Death of a contradictory salesman in the ambiguous birthday party

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Recommended: Analysis the death of a salesman as a modern tragedy

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is a realist play which criticizes modern society; Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party is an absurdist play that examines human existence and language through deformed realism. There is apparently nothing common between the two plays; however, there is a similarity: contradiction and ambiguity are shown in the language of both plays. As I look into this issue, differences in the features and purposes of contradiction and ambiguity are found.
By contradiction and ambiguity, I mean that many details in the plays are contradicting according to different conversations in different scenes. As a result, no real happening can be obtained.
In Death of a Salesman, we cannot determine if Willy Loman was once a successful salesman or not. In Willy’s imaginary past, he described himself as a well-liked salesman who had opened up the market in New England. Later, when he talks with Howard, he claims that he averaged one hundred and seventy dollars a week in 1928, but Howard says that he never achieved that. Both of them are unreliable since Willy lives in dreams whereas Howard just wants to walk through the conversation, leaving an unclear answer to the question. Linda affirms Willy’s words by telling her sons that when Willy was young, his buyers were glad to see him and he was a pioneer of new territories for the company. Yet, her words are as well not trustworthy because Linda always backs up Willy’s fantasies. Just as she admits to Biff, she will do everything to keep Willy happy and bright.
There are even more equivocal points in The Birthday Party. As stated by Dukore (1962), “each piece of knowledge is a half-knowledge” (p. 44). McBride (2012) also observes that “the only truth of The Birthday Party...

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...n&folderAccountType=M&folderAccount=7422&folderID=102887&folderName=Death+of+a+Salesman&viewOption=NoIcon&moduleID=7422&fileID=618616&fileName=Cardullo.pdf
Koprince, S. (2012). The secret life of Willy Loman: A Miller-Thurber connection. The Midwest Quarterly, 53(4), 317-328. Retrieved from https://iln.hksyu.edu.hk/ILN/DownloadFileAction.do?Flag=Module_File_Operation&folderAccountType=M&folderAccount=7422&folderID=102887&folderName=Death+of+a+Salesman&viewOption=NoIcon&moduleID=7422&fileID=618618&fileName=Koprince.pdf
McBride, M. R. (2012). The Birthday Party bibliography. Retrieved December 29, 2013, from http://www.gradesaver.com /the-birthday-party /study-guide /bibliography/
Murphy, B. (1999). “Personality wins the day”: Death of a Salesman and popular sales advice literature. South Atlantic Review, 64(1), 1-10. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3201741

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