FREE ESSAY ON DEATH OF A SALESMAN

DEATH OF A 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 ?
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 fiancees, 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.
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