Death is such a contradicting situation. It is always a sad event, but in some
perspectives it may or may not be a joyous event. Not to say that death should be
celebrated, just to point out that life may have been a more dramatic experience.
For my first novel in G.T. I read Death of a Salesman, a play written by Arthur
Miller. Arthur Miller was born in 1915, in New York City. His parents were well To do
until the depression. He attended college where he won three drama prizes. Death of a
Salesman was his their Broadway play.
The play Death of A Salesman was an extremely confusing play, it was a dialogue
between a family of people. There were numerous flashbacks used to illustrate things that
happened in the past. The overall purposeof the flashbacks was to describe the situation
that Willy Loman, the main character, was dillusional. I feel that in this the characters of
this book are well described. The author describes Willy was an average man with a
somewhat normal life. His wife Linda is loving and like any woman she sticks by her man.
Happy and Biff are Willy and Linda’s sons. The play takes place when Biff and Happy
come to visit their parentsfor a couple of days.
The play is reality that most books and movies do not display. It shows an average
american family struggling to get by. In the play it is apparent that the characters have
strong dreams and aspirations. It is also obvious that they have not yet succeeded in
accomplishing them. Quite a few events happen that prove, no matter how hard someone
tries, in society things change and it is hard to reach full potential.
The authors of the play puts more reality into the central theme of the play. People
get old and begin to do odd things such as talk to people that are not there or people that
only exists in their minds. Throughout the play Willy would have conversations with
people that he believed were there, but they really were not. Willy strived to be the best
and if he was not successful, then things were not good enough. He was ashamed that his
money supply was not sufficentenough to support his family. The theme changed
throughout the course of the book. I believe the point that he was trying to emphasize
was to never give up and all the barriers in the way will be broken.
This play has taught me the lesson that life is how one individual person decides to
Willy, Linda, Biff and Happy are all characters that use self- deception as a way to mentally escape the terrible reality of their lives. As the play progresses, and ends Biff is truly the one and only character that becomes self- aware. At the end of the play Biff accepts the lies his family and him have been living in for years. Biff makes huge changes mentally at the end of the play, which cannot be said for the rest of the Loman family.
"Death of a Salesman." Free Study Guides for Shakespeare and Other Authors. Web. 18 Mar. 2012. .
Happy Loman has grown up to be a well-adjusted man of society. He has developed from a follower to a potentially successful businessman. Throughout his childhood, Happy always had to settle for second fiddle. Willy, his father, always seems to focus all his attention on Happy's older brother Biff. The household conversation would constantly be about how Biff is going to be a phenomenal football star, how Biff will be attending the University of Virginia and be the big man on campus, how Biff is so adulated among his friends and peers, and so on. Young Happy was always in Biff's shadow, always competing for his father's attention but failing each time. Happy would resort to such antics as laying on his back and pedaling his feet backwards to capture his father's attention but to no avail. Willy would continue to not take notice of his younger son and maintain his attention on other matters that he thought were of greater importance. Growing up under these conditions is what motivated Happy to be the man he is today.
The characters address the audience; the fast movement from scene to scene juxtaposing past and present and prevents us from identifying with particular characters, forcing us to assess their points of view; there are few characters who fail to repel us, as they display truly human complexity and fallibility. That fallibility is usually associated with greed and a ruthless disregard for the needs of others. Emotional needs are rarely acknowledged by those most concerned with taking what they maintain is theirs, and this confusion of feeling and finance contributes to the play's ultimate bleak mood.
The play is based loosely on fact but more importantly it is set in a
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman; Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem. New York: Viking, 1949. Print.
...of the characters’ lives as their motivation affects what they do. The play’s overall theme of manipulation for personal gain as well as general control transmits to me clearly that we are not in control, of the events that happen to us. In spite of that revelation we are in control of the way in which we react to the circumstances in our lives. Hence, no human fully grasps the capabilities to control the way we act. We simply allow certain circumstances to overpower us and dictate our actions. Ultimately, I learned that we are our actions and consequently we should acknowledge the accountability that is implied when we act a certain way. Instead of blaming others for the mistakes we make, we should understand that we have the control as much as the power to make our own decisions rather than giving that ability someone else.
Biff is home for a visit and is talking with his brother, Happy in their room just as they did when they were young boys. Willy has come home prematurely from a business trip and is downstairs when the boys overhear him talking to himself in a sort of quasi-reality. In the meantime, the two boys discuss the past. It is interesting here that the roles of the two boys with respect to each other seem to have reversed. Happy was the shy one growing up and Biff had all the courage and self-confidence. Now, Biff appears to have been beaten down by life and is on the brink of the se...
...me period without using artificial “memorable speech”. This conveyance of realism to the audience is vital for Willy’s motives to seem plausible, and for Willy to be believed in as a character. On the other hand however, “Death of a Salesman” offers the audience another aspect of the play in which the inner mind of a character is symbolically represented in an expressionistic way on stage. Arthur Miller however succeeds in combining theses seemingly contradictory techniques, by conveying a sense of realism in the way the protagonist’s mind is portrayed, creates what sets it aside from anything alike it.
Willy is a Multifaceted character who portrayed a deep problem with sociological and psychological causes and done so with disturbing reality.
He is fervently determined to succeed in his contemporary competitive society. In a conversation with his children about Bernard, he enumerates a few features he presumes as important if one wants to have success. Willy tells his children that Bernard might get the best grades in school, but they will certainly have more success than he will as they are “[…] built like Adonis’s” (Miller 34). Willy assumes that it is necessary to be attractive to become successful. Additionally, he says that it is “[…] the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead” (Miller 34). Moreover, Willy states that “it’s not what you say; it’s how you say it – because personality always wins the day” (Miller 70). Willy believes that if he wants to become a successful businessperson, he has to impress people with his appearance and with his looks; he has to seduce his customers with his personality and his charm. Willy has his own role model he looks up to - it is Dave Singleman, who incarnates what Willy so adamantly wants to be, as he became a successful businessperson. Through him, […] [Willy] real...
...h other or from their situation in general. The optimistic view of the play shows a range of human emotion and the need to share experiences alongside the suffering of finite existence; governed by the past, acting in the present and uncertain of the future.
of interest to the play making it a great play to read and also act
"SparkNotes: Death of a Salesman: important quotations Explained ." SparkNotes . N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. .
Willy is a multi-faceted character which Miller has portrayed a deep problem with sociological and psychological causes and done so with disturbing reality. In another time or another place Willy might have been successful and kept his Sanity, but as he grew up, society's values changed and he was left out in the cold. His foolish pride, bad judgment and his disloyalty are also at fault for his tragic end and the fact that he did not die the death of a salesman.