Death Of A Salesman

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.

As the play’s titular character in Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is viewed by many as the definitive modern tragic hero of modern literature. He is a man struggling to gain upward mobility in a society designed to keep him in the trenches. The classic idea of a tragic hero is an important person who falls from a lofty seat in life. Willy, however, is just a common man trying to get to a place he can fall from. According to Arthur Miller, a tragic hero need not be a king or anyone of high rank. What’s important is the existence of the character’s “tragic flaw”, out of which creates the need to resist anything the character would consider a force attacking their being. Miller outlined the tragic flaw as a quality of a character that leaves them unable to accept anything that would affect or alter his/her status or self-image. While this flaw can create the tragic nature of a character, it does not necessarily create a tragic hero out a character. Willy Loman, though perhaps a tragic character, is not a tragic hero because he does not display the characteristic traits or actions associated with heroism.

Since the beginning of its time, America has set a global standard for offering chances at prosperity and career opportunities for qualified adults. Its people have been implicating the idea of the “American Dream” into its culture for many years and has become widely recognized by individuals all across the world. People pack up their lives and families to travel to American soil to try at a chance of a better life, and in doing so, they too venture on a path to achieving this so commonly understood “American Dream.” Arthur Miller, a well-known literary writer in America, seems to disagree with this national phenomena, offering a different view in his play Death of a Salesman. In this play, he demonstrates through the life of an average

In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald published what is considered to be his most popular novel, The Great Gatsby. Almost thirty years later, Arthur Miller released his play Death of a Salesman in 1949. One of the greatest similarities between these seemingly different works is how their authors portray the American Dream. The American dream, according to author and historian James Truslow Adams, is “…that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” In Death of a Salesman and The Great Gatsby, Miller and Fitzgerald create a critic of the American Dream through the protagonist’s dreams, lies, and their fascination with the past, factors that led to their demise, and then use their protagonists to create a critic on modern day American society.

The American Dream is a sought after idea sold to Americans and immigrants alike. It promises the opportunity to create a better future for oneself. So long as said individual works hard it promises a happy ending. Arthur Miller reveals the reality of the American Dream in his play Death of a Salesman through the life of Willy Loman and his family. Willy represents the primary target audience as a working class man providing for his family. His pride causes him to be two steps behind in his life-long quest to achieve the American Dream and his family inherit his failures in their own individual quests.

Marco Rubio once said “ You cannot give up on the American Dream. We cannot allow our fears and our disappointments to lead us into silence and into inaction .” In order to achieve your goals you have to be able to overcome problems, which gets you a step closer to American Dream. No one said the journey was going to be easy. Death of A Salesman introduces a weak protagonist that did not achieve his dreams. Arthur Miller’s Death of A salesman introduces his idealistic version of the American Dream, how he tries to obtain it, and how it leads to revealing his quest.

How can two people watch or read the same story and yet, interpret it completely differently? Does it have to do with the author’s intentions, or maybe it has to do with the viewers’ own backgrounds and ideologies? Whatever the case may be, viewing one piece of work can lead to a wide array of opinions and critiques. It is through the diversity of such lenses that Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller has become one of the most well-known plays in modern history. There are many different ways in which a play can be criticized, however, criticisms from the approaches of a Marxist and reader-response will be utilized to further dissect Death of a Salesman. Marxist criticism sees pieces of works as a struggle between different socioeconomic classes; what better way to see Miller’s play than for what it is at face value, the struggle of a middle-class man trying to achieve the American dream (1750). On the other hand, a reader-response criticism comes from either an objective or subjective view; in this case Death of a Salesman will be viewed with a subjective lens based on Willy’s deteriorating mental health (1746).

San Joaquin Delta College presented Arthur Miller 's Death of A Salesman on Sunday the twenty-second of March at 2 o 'clock in the afternoon. This play is about a young man and his father coming to terms with the past and their futures. Willy Loman, an old salesman, is dealing with both financial and health difficulties. He is put under even more pressure when his unsuccessful son, Biff, returns home. Actor, director, and sound designer, Harvey T. Jordan, played the role of Willy in this production. His directing, acting, and sound effects allowed me to grasp the despaired nature of Willy Loman 's character. The theme of this story is respect and the nature of success. Willy wished that when he is dead, his death would be mourned far and wide. Hoping to have the reputation of a famous salesman; in other words he wants to die “The Death of a Salesman”. After Willie heard about a well-liked salesman, one that is known in all the cities he visits and that can make sales just by picking up the phone, Willie thinks that this job is easy, but he soon discovers the stress a truly dedicated salesman must go through.

The play, Death of a Salesman, centers around Willie Loman and the effects of the choices he has made. The personality and characteristics that can describe the man are unemotional, self-deluded, and very insecure. These traits make the man who he is, however, brings troubles along with the man that are caused by such traits. For instance, the delusions of hearing advice from a hallucination that leads to his suicide in the story. This shows one of the major flaws that dwells inside the rich salesman.

Shelley Levene is a character that is always sure of himself and certain of all his actions. He knows that he’s the top person of the firm and to anyone that will listen, tells them so. Jack Lemmon, as his character, exemplifies these traits through his actions and voice. He always appears busy and never seems to keep still in one place, as if he physically has to look preoccupied at all times. When he’s talking, with others and in general, his voice raises in octaves to keep attention focused on him while falling down to a mumble when making offhand comments. It appears charming how he talks to others since salesman have to have certain inflection to their words to get the right reaction from potential buyers. Lemmon knows this, which is why

The play Death of a Salesman greatly portrays a specific ideology in regards to values, dreams, goals, and success in our consumer-driven society. It helps showcase the American dream that society tends to strive for even in the early 1900’s (the play is set in the 1940’s). That dream of being a successful business person or vendor. As well as the theory that image and physical attributes are most important to gaining fruition. Willy Loman plays a man in his sixties who has strived for this American dream for over 30 years but realistically has failed miserably on his goal in life – a wealthy salesman like his idol Dave Singleman (a fellow who could make a fortune selling without even leaving his hotel room). He spends his entire life in

Many workers today go through a low time or a struggle and give up. Today’s workers do not necessarily commit suicide when they are in a low point but they do things such as quitting the job or relying on government assistance. Willy strives to achieve the American dream and he eventually realizes that he has failed and gives up on life. This dream is a belief in America and that all things are possible if you work hard enough (Criticism of ' the American Dream' in 'Death of a Salesman'). Arthur Miller uses this story to expose the problems with pursuit of such a dream: “What Miller attacks, then, is not the American Dream of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, but the dream as interpreted and pursued by those for whom ambition replaces human need and the trinkets of what Miller called the ‘new American Empire in the making’ are taken as tokens of true value” (Bigsby). “Death of a Salesman” creates a challenge to the American Dream and shows that an American should live a prosperous and plentiful life instead of get lost and die tragically (Criticism of ' the American Dream' in 'Death of a Salesman'). Gradually throughout the play, Willy gets farther and farther away from achieving his idea of the American Dream. His income slowly decreases to nothing: “as a salesman, Willy stages a performance for buyers, for his sons, for the father who deserted him, the brother he admired. Gradually, he loses his audience, first the buyers, then his son, then his boss” (Bigsby). His problem is that he completely surrenders to the American Dream and by the team he realizes his mistake, he has nothing to fall back on (Panesar). If Willy would have embraced his natural talent for manual labor and his family’s love for the countryside, the Lomans could have a totally different lifestyle (Panesar). Towards the end of the play, Willy became overwhelmed

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman tells the tale of Willy Loman, a man who falls from the top of the capitalism system in a resonant crash. Being controlled by his fears of the future, and stuck in his memories of the past, Willy fully contributes to his self-victimization by putting little blame on his own mistakes. Although Willy is perceived as selfish, it is important to see that he is misguided. His character is one of a common man, he has never been anything special, but he chose to follow the American Dream and continue the “destiny” it gave him. However, in my reading of the play, I feel it was not an unlucky destiny that pushed Willy to damage his own life and the lives of his family,

What is the correct definition of tragedy anyways? Many people would define tragedy as a disaster, but according to the book The Cambridge Guide to World Theatre by Martin Banham, the word tragedy is “a word whose meaning changes with time and place” (1002). In Medieval times, “tragedy came to mean the downfall of a person of high degree” (Banham 1002), but in recent times, the meaning of the word tragedy has many definitions. According to Banham, “realists refused to limit tragedy to privileged protagonists” (1002). Two famous tragic plays that I found to have a genre of tragedy are Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl. In both of these plays, the downfall was not of a person of high degree but there was a

The Death of a Salesman is a well-developed example when it comes to parent-child conflict. The Loman family participate in multiple heated arguments throughout the play, each caused by the actions of the main characters. The father in The Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman, has lived his life in a constant daydream, consequently never learning from his mistakes. Willy believes that in order for someone to truly become successful, they must be well liked by everyone. Along the way he uses this to try and force his son to be something he is not, adding more fuel to the fire in the process.