hard-working
father deeply, "We were
lonesome for you pop" (Act 1, Scene 3). As the play
progresses, it is shown
that the whole family is unhappy, and that the bond
between them all is
unraveling as time passes. To resolve their problems, and
if they wanted to help
each other, they would have tried to discuss their
problems instead of keeping
them inside and arguing with each other. Willy’s
mental problems affected
this, because he could only talk to his dead brother
Ben about his family
problems. If the family had stuck together, they might
have pulled through
Willy’s terrible problems. If the play All My Sons
signaled the arrival of
Arthur Miller as a most promising playwright,
Death of a Salesman raised him to
the rank of major American dramatist. He
has been considered by many to be the
greatest of American playwrights. Some
of Miller’s contemporaries, who are
themselves considered as being some of
America’s leading writers, have
bestowed high praise upon him and his works.
Gilbert W. Gabriel described Death
of a Salesman as a "fine thing, finely
done" (Corrigan, 95). Also, one of
the most noticeable writers of all time,
Euphemia Wyatt, termed it as being the,
"great American tragedy"
(Corrigan, 96). After reading this play a few
times, the reader is left in an
awe-inspired state. It is mind-boggling to
actually see the pure essence of
Miller’s meaning. He develops themes and
morals so well in his works,
especially Death of a Salesman, that it is taken
for granted. The messages
are easily seen, but never fully understood until the
reader first
understands the story. Miller’s craftsmanship in this play is
indisputable of
being on the level of a masterpiece. Every aspect of the play is
done
magnificently well, and Miller blends these separate ideas
together
brilliantly. The symbolism and irony, especially, are two of the
greatest
aspects of the play. Miller’s unorthodox style adds even more to the
greatness
of the play. The flashbacks he uses are, at first, a confusing part
of the play,
but, when read over, only enhance the powerful messages told in
it. The reader
understands easier the problems that Willy faces because of
Miller’s style.
Without the flashbacks, the background to his mental
problems would not have
been easily seen. The reader also sees the importance
of the play in American
society. Death of a Salesman, among other of his
works, is used as a messenger
of things Miller would like to see done away
with in American society. He
criticizes material wealth, the lack of American
family values, and the lack of
mutual responsibility between people. Miller,
with just putting these themes
into a great story, can be considered a good
writer. Everything else that he has
done in his works makes him a true master
of plays.
Bibliography
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