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Product Description
Ingram
The tragedy of a typical American--a salesman who at the age of sixty-three is faced with what he cannot face; defeat and disillusionment.
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A melody is heard, played upon a flute. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
A melody is heard, played upon a flute. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
A tragedy of a low man,
By
This review is from: Death Of A Salesman (Paperback)
Death Of A Salesman by Arthur Miller was written in 1949 and changed what tragedy meant. Instead of the usual fall of a man in a high position, it was about Willy Loman, a small man. The play is centered on conversation that is mostly dull. The most interesting part of it is seeing the wrong beliefs of Willy that he instils in his two boys, Biff and Happy, which greatly affect their lives in the future. Willy's interpretation of manliness and the American Dream are also the features that make this play great.
Willy Loman, 60, has been working as a salesman for many years. The company that he has been working for has taken him off a salary and placed him on commission. He hasn't been able to sell anything and is resorting to borrowing money from his only friend. His two children, Biff and Happy, are unable to help Willy pay for his mortgage and expenses. Willy feels that it his duty to provide for his family, and being unable to do so lowers his manliness. What has happened to Biff and Happy that has made them as they are as adults? How will Willy, who is seeing hallucinations, react to his loss of manliness? How did growing up without a father or brother affect Willy? What are Willy's motives for what he does? Does Willy's belief in success as a result of being well-liked work? What dreams do the two brothers choose to follow in the end? What does `free' mean in the ending? 3/5
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The shattering of the American dream,
By
This review is from: Death Of A Salesman (Paperback)
One of the most popular and famous plays of post-O'Neill theater, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is the playwright's masterpiece and a true classic not only of American drama, but also of American literature as a whole. Though it came out in the late 1940's, its universal applicability has endured throughout the ensuing decades and the play still has much to tell us today. As has been noted, 20th century American drama tended to focus primarily on the family. The family presented in Death of a Salesman -- like the families in Tennessee William's The Glass Menagerie and Cat On a Hot Tin Roof -- is, in many ways, the prototypical American family, although many would not like to admit it. Salesman's dysfunctional family preceded the rosier, harmonious families that would come to dominate 50's television; it doesn't take a prophet or even a sociologist to determine which of the two is more true-to-life. In the Loman family, we can see much of ourselves and our families -- even if it is the parts that we would rather not think about and focus on. The play also deals with the capitalist system as it stood in the middle of the 20th century; most agree that, to the extent that it has changed since then, it has only been for the worse. Willy Loman, the play's main character and the prototypical Everyman, is a victim of the dog-eat-dog world of business that is a true manifestation of "survival of the fittest": good times are forgotten; nobody cares what one has done in the past: all that matters is, What have you done for me lately? The play shows how a man -- and yes, a man: the play was written in the 1940's, after all... and notice that the matriarch, despite the family's hard times, does not work -- is judged not by whom he is, not by his virtues, but simply by what he does and how much money he makes (of course, nearly 60 years later, this now extends to women as well.) It doesn't matter how good a man is, how much he loves his family, how much he cares for his children, how much he loves his wife -- if he can't make enough money to keep food on the table. A man who doesn't do that, at least in society's eyes, is a complete and total failure: nothing else matters. Willy's inability to escape from this system leads to his total and complete focus on money and work, driving his attention away from what matters most to him, his family, and ends in his tragic fate. Such a plight is, no doubt, familiar to many Americans. The right to the "pursuit of happiness" may be in the Declaration of Independence for all to read, but achieving the proverbial American Dream isn't always that easy: it's trying, it's difficult, it's hard -- and, indeed, it can be fatal. This is what the play tells us, and its truth is why the play has endured through the years and why it will continue to endure. This is a true masterpiece that deserves to be read by all.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Hard to finish,
This review is from: Death Of A Salesman (Paperback)
The characters are one dimensional. The plot is weaved with self pity. The story has no real purpose. It's a bit disheartening hearing the praise it has gotten trough the years. I suppose some things tend to get overrated. For me, it was only slightly less painful to read than "Love in the Time of Cholera" - I suppose it has to do with the considerable difference in number of pages and the fact that Arthur Miller isn't so detailed oriented... For that matter, thank God it's a play and not a novel... (shudder...)
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