Death of a Salesman

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Cover to the Penguin Group edition.
Cover to the Penguin Group edition.

Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play by Arthur Miller and is considered a classic of American theater. Viewed by many as a caustic attack on the American Dream of achieving wealth and success without regard for principle, Death of a Salesman made both Arthur Miller and the character Willy Loman household names. Some of the other titles Miller considered for the play were The Inside of His Head and A Period of Grace. It was greeted with enthusiastic reviews, received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1949, the 1949 Tony Award for Best Play, as well as the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. Death of a Salesman was the first play to win these three major awards, helping to establish Miller as an internationally-known playwright.

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[edit] Plot synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The play centers on Willy, a salesman over sixty years old, who is beginning to lose his grip on reality. Willy places great emphasis on his supposed native charm and ability to make friends. According to him, he was once well known and liked throughout New England as a traveling salesman whose skills were unparalleled. His sons Biff and Happy (a nickname for Harold) were the pride and joy of the neighborhood, and his wife Linda was picturesque, smiling throughout the day. Unfortunately, time has passed, and now his life seems to be slipping out of control.

Willy has worked hard his entire life and ought to be retiring by now, living a life of luxury and closing deals with contractors on the phone—especially since increasing episodes of depersonalization and flashback are impairing his ability to drive. Instead, all of Willy's aspirations seem to have failed: he is fired from his job—which barely paid enough anyway—by a man young enough to be his son and whom, in fact, Willy claims to have named by giving suggestions to the young man's father. Willy is now forced to rely on loans from his next-door-neighbor Charley to make ends meet. Charley is the closest thing Willy has to a friend, but Willy still harbors jealousy and contempt toward him for being more successful. Charley even offers Willy a job after he is fired, and yet Willy is too proud to take it. None of Willy's old friends or previous customers remember him. Biff, his 34-year-old son, has been unable to 'find himself' as a result of his inability to settle down (caused by Willy constantly insisting that he needed to 'make it big within two weeks'), and Happy, the younger son, lies shamelessly to make it seem as if he is the perfect Loman son. In contrast, Charley (who, Willy tells his boys conspiratorially, is not 'well-liked'), is now a successful businessman, and his son, Bernard, a formerly bespectacled bookworm, is now a brilliant lawyer. We are told how Willy had at least one affair while out on business trips, one that Biff walked in on and discovered. This terrible ordeal broke Biff's faith in his father and sent him on a downward spiral. Finally, Willy is haunted by memories of his now-dead older brother, Ben, who at an early age left for Alaska, and later moved to Africa; "And when [he] walked out, [he] was rich!" Ben has constantly overshadowed Willy, and he is in many ways the man that Willy wanted to be. Ben's approach is heralded by idyllic music, showing Willy's idolization of him, and in flashbacks we see Willy asking for Ben's advice on parenting.

The play's structure resembles a stream of consciousness account: Willy drifts between his living room, downstage, to the apron and flashbacks of an idyllic past, and also to fantasized conversations with Ben. The use of these different 'states' allows Miller to contrast Willy's dreams and the reality of his life in extraordinary detail; and also allows him to contrast the characters themselves, showing them in both sympathetic and villainous lights, gradually unfolding the story, and refusing to allow the audience a permanent judgment about anyone. When we are in the present the characters abide by the rules of the set, entering only through the stage door to the left; however, when we visit Willy's 'past' these rules are removed, with characters openly moving through walls. Whereas the term 'flashback' as a form of cinematography for these scenes is often heard, Miller himself rather speaks of 'mobile concurrences'. In fact, flashbacks would show an objective image of the past. Miller's mobile concurrences, however, rather show highly subjective memories. Furthermore, as Willy's mental state deteriorates, the boundaries between past and present are destroyed, and the two start to exist in parallel.

The depths of the problem are gradually revealed. Willy's emphasis on being well-liked stems from a belief that it will bring him to perfect success—not a harmful dream in itself, except that he clings to this idea as if it is a life-preserver, refusing to give it up. In high school, his boys were not only well-liked but quite handsome, and as far as Willy is concerned, that's all anyone needs. He pitches this idea to his sons so effectively that they believe opportunity will fall into their laps. (In this way, Biff and Happy can be considered forerunners to the culture of entitlement.) Of course, real life is not so generous, and neither are able to hold much in the way of respectable employment. Willy witnesses his and his sons' failures and clings ever more tightly to his master plan, now placing his hopes vicariously on them: he may not succeed, but they might. His tragic flaw is in failing to question whether the dream is valid. Happy never does either; he has embraced his father's attitude, and at the end of the first act, he convinces Biff to seek financial backing in a get-rich-quick scheme. But when Biff tries to do so, he realizes his father's mistakes, and finally decides not to let Willy fall prey to the unrealistic dream again. They attack each other at the play's climax: Biff confronting Willy's neurosis head-on, while Willy accuses Biff of throwing his life away simply to hurt Willy's feelings. Despite a raggedly emotional battle of words, neither is able to make much headway, but before Biff gives up, he breaks down in tears: "Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?" Willy is touched that Biff still cares for him after all, but fails to understand the deeper meaning of his words, and resolves to do everything possible to leave him with the right opportunities to strike it rich.

As the rest of the family retires, Ben reappears over Willy's shoulder. Willy proclaims that in taking his own life, the attendance at his funeral would make a show to his doubting son of how popular he was in life, and that, if handled to look accidental, the payout from his life insurance policy will allow Biff to start his own business. This final action can be viewed as his attempt to leave a tangible legacy for his family. Willy acknowledges that, "Nothing grows here anymore" and his vain attempts to plant seeds during the darkness express his desperate desire to leave something behind. The neighborhood is drawn out of bed by the roar and smash of Willy's car, despite Ben's warnings that the insurance policy won't be honored in the event of suicide. Thus Willy's grand gesture — and indeed his earlier assertion that one is often "worth more dead than alive" — leaves his family (and especially his wife, Linda) in even worse a position than before.

[edit] Requiem

The end of the play is a Requiem. The Requiem takes place at Willy's funeral, which is attended by everybody he knew. Charley makes a very moving speech as Biff accuses Willy of not knowing what he really wanted in life; Charley explains that, as a salesman, all Willy ever got by on were his dreams, and they cannot blame him for having them. Happy insists, "Willy Loman did not die in vain", and says that he will 'fight' for Willy's, and his own corrupted version of the American Dream. At the graveyard, Biff says, "He had the wrong dreams. All, all, wrong." Happy tries to defend Willy, as he cannot understand Biff's point of view. Charley is the one who is perhaps best able to defend Willy's dream, saying that, being a salesman, all he really had was a dream. Despite this, the dream was never realized, especially in death: there are no throngs of mourners to pay their respects; indeed, nobody shows up except the five closest to Willy. In the last lines of the play, Linda, close to tears, asks her dead husband why he saw fit to take his own life, and leaves the graveyard, sobbing, with her sons crying harshly.

[edit] Characters

  • Willy Loman
  • Linda Loman, Willy's wife
  • Biff Loman, Willy's older son
  • Happy Loman, Willy's younger son
  • Ben Loman, Willy's older brother
  • Howard Wagner, Willy's boss
  • Stanley, a waiter
  • Miss Forsythe, one of Happy's dates
  • Letta, Forsythe's friend
  • Jenny, Charley's secretary

[edit] On Stage

The original production opened on February 10, 1949 at the Morosco Theatre, and ran for 742 performances. Lee J. Cobb starred as Willy. The production won the Tony Award for: Best Play; Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Arthur Kennedy); Best Scenic Design (Jo Mielzner); Producer (Dramatic); Author (Arthur Miller); Best Director (Elia Kazan). The play won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The play has been revived on Broadway three times since:

[edit] Film and television versions

[edit] Bibliography

Born Losers: A History of Failure in America, by Scott A. Sandage (Harvard University Press, 2005).

Foster, Richard A. "Confusion and tragedy: the failure of Miller's 'Salesman.'" in Two Modern Tragedies: Reviews and Criticisms of 'Death of a Salesman' and 'Streetcar named Desire'. Ed. John D. Hurell. Scribner's, 1961, pp. 82-8.

Distant & Remote Locations in Death of a Salesman (scholarly article)

[edit] External links

  • Death of a Salesman on Internet Broadway Database [1]
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The Works of Arthur Miller
Plays
Honors at Dawn | The Man Who Had All the Luck | All My Sons | Death of a Salesman | An Enemy of the People | The Crucible | A View From the Bridge | Incident At Vichy | The Price | In Russian | The Creation of the World and Other Business | The American Clock | A Memory of Two Mondays | Up from Paradise | The Archbishop's Ceiling | The Last Yankee | Everybody Wins | The Ride Down Mt. Morgan | Broken Glass | Mr. Peters' Connections | Resurrection Blues | Finishing the Picture
Other works
Focus | "The Misfits" (short story) | I Don't Need You Anymore (short stories)| Homely Girl: A Life (three short stories) | Timebends (autobiography) | On Politics and the Art of Acting (speech)
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