Arthur Miller´s Death of A Salesman: A Commentary

In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Biff Loman silently questions his ability to fulfill his father’s wishes. His father, Willie Loman, holds high expectations for Biff’s future and constantly brags to others about how successful Biff will be. Out of respect for his father, Biff conforms to the path that Willie has planned for him. In the beginning, Willie lives vicariously through his son, Biff, who has no choice but to conform in order to preserve father-son respect. However, when the mutual respect that his father holds so dear dissolves, Biff’s concealed questions expand their influence from his thoughts to his actions as Biff becomes his own man.

Similarly to Ibsen’s character of Nora, Miller represents the same ideals society sets to the individual through his character Willy Loman. Taking into consideration that the play is set after World War II during the late 1940’s, the idea of the “American Dream” was extremely idolized. The country at this moment was in the middle or reconstruction and reunification reviving for the economic boom of the 1950’s(Shmoop Editorial 2). Willy is a middle aged man of fifty years old and a father of two boys. Unlike his younger years, being a salesman has been rough for Willy as new and younger salesmen have been recruiting. Willy longs to provide for his family, and even though he may seem misguided most of the time, all that he does in life revolves around his sons and wife (Shmoop Editorial 2). Willy idolizes the American Dream to an extreme, but the fact that it is out of his grasps frustrates him and complicates everything he does. Working to support his family is an understandable matter, but the truth is that his work does not completely revolve around his family, but his goal of achieving the “American Dream.”

The play, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, takes issue with those in America who place too much stress upon material gain, at the expense of other, more admirable human values. Miller uses flashbacks to provide exposition, to foreshadow the upcoming tragedy, and most importantly to reveal character traits. An analysis of the main character, Willy Loman, illustrates the underlying theme that the concern over material success breaks down the bonds between men that form the basis of a smooth-functioning society.

Lois Tyson writes, “The protagonist believes that being well liked is the necessary and sufficient currency for purchasing success in the business world.” Society’s interest is in the man who makes a name for himself and his family through hard work and dedication, not being well-liked. Willy believes his only possible identity lies in his occupation and allows selling to become his identity instead of his occupation. He praises Dave Singleman’s career to Howard: “And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want” (1876). Willy’s belief that his brother Ben makes a fortune by the same dream of success he pursues and fails to achieve further damages his identity. Ben reveals, “Why boys when I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich” (1860). Ben represents what Willy hopes to achieve in life. Tyson explains, “Willy’s failure to see the obvious unscrupulous underside of Ben’s financial success . . . is not the result of innocence or ignorance, but of selective perception.” Willy struggles to adjust to the changes of his job as a salesman. He is unable to establish a business relationship with the new generation of customers because he believes his old style and techniques of selling is successful. Willy fails to live up to his version of the American dream to achieve success and falls victim to society’s demands and expectations. He

Willy foolishly pursues the wrong dream and constantly lives in an unreal world blinded from reality. Despite his dream Willy constantly attempts to live in an artificial world and claims “If old Wagner was alive I’d be in charge of New York by now” (Miller 14). As a result, Willy often ignores his troubles and denies any financial trouble when he says “business is bad, it’s murderous. But not for me of course” (Miller 51). Another false segment of Willy’s dream includes the success of his two sons Happy and Biff. Biff was a high school football star who never cared about academics and now that he needs a job says “screw the business world” (Miller 61). Ironically, Willy suggests that Biff go west an “be a carpenter, or a cowboy, enjoy yourself!”, an idea that perhaps Willy should have pursued. Constantly advising his boys of the importance of being well liked, Willy fails to stress academics as an important part of life (Miller 40). Furthermore, Willy dies an unexpected death that reveals important causes of the failure to achieve the American dream. At the funeral Linda cries “I made the last payment on the house today... and there’ll be nobody home” to say that she misses Willy but in essence his death freed the Lomans from debt and the hopes and expectations Willy placed on his family (Miller 139). Very few people attend

The eyes of the reader are opened wide after reading Thomas Foster’s How to Read Literature like a Professor and applying it to a text. There are many elements in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman that go unrecognized by the normal reader. Using the tactics presented by Foster, one can realize that there is much meaning and symbolism in Death of a Salesman. The overall theme in Death of a Salesman is the American Dream and how many people of the time period were desperate to achieve it.

Over the past semester, we have studied many different works of literature. out of all the poems, stories, and plays, there are two works that stick out in my mind. These two works are Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Death of a Salesman is a play that takes place in the 1950s. The story is about a salesman named Willy Loman, and his family. At this point in his life, Willy is struggling to make ends meet. He is being underpaid to the point where he needs to ask his neighbor for money every week, he is struggling to keep his broken family together, he is trying to repair his broken relationship with his son Biff, and he is suffering from some form of dementia. Throughout the play, we get to see how Willy got to the position he is in, and how he tries to repair all of the broken aspects in his life. The Bell Jar is a novel that was published in Europe in 1963, and then in the United States in 1971. The book takes place in the Northeastern region of the Unities States in the 1950s. Esther Greenwood is a young woman who is spending her summer in New York for an internship. While Esther is narrating the novel, it becomes apparent that she is suffering from some form of mental illness, most likely to be schizophrenia. As her situation gets worse and worse, she makes multiple suicide attempts until she is put in an asylum. Readers are then left with the question, “Will Esther be okay in the end?” For this essay, I will be

Willy was aware of both his family and social responsibilities and never lost sight of what society expected of him-- even after living a tortured life. Willy Loman had two mentors in life, a fellow salesman and his brother Ben who motivated him to achieve his dreams in life. The success of his mentors led him to create a distorted value system that he later passed to his two sons (Hays &Kent, pp. 4). His two son’s Biff and Happy were constantly affected by Willy’s expectations in life. Although the play emphases on the psychological damage imposed on Biff, it also showed that Happy suffered due to his father’s beliefs and attitudes. Linda, Willy’s wife, although tries her best to be a perfect mother, goes to conflicting lengths to encourage her husband to succeed in his daily endeavors despite the challenges. She does this in times of crisis and their daily lives placing their son’s reputation to a position of less important value.

            Willy is the aging salesman whose imagination is much larger than his sales ability. Willy's wife, Linda, stands by her husband even in his absence of realism. Biff and Happy follow in their father's fallacy of life. Willy's brother, Ben is the only member of the Loman family with the clear vision necessary to succeed. Charlie and his son Benard, on the other hand, enjoy better success in life compared

As though to recreate the connection in life, literature often shows the relationship between past events and a character’s present actions and values. In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Willy is haunted by memories of his older brother, father, and salesman Dave Singleman. Willy’s character and values are constantly influenced by the memory of the three men, compounding upon his deliria throughout the play. Willy considers these men the epitome of success, thus explaining his dependency on all three. Miller’s view on society, men, and the success of the American Dream are portrayed through Willy’s interactions with the men. The American Dream is synonymous with the phrase “the world is your oyster,” but Miller uses Death of a Salesman to criticize the American Dream through Willy Loman and his interplay between the past and present.

Willy’s obsession with success leads to the start of him living in his own fantasy world. He lives in the past, for there was hope for him then, but now he is completely subject to failure. Willy’s demise could have been avoided had he changed his dream, and had he not conformed to society. In the end his dream did not pay off, and he ultimately fell victim to the American Dream, and the deceitful ideals of freedom that factored into the

It is known that in literature, a tragedy is one of the most popular genres. It always combines some story which discusses human sufferings with a certain sense of audience fulfillment. The roots of the tragedy are related to ancient Greece. A Greek tragedy is a sad story, which represents a character with a tragic flaw leading to his downfall. In addition, in traditional tragedy, the main character falls from high authority and often it is predetermined by fate, while the audience experiences catharsis (Irving 247). Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman is considered to be a tragedy because this literary work has some of the main characteristics of the tragedy genre. In this play, the main character Willy Loman possesses such traits and behaviors that lead to his downfall, and the audience experiences catharsis. Willy Loman as a real tragic hero comes to the decision to commit suicide because of serious financial problems of his family (Moseley). This play has already been criticized by a number of literary critics who represented different opinions on the plot of the book. The major goal of this paper is to critically evaluate the play Death of a Salesman written by the well-known American writer Arthur Miller, paying special attention to the play’s characteristics of a tragedy.

Willy’s brother Ben seems to symbolize all of Willy's dreams that have not borne fruit. Ben provides an example of the type of success that Willy desires. Ben went into the “jungle” with nothing and became extremely wealthy. Ben achieved in a few years what Willy has dreamed about his entire life. Ben also provides additional evidence on the foolish behavior and poor decisions made by Willy. Ben offers to take Willy with him and make him rich – an offer that Willy declines.

Through Ben, Miller’s play suggests that one must be ruthless, sometimes even wild, in order to achieve success. This very dynamic approach towards the American Dream is what makes Willy Loman envious of his brother’s success and machismo. The contrast between a passive approach and dynamic ambition towards the realization of the American Dream is the cause of rift in a brother relationship between Willy and Ben.

Linda encourages Willy and, in doing so, allows her sons, Biff and Happy, to follow their father's misleading direction in life. [3]