“Death of a Salesman” Detailed Analysis Essay

ARTHUR MILLERArthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 February 10, 2005) was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons (1947), terminal of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953) and A View from the BridgeMiller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s, a period during which he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Prince of Asturias Award, and was marry to Marilyn Monroe.SUMMARYIt is important to bear that the story is told by dint of the mind and memory of Willy Loman and there is a constant venture and forth between 2 periods ,1928 and 1942.The premier period is one of the happiness and contentment when Willy Loman is young and dynamic and the children , trailer and Happy be running about in shorts the second is one of soberness and discontent -Willy is now old and ,vi rtu all toldy out of a job and the children are gr make up and gone their different ways. The play is thus structured in such a way to show the pleasures of the past ,the dreams and foretastes the characters had and how these aspirations had turned sour. Willy Loman had built his life in such a way that he had finally trap himself in an impossible situation.Willy Loman ,the protagonist in the play was a travelling salesman in the services of the wagnor company for 34 years. When his old boss died ,his intelligence Howard took e actuallyplace the administration of the company .Willys family consists of three other members ,his wife Linda, dawdler,the elder son and Happy, the younger son.Willy unexpectedly returned on the same day he had leave behind for New England territory on a business tour. Linda felt that her husband is thoroughlyexhausted both physically and mentally and he has almost reached the fault point. Willy, who is 63, has driven the car off the road twice or th ree times and when he reached home he was put in to be panic sick ,desolate and shattered.Willy liked his eldest son Biff,who was well fill outn as a football champion. Though he is 34 , it is unfortunate that he could non settle in life. Inspite of the accompaniment that three colleges offered him scholarship in recognition of his proficiency in football, he did not join any college . Happy, the women chaser also could not settle in life.For the nigh two days, immediately after his unexpected return, Willys mind was rather disturbed with thoughts of todays realities inter mingled with yesterdays fractional forgotten episodes. He felt that it was mis scoot on his part not to have followed his elder brother Ben ,who dared his way into the diamond minds of Africa and amassed fabulous wealth . Willys guilty consciousness pricked him at the flash back scene of Boston hotel room, when his son Biff makes a surprise visit and finds his sustain having an affair with a unlike lady .A fter this episode, Biff seemed to hold a grudge against his father and could never again bring himself to trust Willy. As suggested by Linda, Willy visits Howard, the young chieftain and request for a change of job in the New York City office as he is physically and mentally incapacitated as a travelling sales man. When the request was unceremoniously turned down by Howard and Willy dismissed from service he protest You cannot eat orange and throw the leach away man is not a piece of fruit. Willy is rattling much frustrated and disillusioned at the behavior of capitalists who lacked the human milk of kindness, unselfishness and gratitude.Biffs attempt to raise a loan from Bill Oliver, the proprietor of sports goods company also failed. Oliver, who once liked Biff immensely, now refused to have intercourse him now because Biff has stolen a fountain pen, Charley ,Willys neighbour extended a helping hand in those days of adversity. He ,not unless locomote a loan to him but also offered him a job to him. barely Willy refused to accept it with a false sense of dignity. The two sons invited the father for a dinner party at a prominent restaurant in the city. But Happy picked up two call girls and left the place along with Biff, sledding Willy alone.Willy felt humiliated and this experience was shocking and unbearable when Biff and Happy returned home, Linda ordered them out of the house by the next morning. She was planning to commit suicide on a particular night .Willy was left alone while all others went upstairs. He has insured his life for 20,000 dollars. Once he dies, the family will be entitled to receive the amount from the insurance company. So Willy got into his car and drove madly through darkness, all to kill himself. His funeral was attended only by Linda, the two sons, charley and his son Bernard. Linda could not stand the strain of separation from her beloved husband but still she stooped down and dropped flowers on the grave of Willy.DEATH OF A SALESMAN AS A TRAGEDYAccording to the traditional views based on Aristotelian cannons, the tragic hero was to be a person of high wander and status. So that his down fall could produce an inevitable emotional effect on the audience. In ancient Greek tragedies, quite a little or destiny is chiefly responsible for the downfall of human beings. But Shakespeare and Marlow attributed human misfortune mainly to the personal draw backs of the tragic heroes themselves and hardly to the hidden forces which we describe as fate or destiny.Miller generally departs from both these concepts of cataclysm as in the tragic hero in the Death of a sales man belongs to the heart and soul class. He does not hold the view that tragic effect can be produced only by the downfall of a highly placed case-by-case in society. It matters not at all whether hero falls from a great height or small one, whether he highly conscious or dimly aware of what is happening ,if the intensity is their America gr ows like a giant in unimaginable proportions .Willy symbolically stands for all the low men in American business community not just salesmen -who in a way sell themselves. Willy sells himself and in the process wears himself out and he is finally chuck out when he is no longer useful. Willy begins as a salesman 36 years ago, opens up unheard of territories to their trade mark, but in his old age they take his salary away. It is pity that once Willys energy is exhausted by the work thatsociety has assigned to him, he is thrown aside and dismissed by the son of his old boss. Willy protests, you cannot eat the orange and throw them peel . Man is not a piece of fruit no doubt ,Willy loman is a over-the-hill employee, but he is rejected and ill treated by his employer at the end of his career. Even a change of job with less travelling was denied to him.But still it may not be fully correct to say that Willy is wholly a victim of the prevailing social system. His own responsibility of h is tragedy is by no means insignificant or negligible. In the first place he failed to realize his own limitations and short comings Willy has the conviction that come throughment depends on personality, contacts and good cloths and that these will bring everything one wants in life. Obviously Willy is a prey to that magical book of Dale carnegies How to win friends and influence people we know that mistake is that Willy had chosen a wrong profession for himself under the impression that the selling profession is the best in the world.Secondly the sense of guilt which he carries with him due to his past infidelity to his wife has also serious repercussions in his mental stability .His affair with the woman in the hotel when he was visited by Biff hangs on his conscience. Biffs discovery of Willys infidelity marks the crucial turning point in the relationship between the father and the son .There after Biff no longer believes Willy .Another point to be noted is Willys incurable op timism .He has had higher expectation about the future of his elder son Biff who looks so charming as the Adonise in Greek mythology and who has earned high reputation as a good football champion. Biff has become disillusioned .For Biff ,life came to be an end with his match. He could neither make a mark in business nor could he go back to school to finish his course. Ironically Bernard who never stageed University of Virginia, Bernard who pleaded to carry Biffs helmet or shoulder guards , prospered. Bernard wins glory by pleading before the independent court ,but he does this without any pushing from his father. According to Willy, they ought to be success at all for both Charley and Bernard were not well liked. These tragic experiences shatter Willys conception of American dreams. No human or super natural agency interfered his life .The sense of frustration and psychological neurosis upsets hismental equalizer and shatters him to pieces.CHARACTER LISTWILLY LOMAN An insecure, s elf-deluded traveling salesman. Willy believes wholeheartedly in the American Dream of easy success and wealth, but he never achieves it. Nor do his sons fulfill his hope that they will succeed where he has failed. When Willys illusions begin to fail under the pressing realities of his life, his mental health begins to unravel. The overwhelming tensions caused by this disparity, as well as those caused by the societal imperatives that drive Willy, form the essential difference of opinion of Death of a Salesman.BIFF LOMAN Willys thirty-four-year-old elder son. Biff led a beguiled life in high school as a football star with scholarship prospects, good male friends, and fawning female admirers. He failed math, however, and did not have enough credits to graduate. Since then, his kleptomania has gotten him fired from every job that he has held. Biff represents Willys vulnerable, poetic, tragic side. He cannot ignore his instincts, which tell him to abandon Willys paralyzing dreams and move out West to work with his hands. He ultimately fails to reconcile his life with Willys expectations of him.LINDA LOMAN Willys loyal, loving wife. Linda suffers through Willys grandiose dreams and self-delusions. Occasionally, she seems to be taken in by Willys self-deluded hopes for future glory and success, but at other times, she seems far more realistic and less fragile than her husband. She has nurtured the family through all of Willys misguided attempts at success, and her emotional strength and perseverance support Willy until his collapse.HAPPY LOMAN Willys thirty-two-year-old younger son. Happy has lived in Biffs shadow all of his life, but he compensates by nurturing his relentless sex drive and professional ambition. Happy represents Willys sense of self-importance, ambition, and blind servitude to societal expectations. Although he works as an assistant to an assistant buyer in a departmentstore, Happy presents himself as supremely important. Additionally, he practi ces bad business ethics and sleeps with the girlfriends of his superiors.CHARLEY- Willys next door neighbor. Charley owns a successful business and his son, Bernard, is a wealthy, important lawyer. Willy is jealous of Charleys success. Charley gives Willy money to pay his bills, and Willy reveals at one point, choking back tears, that Charley is his only friend.BERNARD Bernard is Charleys son and an important, successful lawyer. Although Willy used to mock Bernard for studying hard, Bernard always loved Willys sons dearly and regarded Biff as a hero. Bernards success is difficult for Willy to accept because his own sons lives do not measure up.BEN Willys wealthy older brother. Ben has recently died and appears only in Willys daydreams. Willy regards Ben as a symbol of the success that he so urgently craves for himself and his sons.THE WOMAN Willys mistress when Happy and Biff were in high school. The Womans attending and admiration boost Willys fragile ego. When Biff catches Wi lly in his hotel room with The Woman, he loses trustingness in his father, and his dream of passing math and going to college dies.HOWARD WAGNER Willys boss. Howard inherited the company from his father, whom Willy regarded as a masterful man and a prince. Though much younger than Willy, Howard treats Willy with condescension and eventually fires him, despite Willys weakened assertions that he named Howard at his birth.STANLEY A waiter at inconsiderates Chop House. Stanley and Happy seem to be friends, or at least acquaintances, and they interchange about and ogle Miss Forsythe together before Biff and Willy arrive at the restaurant.MISS FORSYTHE AND LETTA Two young women whom Happy and Biff meet at Franks Chop House. It seems likely that Miss Forsythe and Letta are prostitutes, judging from Happys repeated comments about their moral character and thefact that they are on call.JENNY Charleys secretaryTHEMES, MOTIFS & SYMBOLSTHEMESThemes are the fundamental and often universa l ideas explored in a literary work.THE AMERICAN DREAMWilly believes wholeheartedly in what he considers the promise of the American Dream- that a well liked and personally attractive man in business will indubitably and deservedly exact the material comforts offered by modern American life. Oddly, his fixation with the superficial qualities of magnet and likeability is at odds with a more gritty, more rewarding judgement of the American Dream that identifies hard work without complaint as the key to success. Willys interpretation of likeability is superficial-he childishly dislikes Bernard because he considers Bernard a nerd. Willys blind faith in his stunted version of the American Dream leads to his rapid psychological decline when he is unable to accept the disparity between the Dream and his own life.ABANDONMENTWillys life charts a course from one abandonment to the next, leaving him in greater despair each time. Willys father leaves him and Ben when Willy is very young, lea ving Willy neither a tangible (money) nor an intangible (history) legacy. Ben eventually departs for Alaska, leaving Willy to lose himself in a warped vision of the American Dream. Likely a result of these early experiences, Willy develops a fear of abandonment, which makes him want his family to conform to the American Dream. His efforts to raise perfect sons, however, reflect his inability to understand reality. Theyoung Biff, whom Willy considers the embodiment of promise, drops Willy and Willys zealous ambitions for him when he finds out about Willys adultery. Biffs ongoing inability to succeed in business furthers his estrangement from Willy. When, at Franks Chop House, Willy finally believes that Biff is on the cups of greatness, Biff shatters Willys illusions and, along with Happy, abandons the deluded, babbling Willy in the washroom.BETRAYALWillys primary obsession end-to-end the play is what he considers to be Biffs betrayal of his ambitions for him. Willy believes that he has every right to expect Biff to fulfill the promise inherent in him. When Biff walks out on Willys ambitions for him, Willy takes this rejection as a personal affront (he associates it with insult and spite). Willy, after all, is a salesman, and Biffs ego-crushing spurn ultimately reflects Willys inability to sell him on the American Dream-the product in which Willy himself believes most faithfully. Willy assumes that Biffs betrayal stems from Biffs discovery of Willys affair with The Woman-a betrayal of Lindas love. Whereas Willy feels that Biff has betrayed him, Biff feels that Willy, a phony little fake, has betrayed him with his unending stream of ego-stroking lies.MOTIFSMotifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the texts major themes.MYTHIC FIGURESWillys tendency to mythologize people contributes to his deluded understanding of the world. He speaks of Dave Singleman as a legend and imagines that his death must have b een beautifully noble. Willy compares Biff and Happy to the mythic Greek figures Adonis and Hercules because he believes that his sons are pinnacles of personal attractiveness and power through well liked-ness to him, they seem the very incarnation of theAmerican Dream.Willys mythologizing proves quite nearsighted, however. Willy fails to realize the hopelessness of Singlemans lonely, on-the-job, on-the-road death. Trying to achieve what he considers to be Singlemans heroic status, Willy commits himself to a pathetic death and meaningless legacy (even if Willys life insurance policy ends up give off, Biff wants nothing to do with Willys ambition for him).THE AMERICAN WEST, ALASKA, AND THE AFRICAN JUNGLEThese regions represent the potential of instinct to Biff and Willy. Willys father found success in Alaska and his brother, Ben, became rich in Africa these exotic locales, especially when compared to Willys banal Brooklyn neighborhood, crystallize how Willys obsession with the comme rcial world of the city has pin down him in an unpleasant reality. Whereas Alaska and the African hobo camp symbolize Willys failure, the American West, on the other hand, symbolizes Biffs potential. Biff realizes that he has been content only when working on farms, out in the open. His westward escape from both Willys delusions and the commercial world of the eastern United States suggests a nineteenth-century pioneer mentality-Biff, contrasted Willy, recognizes the importance of the individual.SYMBOLSSymbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.SEEDSSeeds represent for Willy the opportunity to prove the worth of his labor, both as a salesman and a father. His desperate, nocturnal attempt to grow vegetables signifies his shame about barely being able to put food on the table and having nothing to leave his children when he passes. Willy feels that he has worked hard but fears that he will not be able to help hisoffspring any mor e than his own abandoning father helped him. The seeds also symbolize Willys sense of failure with Biff. Despite the American Dreams formula for success, which Willy considers infallible, Willys efforts to cultivate and nurture Biff went awry. Realizing that his all-American football star has turned into a lazy bum, Willy takes Biffs failure and lack of ambition as a reflection of his abilities as a father.DIAMONDSTo Willy, diamonds represent tangible wealth and, hence, both validation of ones labor (and life) and the ability to pass material goods on to ones offspring, two things that Willy desperately craves. Correlatively, diamonds, the discovery of which made Ben a fortune, symbolize Willys failure as a salesman. Despite Willys printing in the American Dream, a belief unwavering to the extent that he passed up the opportunity to go with Ben to Alaska, the Dreams promise of financial security has eluded Willy. At the end of the play, Ben encourages Willy to enter the jungle fina lly and retrieve this elusive diamond-that is, to kill himself for insurance money in order to make his life meaningful.LINDAS AND THE WOMANS STOCKINGSWillys strange obsession with the condition of Lindas stockings foreshadows his later flashback to Biffs discovery of him and The Woman in their Boston hotel room. The teenage Biff accuses Willy of giving away Lindas stockings to The Woman. Stockings assume a metaphorical weight as the symbol of betrayal and sexual infidelity. New stockings are important for both Willys pride in being financially successful and thus able to provide for his family and for Willys ability to ease his guilt about, and suppress the memory of, his betrayal of Linda and Biff.THE RUBBER irrigateThe rubber hose is a stage prop that reminds the audience of Willys desperate attempts at suicide. He has apparently attempted to kill himselfby inhaling boast, which is, ironically, the very substance essential to one of the most basic elements with which he must eq uip his home for his familys health and comfort-heat. Literal death by inhaling gas parallels the metaphorical death that Willy feels in his struggle to afford such a basic necessity.QUESTIONSThe play Death of a Salesman revolves mainly around a conflictbetween ?What are the reasons for Willys failure as a business man?American dream in the play Death of a salesman.What is the primaeval theme of the play Death of a salesman.The father son conflict in the play Death of a salesman.The hotel scene in the play Death of a salesman.The role of mother Linda Loman in the play Death of a salesman.Why did Biff Loman leave the school?The significance of the titleDeath of a salesman.Why did Willy commit suicide?The flash back scene in the play Death of a salesman.Millers play as a critique of the American way of life.