Death of a Salesman

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Death of a Salesman

Image:Death of a Salesman - Penguin Plays cover.jpg
Cover to the Penguin Group edition

Written by Arthur Miller
Characters Willy Loman
Linda
Biff
Happy
Bernard
The Woman
Letta
Charley
Uncle Ben
Howard Wagner
Jenny
Stanley
Miss Forsythe
Waiter
Date of premiere February 10, 1949
Country of origin United States
Genre Tragedy
Setting -Willy Loman's house
-Various places in New York and Barnaby River
-Late 1940s

Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play by Arthur Miller and is considered a classic of American theater. Viewed by many as a caustic attack on the American Dream of achieving wealth and success without regard for principle, Death of a Salesman made both Arthur Miller and the character Willy Loman household names. It was greeted with enthusiastic reviews, received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1949, the 1949 Tony Award for Best Play, as well as the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. Death of a Salesman was the first play to win these three major awards, helping to establish Miller as an internationally-known playwright. More profoundly, the play raises a counterexample to Aristotle's characterization of tragedy as the downfall of a great man, whether through (depending on the translator) a flaw in his character or a mistake he has made.

Contents

[edit] Plot synopsis

The play centers on Willy Loman, a salesman over sixty years old, who is beginning to lose his grip on reality. Willy places great emphasis on his supposed native charm and ability to make friends. According to him, he was once well known and liked throughout New England as a travelling salesman whose skills were unparalleled. His sons Biff and Happy (a nickname for Harold) were the pride and joy of the neighborhood, and his wife Linda was picturesque, smiling throughout the day. Unfortunately, time has passed, and now his life seems to be slipping out of control due to a mental breakdown because he feels his son, Biff, is a failure.

Willy has worked hard his entire life and ought to be retiring by now, living a life of luxury and closing deals with contractors on the phone—especially since increasing episodes of depersonalization and flashback are impairing his ability to drive. Instead, all of Willy's aspirations seem to have failed, none of Willy's old friends or previous customers remember him, and he remains useful to the company only as a traveling salesman. After a bout of anger before his boss, Howard Wagner, Willy is fired from his job. Howard is a man young enough to be Willy's son, whose father, was, in fact, a friend of Willy, and sought Willy's help in naming him. He further suffers the indignation of being pleading unsuccessfully for his hated job (which didn't pay enough anyway) as Howard (callously) reminds Willy that his sons are "well-liked" and should be successful so they can help him out.

Willy is now forced to rely on loans from his next-door-neighbor Charley to make ends meet. Charley is the closest thing Willy has to a friend, but Willy still harbors jealousy and contempt toward him for being more successful. Out of pity, Charley even offers the now-unemployed Willy a job, one that pays more and does not require him to travel, but Willy is too proud to take it (see below, as Willy is still believing the American Dream and accepting would destroy what he lived for). Biff, his 34-year-old son, has been unable to 'find himself' as a result of his inability to settle down (caused by Willy constantly insisting that he needed to 'make it big within two weeks'), and Happy, the younger son, lies shamelessly to make it seem as if he is the perfect Loman son. In contrast, Charley (who, Willy tells his boys conspiratorially, is not 'well-liked'), is now a successful businessman, and his son, Bernard, a formerly bespectacled bookworm and friend of Biff, is now a brilliant lawyer.

Biff and Willy confront each other at the play's climax; Biff confronting Willy's neurosis head-on, while Willy accuses Biff of throwing his life away simply to hurt Willy's feelings. Despite a raggedly emotional battle of words, neither is able to make much headway, but before Biff gives up, he breaks down in tears: "Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?" Willy is touched that Biff still cares for him after all, but fails to understand the deeper meaning of his words, and resolves to do everything possible to leave him with the right opportunities to strike it rich.

As the rest of the family goes upstairs to bed, Ben reappears over Willy's shoulder. Willy proclaims that in taking his own life, the attendance at his funeral would make a show to his doubting son of how popular he was in life, and that, if handled to look accidental, the payout from his life insurance policy will allow Biff to start his own business. This final action can be viewed as his attempt to leave a tangible legacy for his family. Willy acknowledges that, "Nothing grows here anymore" and his vain attempts to plant seeds during the darkness express his desperate desire to leave something behind. The neighborhood is drawn out of bed by the roar and smash of Willy's car, despite Ben's warnings that the insurance policy won't be honored in the event of suicide. Thus Willy's grand gesture — and indeed his earlier assertion that one is often "worth more dead than alive" — leaves his family (and especially his wife, Linda) in even worse a position than before.

The end of the play is a Requiem, which takes place at Willy's funeral, attended by Biff, Happy, Linda, Charley, and Bernard. Nobody else turns up and this shows the reader that regardless of how well liked Willy claimed he was to his children, nobody liked or remembered him.

Charley makes a very moving speech as Biff accuses Willy of not knowing what he really wanted in life; Charley explains that, as a salesman, all Willy ever got by on were his dreams, and they cannot blame him for having them. Happy insists, "Willy Loman did not die in vain", and says that he will 'fight' for Willy's, and his own corrupted version of the American Dream. At the graveyard, Biff says, "He had the wrong dreams. All, all, wrong." Happy tries to defend Willy, as he cannot understand Biff's point of view. Charley is the one who is perhaps best able to defend Willy's dream, saying that, being a salesman, all he really had was a dream.

In the last lines of the play, Linda, unable to cry, gets on her knees for the undertaker, delivering a final brief monologue: Willy's dream of owning his own house is realized in the requiem but only after his death; Linda paid the last payment on the mortgage that morning. This adds irony to the play, and shows us that the American Dream, for many, was just out of reach; the wrong dream to aim at.

As a salesman, Loman produced nothing (unlike the 'masses' that only have their labor to offer), but the fruits of Willy Loman's labor - and that of every other American salesman - were hopes and dreams. The American Dream is a variation of infatuation and illusionments in Willy's life.

[edit] Flashback

We are told how Willy had at least one affair while out on business trips, one that Biff walked in on and discovered. This terrible ordeal broke Biff's faith in his father and sent him on a downward spiral. As Willy had given The Woman stockings, considered a luxury at the time, this explains why he is continually haunted when his wife Linda mends stockings that he urges her to discard.

Willy is haunted by the memory of his dead brother Ben, who made a fortune in Africa in the gem trade. Ben then offered Willy a position overseeing some gold-rich land in Alaska, which Willy turned down (a choice he has regretted ever since). Ben has constantly overshadowed Willy, and he is in many ways the man that Willy wanted to be. Ben's approach is heralded by idyllic music, showing Willy's idolization of him, and in flashbacks we see Willy asking for Ben's advice on parenting.

Also shown through the flashbacks is Willy forcing his ideas of success on Happy and Biff. As the boys are shown growing up, Willy emphasizes the important of being well liked and handsome, but never the importance of hard work.

[edit] Style

The play is mostly told from Willy's point of view, and the play occasionally flashes back to previous parts of Willy's life, sometimes during a present day scene. It does this by having a scene begin in the present time and adding characters onto the stage that only Willy can see and hear, representing characters and conversations from other times and places. One example of this is during a conversation between Willy and his neighbor Charley. During the conversation, Willy's brother comes on stage and begins talking to Willy while Charley speaks to Willy. When Willy begins talking to his brother, the other characters do not understand who he is talking to and some of them even begin to suspect that he has "lost it". However, at times it breaks away from Willy's point of view and focuses on the other characters, Linda, Biff and Happy. During these parts of the play, the time and place stays constant without any abrupt flashbacks as usually happens while the play takes Willy's point of view.

The play's structure resembles a stream of consciousness account: Willy drifts between his living room, downstage, to the apron and flashbacks of an idyllic past, and also to fantasized conversations with Ben. The use of these different 'states' allows Miller to contrast Willy's dreams and the reality of his life in extraordinary detail; and also allows him to contrast the characters themselves, showing them in both sympathetic and villainous lights, gradually unfolding the story, and refusing to allow the audience a permanent judgment about anyone. When we are in the present the characters abide by the rules of the set, entering only through the stage door to the left; however, when we visit Willy's 'past' these rules are removed, with characters openly moving through walls. Whereas the term 'flashback' as a form of cinematography for these scenes is often heard, Miller himself rather speaks of 'mobile concurrences'. In fact, flashbacks would show an objective image of the past. Miller's mobile concurrences, however, rather show highly subjective memories. Furthermore, as Willy's mental state deteriorates, the boundaries between past and present are destroyed, and the two start to exist in parallel.

[edit] On stage

  • Lee J. Cobb - Willy Loman
  • Mildred Dunnock - Linda
  • Arthur Kennedy - Biff
  • Thomas Chalmers - Uncle Ben
  • Alan Hewitt - Howard Wagner
  • Cameron Mitchell - Happy
  • Howard Smith - Charley
  • Hope Cameron - Letta
  • Winifred Cushing - The Woman
  • Anne Driscoll - Secretary
  • Constance Ford - Miss Forsythe
  • Don Keefer - Bernard
  • Tom Pedi - Stanley

Produced by Kermit Bloomgarden and Walter Fried

Written by Arthur Miller

Incidental music by Alex North

The original production opened on February 10, 1949 at the Morosco Theatre, and ran for 742 performances. Lee J. Cobb starred as Willy. The production won the Tony Award for: Best Play; Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Arthur Kennedy); Best Scenic Design (Jo Mielziner); Producer (Dramatic); Author (Arthur Miller); Best Director (Elia Kazan). The play won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Jayne Mansfield, a Hollywood actress once compared, in some ways, to Marilyn Monroe, performed in a production of the play in Dallas, Texas in October, 1953. Her performance in the play attracted Paramount Pictures to hire her for the studio's film productions.[1]

The play has been revived on Broadway three times since:

[edit] Film and television versions

[edit] References in popular culture

  • Death of a Salesman is alluded to in the Seinfeld episode "The Subway." Jerry Seinfeld reminds George Costanza not to whistle in the elevator (the same advice Willy gives Biff). Jerry then continued to call George "Biff" (This can also be seen in "The Boyfriend, Part 1" when Jerry mocks George's idea of become fit, saying, "So Biff wants to be buff.").
  • In the Seinfeld episode "The Summer of George," after accidentally winning a Tony Award, Cosmo Kramer tells his new friends of a discussion with "Arty" that he should have called his play Life of a Salesman.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Va Va Voom by Steve Sullivan. General Publishing Group, Los Angeles, California, Page 50

[edit] Bibliography

  • Sandage, Scott A., Born Losers: A History of Failure in America, (Harvard University Press, 2005)
  • Foster, Richard A Smolen, "Confusion and tragedy: the failure of Miller's 'Salesman." in Two Modern Tragedies: Reviews and Criticisms of 'Death of a Salesman' and 'Streetcar named Desire', Ed. John D. Hurell. Scribner's, 1961, pp. 82-8

[edit] External links

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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Death of a Salesman
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Works by Arthur Miller
Plays:No Villain · They Too Arise · Honors at Dawn · The Man Who Had All the Luck · All My Sons · Death of a Salesman · An Enemy of the People · The Crucible · A View from the Bridge · A Memory of Two Mondays · The Misfits · After the Fall · Incident At Vichy · The Price · The Creation of the World and Other Business · The Archbishop's Ceiling · The American Clock · Up from Paradise · Elegy for a Lady · Some Kind of Love Story · Everybody Wins · The Last Yankee · The Ride Down Mt. Morgan · Broken Glass · Mr. Peters' Connections · Resurrection Blues · Finishing the Picture
Fiction:Focus (novel) · "The Misfits" (short story) · I Don't Need You Anymore (short stories) · Homely Girl: A Life (three short stories)
Non-fiction:Situation Normal · In Russia · In the Country · Chinese Encounters · Salesman in Beijing · Timebends (autobiography)
v • d • e
Tony Award for Best Play: Winners (1948–1969)
de:Tod eines Handlungsreisenden

it:Morte di un commesso viaggiatore he:מותו של סוכן nl:Dood van een handelsreiziger ja:セールスマンの死 pt:A Morte do Caixeiro Viajante ru:Смерть коммивояжера (фильм) sv:En handelsresandes död th:อวสานเซลส์แมน zh:推銷員之死

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