Customer Reviews

Death of a Salesman

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1 star:		(7)

 

 

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

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.

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...)

This play blew me away when I read it some ten years ago. And the same thing happened when I saw it on Broadway as a revival many years ago. One can only imagine the impact it had on audiences when it first came out. Truly, there has been nothing as harrowing, riveting, and emotional in the theatre since. The "idea" of the play is powerful enough, but couple this with the "American dream" theme and you've got explosive material. The intensity of this piece of theatre is hard to match. A few other great works come to mind------("SOPHIE'S CHOICE by Styron or McCrae's "CHILDREN'S CORNER"---------though those are books or movies) but even so, something about "Death" is beyond that. Why this isn't required reading in school is something I'll never understand. Arthur Miller is a national treasure and if he had written this play only, his reputation would have been confirmed forever.

This play blew me away when I read it some ten years ago. And the same thing happend when I saw it on Broadway as a revival many years ago. One can only imagine the impact it had on audiences when it first came out. Truly, there has been nothing as harrowing, riveting, and emotional in the theatre since. The "idea" of the play is powerful enough, but couple this with the "American dream" theme and you've got explosive material. The intensity of this piece of theatre is hard to match. A few other great works come to mind ("Sophie's Choice by Styron or McCrae's "Bark of the Dogwood"--though those are books or movies) but even so, something about "Death" is beyond that. Why this isn't required reading in school is something I'll never understand. Arthur Miller is a national treasure and if he had written this play only, his reputation would have been confirmed forever.

Money and materialism are strong themes in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman". One gets a real sense of this from beginning to end. In the first scenes, already the importance and pursuit of wealth and money are key in understanding what the play is about, and we see this in the frustrated dialogue exchange between the husband and the wife. The main character (the husband) is an aging door-to-door salesman named Willy Loman, who is obsessed with the American dream of financial prosperity as epitomized through his exceptionally successful big brother, Ben, but he's hounded by bills because he doesn't make enough money on commission; he says to his wife Linda: "I just ain't makin' the sales I used to." Therefore, he's forced at one point in the play to go to Howard, his employer, for a raise to get a more convenient position at the sales firm as a desk sales clerk. But Howard doesn't believe in Willy's ability to make enough money for him and refuses to give him the job, or any raise. In fact, he fires Willy on the spot. "Go home, Willy," he says, "take a vacation", in an attempt to get Willy out of his office. Willy feels humiliated and more desperate than ever. He goes straight to his friend and neighbor Charley to borrow money but refuses to take a good job offer from him because he's too proud to be dependent on Charley for his income. "Here's the 500 dollars, Willy," says Charley, to which Willy is quick to respond: "You know I'm good for it, Charley." Willy is hounded by debt and he begins to wish he had gone to Alaska with Ben as a young man and made a fortune mining for gold, but instead he settled for the life of a salesman and its hard, unrewarding occupation. Willy is full of regret and feels he has wasted his life. Throughout the play, from beginning to nearly the end, Willy is left wishing his older son, Biff, had succeeded as a football player and been accepted at a college, but he came just short of graduating and that was the beginning of the end of Willy's dream of fulfilling his own materialistic dreams through Biff. And he is constantly reminding Biff of his failure and blaming himself for it just as much. "If only you had passed your math, things would have turned out different," he says to Biff in the hotel room after he's caught by Biff in adultery. But instead, Biff, for whom Willy had such high hopes, turns out to be an even bigger failure than himself. This play is one big story of missed dreams and unrealized hopes in terms of money and the materialistic pursuit of wealth in a capitalist system.

David Rehak
author of "A Young Girl's Crimes"

Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman" has become a repudiation of socialism/communism. Miller intended the play as anti-capitalist propaganda, but failed. Miller's play is so fuzzy about it's veiled socialism, that no one who saw the original play comprehended Miller's intended message. Later, the play (sometimes referred to as "Death of a Socialist Salesman") became a darkly humorous, unintentional repudiation of socialism because of Miller's naive attempt at propaganda.

socialist trio of atrocities The play centers on Willy Loman, an aging salesman who is beginning to lose his grip on reality. (On losing the grip on reality compare the socialist trio of atrocities: the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, The People's Republic of China, the National Socialist German Worker's Party). Willy, who has always placed high value on being well-liked, (compare all socialist leaders) dreamed of dying successful - living a life of luxury (compare socialism's absurd strive for "universal everything-for-free care").

Instead, all of Willy's aspirations seem to have failed (compare the U.S.S.R., P.R.C., N.S.D.A.P.): he becomes unemployed, none of his old friends remember him, his child has not prospered as he hoped, and he is forced to rely on loans from his former rival (capitalists). His other son pretends to be successfully climbing the ladder but is actually lying to his father about the full measure of his success (compare the socialist trio).

In contrast, Charlie, Willy's rival (who he used to criticize for not being well-liked) is a successful businessman and his son, Bernard (whom Willy derided as a child for the same reason) is a brilliant lawyer (as socialism's rival, capitalism contrasts as a great success). Meanwhile, Willy is haunted by memories of his brother, Ben, who at an early age left for Alaska and became rich (as so many people fled the U.S.S.R., P.R.C., N.S.D.A.P. to prosper in capitalist countries). Pursued by his dreams of success and the reality of failure, at the end of the play, Willy commits suicide (compare the collapse of the former U.S.S.R. and Hitler of the National Socialist German Worker's Party etc., and the mass slaughter perpetrated by the socialist trio of atrocities (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (65 million), the People's Republic of China (35 million), the National Socialist German Workers' Party (21 million) etc).

One central point of the play seems to be the idea of "greatness" just as it is for socialists (compare the former U.S.S.R., the P.R.C., the N.S.D.A.P.). Willy longs to achieve great things and to be remembered after his death, and instills that hope in both of his sons. All three fail, while Ben, Charlie, and Bernard (the "capitalists") succeed, and do so without even trying.

The American Dream is a major theme throughout the play. Biff and Willy both have very strong (although unspoken) ideas about what it is just as Arthur Miller had strong unspoken ideas about socialism/communism that he tried to insert into his play, though he failed and instead he unintentionally wrote a metaphor for the failures of socialism/communism.

Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman" has become a repudiation of socialism/communism. Miller intended the play as anti-capitalist propaganda, but failed. Miller's play is so fuzzy about it's veiled socialism/communism, that no one who saw the original play comprehended Miller's intended message. Later, the play (sometimes referred to as "Death of a Socialist Salesman") became a darkly humorous, unintentional repudiation of socialism/communism because of Miller's naive attempt at propaganda.

Death of a Salesman was overall a good book. The fact that it was more modern then the other books that my class had read made it even better. The book Death of a Salesman was positive to me because I thought there were a lot of good life lessons in taught through the story.
I think the main purpose that Arthur Miller was trying to get people to notice is that the relationship between a father and a son should be close. Even though Biff loved his father, Willy he didn't recognize it until the very end of the book. As soon as Willy realized that his son loved him, he killed himself believing that Biff would benefit from the 20,000 dollars from insurance.
I have personally learned from this book how my relationship should be between my father and me. We shouldn't argue or fight all the time. We need to understand, too, that I need to live my own life. Also another main point is that you shouldn't let your parents tell you how you are going to live your life when you are at the age of 34. Neither should you be living with your parents at that age.
I would recommend this book because it teaches some good life lessons about relationships between family members. It also gives advice about how to become a good salesman. The most important thing to being a good salesman is to know people and have them like you.

This book/play was a good read, with a lot of lessons to pull from it. Your situation in life defines what lessons you will most likely pull, but all in all, most everyone can gain something. It was close to modern times, with a lot of insights into modern problems.
When Arthur Miller wrote this, he was trying to give a view into the business world. He was trying to show America as whole just how cruel the business world had gotten, how it would chew you up and spit you out when it was through with you, and how things had gotten very cold. This was shown in the scene with Willy Lowman getting fired. One thing he screams is," You can't eat an orange and throw the peel away! A man is not a piece of fruit!". This is so true, but it is also how the business world treats people.
Miller also shed some light on how a man had more duties to his family than just to put bread on the table and a roof over their heads, how sometimes they needed a husband and a dad more than anything. After all, Willy worked his whole life to provide his sons with clothes and food and things, but in the end, what they could really have used was a dad at home more often to teach them morals and work ethic. Biff and Happy had trouble finding themselves in life because from the time they were young, Willy had worked very hard to give them everything, they hadn't had to go out and get it themselves. All Willy ever taught them was to be liked, and that that was enough to get you through. This backfired on the two boys when they hit the real world and found out it wasn't enough just to be liked; you had to have more.
Personally, I learned that living your whole life on what others think of you can only lead you to feeling empty. Near the end of the play, Willy goes out to buy seeds for his garden, because he has "nothing in the ground". This is because Willy has worked his life for people to like him, to gain respect everywhere, and when it comes right down to it, he feels his sons don't like him, he got fired from his job because nobody likes him so he can't sell, and he feels as if it's all for naught. He even tells his neighbor Charlie that he feels Charlie is "his only friend". As the old saying goes, "You can't please everyone all the time, and the man who tries to please everyone ends up pleasing no one not even himself". You have to live your life to please One, that is, the Almighty God, and if you don't, you're going to fail in trying to please others.