death of a salesman idealism essay

24/7 writing help on your phone

To install StudyMoose App tap and then “Add to Home Screen”

Tragic Impact of Idealism in "Death of a Salesman"

Save to my list

Remove from my list

The Tragic Tale of Willy Loman

Idealism and Its Effect on Family Relationships

The grim reality, balancing idealism and truth.

Tragic Impact of Idealism in "Death of a Salesman". (2016, Jul 21). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/death-of-a-salesman-idealism-and-truth-essay

"Tragic Impact of Idealism in "Death of a Salesman"." StudyMoose , 21 Jul 2016, https://studymoose.com/death-of-a-salesman-idealism-and-truth-essay

StudyMoose. (2016). Tragic Impact of Idealism in "Death of a Salesman" . [Online]. Available at: https://studymoose.com/death-of-a-salesman-idealism-and-truth-essay [Accessed: 20 Aug. 2024]

"Tragic Impact of Idealism in "Death of a Salesman"." StudyMoose, Jul 21, 2016. Accessed August 20, 2024. https://studymoose.com/death-of-a-salesman-idealism-and-truth-essay

"Tragic Impact of Idealism in "Death of a Salesman"," StudyMoose , 21-Jul-2016. [Online]. Available: https://studymoose.com/death-of-a-salesman-idealism-and-truth-essay. [Accessed: 20-Aug-2024]

StudyMoose. (2016). Tragic Impact of Idealism in "Death of a Salesman" . [Online]. Available at: https://studymoose.com/death-of-a-salesman-idealism-and-truth-essay [Accessed: 20-Aug-2024]

• Theories of Materialism and Idealism Pages: 9 (2457 words)
• Differences Between Idealism and Realism Pages: 11 (3209 words)
• Consequences of Romantic Idealism Pages: 6 (1614 words)
• Paco's youthful idealism in "For Whom The Bell Tolls": A symbol of lost innocence. Pages: 2 (570 words)
• Idealism vs. Realism: Exploring Philosophical Perspectives Pages: 6 (1523 words)
• Chris McCandless: Idealism Unveiled Through Tragedy Pages: 3 (638 words)
• Sherwood Anderson's Tale of Horse Racing Idealism Pages: 3 (759 words)
• Realism and Idealism in International Relations Pages: 4 (1060 words)
• The Conceptions Of Idealism And Realism in Modern Science Fiction Pages: 6 (1778 words)
• Comparing Idealism, Realism, and Marxism in International Relations Pages: 2 (515 words)

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Drama Criticism › Analysis of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

Analysis of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 30, 2020 • ( 0 )

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is, perhaps, to this time, the most mature example of a myth of Contemporary life. The chief value of this drama is its attempt to reveal those ultimate meanings which are resident in modern experience. Perhaps the most significant comment on this play is not its literary achievement, as such, but is, rather, the impact which it has had on spectators, both in America and abroad. The influence of this drama, first performed in 1949, continues to grow in World Theatre. For it articulates, in language which can be appreciated by popular audiences, certain new dimensions of the human dilemma.

—Esther Merle Jackson, “ Death of a Salesman : Tragic Myth in the Modern Theatre”

It can be argued that the Great American Novel—that always elusive imaginative summation of the American experience—became the Great American Drama in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman . Along with Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night , Miller’s masterpiece forms the defining myth of the American family and the American dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is the play’s only rival in American literature in expressing the tragic side of the American myth of success and the ill-fated American dreamers. A landmark and cornerstone 20th-century drama, Death of a Salesman is crucial in the history of American theater in presenting on stage an archetypal family drama that is simultaneously intimate and representative, social and psychological, realistic and expressionistic. Critic Lois Gordon has called it “the major American drama of the 1940s” that “remains unequalled in its brilliant and original fusion of realistic and poetic techniques, its richness of visual and verbal texture, and its wide range of emotional impact.” Miller’s play, perhaps more than any other, established American drama as the decisive arena for addressing the key questions of American identity and social and moral values, while pioneering methods of expression that liberated American theater. The drama about the life and death of salesman Willy Loman is both thoroughly local in capturing a particular time and place and universal, one of the most popular and adapted American plays worldwide. Willy Loman has become the contemporary Everyman, prompting widespread identification and sympathy. By centering his tragedy on a lower middle-class protagonist—insisting, as he argued in “Tragedy and the Common Man,” that “the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were”—Miller completed the democratization of drama that had begun in the 19th century while setting the terms for a key debate over dramatic genres that has persisted since Death of a Salesman opened in 1949.

Miller’s subjects, themes, and dramatic mission reflect his life experiences, informed by the Great Depression, which he regarded as a “moral catastrophe,” rivaled, in his view, only by the Civil War in its profound impact on American life. Miller was born in 1915, in New York City. His father, who had emigrated from Austria at the age of six, was a successful coat manufacturer, prosperous enough to afford a chauffeur and a large apartment over-looking Central Park. For Miller’s family, an embodiment of the American dream that hard work and drive are rewarded, the stock market crash of 1929 changed everything. The business was lost, and the family was forced to move to considerably reduced circumstances in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn in a small frame house that served as the model for the Lomans’ residence. Miller’s father never fully recovered from his business failure, and his mother was often depressed and embittered by the family’s poverty, though both continued to live in hope of an economic recovery to come. For Miller the depression exposed the hollowness and fragility of the American dream of material success and the social injustice inherent in an economic system that created so many blameless casualties. The paradoxes of American success—its stimulation of both dreams and guilt when lost or unrealized, as well as the conflict it created between self-interest and social responsibility—would become dominant themes in Miller’s work. As a high school student Miller was more interested in sports than studies. “Until the age of seventeen I can safely say that I never read a book weightier than Tom Swift , and Rover Boys, ” Miller recalled, “and only verged on literature with some of Dickens. . . . I passed through the public school system unscathed.” After graduating from high school in 1932 Miller went to work in an auto parts warehouse in Manhattan. It was during his subway commute to and from his job that Miller began reading, discovering both the power of serious literature to change the way one sees the world and his vocation: “A book that changed my life was The Brothers Karamazov which I picked up, I don’t know how or why, and all at once believed I was born to be a writer.”

In 1934 Miller was accepted as a journalism student at the University of Michigan. There he found a campus engaged by the social issues of the day: “The place was full of speeches, meetings and leaflets. It was jumping with Issues. . . . It was, in short, the testing ground for all my prejudices, my beliefs and my ignorance, and it helped to lay out the boundaries of my life.” At Michigan Miller wrote his first play, despite having seen only two plays years before, to compete for prize money he needed for tuition. Failing in his first attempt he would eventually twice win the Avery Hopwood Award. Winning “made me confident I could go ahead from there. It left me with the belief that the ability to write plays is born into one, and that it is a kind of sport of the mind.” Miller became convinced that “with the exception of a doctor saving a life, writing a worthy play was the most important thing a human could do.” He would embrace the role of the playwright as social conscience and reformer who could help change America, by, as he put it “grabbing people and shaking them by the back of the neck.” Two years after graduating in 1938, having moved back to Brooklyn and married his college sweetheart, Miller had completed six plays, all but one of them rejected by producers. The Man Who Had All the Luck, a play examining the ambiguities of success and the money ethic, managed a run of only four performances on Broadway in 1944. Miller went to work at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, tried his hand at radio scripts, and attempted one more play. “I laid myself a wager,” he wrote in his autobiography. “I would hold back this play until I was as sure as I could be that every page was integral to the whole and would work; then, if my judgment of it proved wrong, I would leave the theater behind and write in other forms.” The play was All My Sons, about a successful manufacturer who sells defective aircraft parts and is made to face the consequences of his crime and his responsibilities. It is Miller’s version of a Henrik Ibsen problem play, linking a family drama to wider social issues. Named one of the top-10 plays of 1947, All My Sons won the Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award over Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh. The play’s success allowed Miller to buy property in rural Connecticut where he built a small studio and began work on Death of a Salesman .

This play, subtitled “Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem,” about the last 24 hours of an aging and failing traveling salesman misguided by the American dream, began, as the playwright recounts in his introduction to his Collected Plays , with an initial image

of an enormous face the height of the proscenium arch which would appear and then open up, and we would see the inside of a man’s head. In fact, The Inside of His Head was the first title. . . . The image was in direct opposition to the method of All My Sons —a method one might call linear or eventual in that one fact or incident creates the necessity for the next. The Salesman image was from the beginning absorbed with the concept that nothing in life comes “next” but that everything exists together and at the same time within us; that there is no past to be “brought forward” in a human being, but that he is his past at every moment. . . . I wished to create a form which, in itself as a form, would literally be the process of Willy Loman’s way of mind.

The play took shape by staging the past in the present, not through flashbacks of Willy’s life but by what the playwright called “mobile concurrency of past and present.” Miller recalled beginning

with only one firm piece of knowledge and this was that Loman was to destroy himself. How it would wander before it got to that point I did not know and resolved not to care. I was convinced only that if I could make him remember enough he would kill himself, and the structure of the play was determined by what was needed to draw up his memories like a mass of tangled roots without ends or beginning.

At once realistic in its documentation of American family life and expressionistic in its embodiment of consciousness on stage, Death of a Salesman opens with the 63-year-old Willy Loman’s return to his Brooklyn home, revealing to his worried wife, Linda, that he kept losing control of his car on a selling trip to Boston. Increasingly at the mercy of his memories Willy, in Miller’s analysis, “is literally at that terrible moment when the voice of the past is no longer distant but quite as loud as the voice of the present.” Reflecting its protagonist, “The way of telling the tale . . . is as mad as Willy and as abrupt and as suddenly lyrical.” The family’s present—Willy’s increasing mental instability, his failure to earn the commissions he needs to survive, and his disappointment that his sons, Biff and Happy, have failed to live up to expectations—intersects with scenes from the past in which both their dreams and the basis for their disillusionment are exposed. In the present Biff, the onetime star high school athlete with seeming unlimited prospects in his doting father’s estimation, is 34, having returned home from another failed job out west and harboring an unidentified resentment of his father. As Biff confesses, “everytime I come back here I know that all I’ve done is to waste my life.” His brother, Happy, is a deceitful womanizer trapped in a dead-end job who confesses that despite having his own apartment, “a car, and plenty of women . . . still, goddammit, I’m lonely.” The present frustrations of father and sons collide with Willy’s memory when all was youthful promise and family harmony. In a scene in which Biff with the prospect of a college scholarship seems on the brink of attaining all Willy has expected of him, both boys hang on their father’s every word as he exults in his triumphs as a successful salesman:

America is full of beautiful towns and fine, upstanding people. And they know me, boys, they know me up and down New England. The finest people. And when I bring you fellas up, there’ll be open sesame for all of us, ’cause one thing, boys: I have friends. I can park my car in any street in New England, and the cops protect it like their own.

Triumphantly, Willy passes on his secret of success: “Be liked and you will never want.” His advice exposes the fatal fl aw in his life view that defines success by exterior rather than interior values, by appearance and possessions rather than core morals. Even in his confident memory, however, evidence of the undermining of his self-confidence and aspirations occurs as Biff plays with a football he has stolen and father and son ignore the warning of the grind Bernard (who “is liked, but he’s not well liked”) that Biff risks graduating by not studying. Willy’s popularity and prowess as a salesman are undermined by Linda’s calculation of her husband’s declining commissions, prompting Willy to confess that “people don’t seem to take to me.” Invading Willy’s memory is the realization that he is far from the respected and resourceful salesman he has boasted being to his sons as he struggles to meet the payments on the modern appliances that equip the American dream of success. Moreover, to boost his sagging spirits on the road he has been unfaithful to his loving and supportive wife. To protect himself from these hurtful memories Willy is plunged back into the present for a card game with Bernard’s father, Charley. Again the past intrudes in the form of a memory of a rare visit by Willy’s older brother, Ben, who has become rich and whose secrets for success elude Willy. Back in the present Willy is hopeful at Biff’s plan to go see an old employer, Bill Oliver, for the money to start up a Loman Brothers sporting goods line. The act ends with Willy’s memory of Biff’s greatest moment—the high school football championship:

Like a young god. Hercules—something like that. And the sun, the sun all around him. Remember how he waved to me? Right up from the field, with the representatives of three colleges standing by? And the buyers I brought, and the cheers when he came out—Loman, Loman, Loman! God Almighty, he’ll be great yet. A star like that, magnificent, can never really fade away!

The second act shatters all prospects, revealing the full truth that Willy has long evaded about himself and his family in a series of crushing blows. Expecting to trade on his 34 years of loyal service to his employer for a nontraveling, salaried position in New York, Willy is forced to beg for a smaller and smaller salary before he is fired outright, prompting one of the great lines of the play: “You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away—a man is not a piece of fruit.” Rejecting out of pride a job offer from Charley, Willy meets his son for dinner where Biff reveals that his get-rich scheme has collapsed. Bill Oliver did not remember who he was, kept him waiting for hours, and resentfully Biff has stolen his fountain pen from his desk. Biff now insists that Willy face the truth—that Biff was only a shipping clerk and that Oliver owes him nothing—but Willy refuses to listen, with his need to believe in his son and the future forcing Biff to manufacture a happier version of his meeting and its outcome. Biff’s anger and resentment over the old family lies about his prospects, however, cause Willy to relive the impetus of Biff’s loss of faith in him in one of the tour de force scenes in modern drama. Biff and Happy’s attempt to pick up two women at the restaurant interconnects with Willy’s memory of Biff’s arrival at Willy’s Boston hotel unannounced. There he discovers a partially dressed woman in his father’s room. Having failed his math class and jeopardized his scholarship, Biff has come to his father for help. Willy’s betrayal of Linda, however, exposes the hollowness of Willy’s moral authority and the disjunction between the dreams Willy sells and its reality:

Willy: She’s nothing to me, Biff. I was lonely, I was terribly lonely.

Biff: You—you gave her Mama’s stockings!

Willy: I gave you an order!

Biff: Don’t touch me, you—liar!

Willy: Apologize for that!

Biff: You fake! You phony little fake! You fake!

Willy’s guilt over the collapse of his son’s belief in him leads him to a final redemptive dream. Returning home, symbolically outside planting seeds, he discusses with Ben his scheme to kill himself for the insurance money as a legacy to his family and a final proof of his worth as a provider of his sons’ success. Before realizing this dream Willy must endure a final assault of truth from Biff who confesses to being nothing more than a thief and a bum, incapable of holding down a job—someone who is, like Willy, a “dime a dozen,” no better than any other hopeless striver: “I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can like all the rest of them!” Biff’s fury explodes into a tearful embrace of his father. After Biff departs upstairs the significance of his words and actions are both realized and lost by the chronic dreamer:

Willy, after a long pause, astonished, elevated Isn’t that—isn’t that remarkable? Biff—he likes me!

Linda: He loves you, Willy!

Happy ,deeply moved Always did, Pop.

Willy: Oh. Biff! Staring wildly: He cried! Cried to me. He is choking with his love, and now cries out his promise: That boy—that boy is going to be magnificent!

Analysis of Arthur Miller’s Plays

Doggedly holding onto the dream of his son’s prospects, sustained by his son’s love, Willy finally sets out in his car to carry out his plan, while the scene shifts to his funeral in which Linda tries to understand her husband’s death, and Charley provides the eulogy:

Nobody dast blame this man. You don’t understand: Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. And then you get a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.

Linda delivers the final, heartbreaking lines over her husband’s grave: “Willy. I made the last payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there’ll be nobody home. We’re free and clear. We’re free. We’re free . . . We’re free. . . .”

The power and persistence of Death of a Salesman derives from its remarkably intimate view of the dynamic of a family driven by their collective dreams. Critical debate over whether Willy lacks the stature or self-knowledge to qualify as a tragic hero seems beside the point in performance. Few other modern dramas have so powerfully elicited pity and terror in their audiences. Whether Willy is a tragic hero or Death of a Salesman is a modern tragedy in any Aristotelian sense, he and his story have become core American myths. Few critics worry over whether Jay Gatsby is a tragic hero, but Gatsby shares with Willy Loman the essential American capacity to dream and to be destroyed by what he dreams. The concluding lines of The Great Gatsby equally serve as a requiem for both men:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eludes us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . . And one fine morning—

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Share this:

Categories: Drama Criticism , Literature

Tags: American Dream in Death of a Salesman , American Literature , Analysis of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Arthur Miller , Bibliography of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Character Study of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Criticism of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Death of a Salesman , Death of a Salesman American Dream , Death of a Salesman Analysis , Death of a Salesman Criticism , Death of a Salesman Essay , Death of a Salesman Guide , Death of a Salesman Lecture , Death of a Salesman PDF , Death of a Salesman Summary , Death of a Salesman Themes , Drama Criticism , Essays of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Literary Criticism , Notes of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Plot of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Simple Analysis of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Study Guides of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Summary of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Synopsis of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Themes of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

Related Articles

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Death of a Salesman

Introduction to death of a salesman, summary of death of a salesman, characters in death of a salesman, themes in death of a salesman, writing style of death of a salesman, literary devices in death of a salesman, related posts:, post navigation.

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Death of a Salesman — Analysis of “Death of a Salesman”

Analysis of "Death of a Salesman"

• Categories: Death of a Salesman

About this sample

Words: 847 |

Published: Jan 31, 2024

Words: 847 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Table of contents

Body paragraph 1: the illusion of the american dream, body paragraph 2: the demise of the traditional family, body paragraph 3: the dehumanizing effects of capitalism, body paragraph 4: the evolving definition of success, counterargument: critiques and alternatives, references:.

• Trandell, Jesica et al. "American Dream: Is the American Dream Dead or Alive?" Michael H. Conseur Company, 2020, https://www.ihcnp.com/american-dream/.
• "Family Dynamics - a Look at the American Family." Walden University, http://www.waldenu.edu/connect/newsroom/publications/articles/2012/08-family-dynamics-a-look-at-the-american-family.
• Kasser, Tim. "Materialistic Values and Goals." Psychology Today, 21 June 2012, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychology-and-the-good-life/201206/materialistic-values-and-goals.
• Ramasubbu, Shantala. "Death of a Salesman: A Mindmap and General Notes." Ramasubbu, 2011, https://ramasubbutech.blogspot.com/2011/02/death-of-salesman-mindmap.html.
• SparkNotes Editors. "SparkNote on Death of a Salesman." SparkNotes.com, SparkNotes LLC, 2002, http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/salesman/.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Verified writer

• Expert in: Literature

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

2 pages / 945 words

2 pages / 766 words

5 pages / 2287 words

2.5 pages / 1270 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Death of a Salesman

Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" is a cornerstone of American theater, exploring the disillusionment of the American Dream through the life of Willy Loman, a struggling salesman. The play is rich in symbolism, which Miller [...]

The American Dream is a prominent theme in Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman. The concept of the American Dream originated in the early twentieth century, as many immigrants came to America in search of economic [...]

In Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman," the central conflict revolves around the protagonist, Willy Loman, and his struggle to achieve the American Dream. The play delves into the complexities of familial relationships, [...]

“Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller displays a man whose inability to accept change within himself, and the reality of his life led to his and his family’s loss of identity and grasp of the truth. This man is Willy Loman [...]

The issue of gender equality is a pressing topic in our modern society. Over the course of the past century, we have established human rights, racial rights, and even animal rights. So why is it that when a woman demands [...]

After the Second World War, writers started to use their platform as a way to voice their opinions and concerns with the world. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller which was performed in 1949 tells the tragedy of Willy Loman [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Pardon Our Interruption

As you were browsing something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen:

• You've disabled JavaScript in your web browser.
• You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed.
• You've disabled cookies in your web browser.
• A third-party browser plugin, such as Ghostery or NoScript, is preventing JavaScript from running. Additional information is available in this support article .

To regain access, please make sure that cookies and JavaScript are enabled before reloading the page.

• Ask LitCharts AI
• Discussion Question Generator
• Essay Prompt Generator
• Quiz Question Generator

• Literature Guides
• Poetry Guides
• Shakespeare Translations
• Literary Terms

Death of a Salesman

Arthur miller.

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

• Quizzes, saving guides, requests, plus so much more.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Exploration of Idealism and Realism in Arthur Miller's Play, Death of a Salesman

2022, Gloabal Language Review

The current research examines the elements of Idealism and Realism in Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman. Miller's play is opted through purposive sampling technique. Primary source, a Play, Death of a Salesman, and secondary sources, such as dissertations, articles, thesis, and newspapers are used as an instrument for data collection. Plato's Idealism and the realism of Aristotle are used as a framework for the present work. Idealism is revealed through the analysis of the hero, Willy Loman's Character. The protagonist misunderstands American Dream, he is a dreamer salesman. He wants to become a successful businessman, but he fails. Willy lives in illusions, while the real world is absolutely different. He is the echo of postmodern American society. Realism is an important theory identified in Miller's play, Death of a Salesman. Charley is a practical character in the play, his approach is rational, practical and realistic towards life.

Related Papers

Ayham Abu Orouq

ABSTRACT This study aims to analyze Arthur Miller's greatest tragedy Death of a Salesman, utilizing the new historicist approach as the main methodology. The study chiefly examines the outside contexts regarding the biographical, historical, political, social and cultural contexts, making special reference to the characters, themes and events of the play. The findings of the study show that Miller's Death of a Salesman is a product of its time, place, circumstances and the playwright’s biography. The play is a social commentary on certain values, beliefs and morals that were common in the American society in the 1930s. Despite Miller’s artistic creativity, he was affected by particular historical events such as the Great Depression (1929-1939), World War II, The Cold War, the wide spread of capitalism and the economic boom of the late 1940s. Finally, the themes of the play are drawn from Miller's society such as the failure of the American dream, the family theme, father-son relationship and mother-son relationship. Key Words: Death of a salesman, New Historicism, Great Depression, Capitalism

International Research Journal Commerce arts science

Arthur Miller, one of the prolific writers in America. He received the Pulitzer Prize for the play Death of a Salesman in 1949. This play represents a successful attempt to blend the themes of social, personal and psychological tragedy within the some dramatic framework. It is also represents the theme of American tragedy. This play explores protagonist downfall and final defeat illustrate not only the failure of man but also the failure of way of life. It gives the clear picture of psychological tragedy of American lower middle class man. This article attempts focus on the psychological tragedy of salesman

Arts and Social Sciences Journal

Khaleel Ismail

Manav Kambli

Jahan e tahqeeq

Samar Bokhari

The present paper focuses on the cherished American dream, the reality and the reality manifested. The two have always been poles apart. But with this there is another reality i.e., the willingness of followers to be conned. The best of American Dream is divulged in the Death of the Salesman by Arthur Miller. The more we study profoundly, the eccentric character of a typical salesman Willy Loman, the more unpredictability of the American dreams unfolds itself, layer by layer. That Salesman is not of one cadre of society, rather he has in himself several other strata too. He is typified for middle class, lower middle class and even those who wish to be of any class, to be one with the society. Even, through his character we can make psychoanalysis of people of such character, demeanor or the profession existing all around us. But will it be the psychoanalysis of the man himself or the psychoanalysis of the American Dream personified. Loman's dysfunctional family, and his own life too, show the seething impressions of standardized lifeexplicitly, norms of American Success Formula. The tragic death he meets in the end, fixedly focuses on the death of the American Dream itself. But the most drastic aspect of it is the Existentialism, pervaded into the lives of these people taking them to the unrealistic goals.

Muh arif Dermawan. S

This research aims at describing the influence of American Dream on Willy Loman’s characterization as a husband, father, and a salesman. The research applied a library research to collect information about the Death of a Salesman, American Dream and the author, Arthur Miller In doing the analysis, the writer used the structural method and sociological approach. The data were analyzed the characterization of Willy Loman by using structural approach, the writer continued her analysis to find out the influence of American Dream on Willy Loman’s characterizations by using sociological approach. The result of the research shows that Willy Loman’s characterizations are influenced by his ambition to pursue his American Dream. Willy Loman’s dream for being successful salesman and as a father makes him disappointed after he knows that he is fired from Howard’s Company and when he realizes that Biff in 34 years old does not has a proper...

yaseen khan

Yasir Chaman

Muhammad Kiki Wardana

This study aims to broaden and sharpen the critical thinking in understanding and analyzing the text of the play or in any literary works through Given Circumstances approach. The given circumstance approach has never been the limelight in the school of literary criticism but the sheer of relatedness to the Russian formalism has been very apparent. The data of this study is mainly sourced from the text of Death of a Salesman. This winning Pulitzer play written by a renowned playwright whose works are much more celebrated to be the overlooking of American's plight in the post war and American great depression, he is Arthur miller. This study finds out that there are certain circumstances that can be utilized for readers, actors or anyone interested to delve and comprehend more into the play. The Circumstances are (A) environmental facts which include: 1.

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

RELATED PAPERS

IOSR Journals

Jashim Uddin

Diana Ansarey

Rachna Rathore

Rainbow : Journal of Literature, Linguistics and Culture Studies

Kristin Marwinda

Faculty of Letters

Hadi Wijaya

anita nur azizah

Undergraduate Research Thesis for Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba- Akoko

Prince Oluwatomiwo Akinyemi

Journal of English and Education

Astri Hapsari

AbdulMahmoud Ibrahim

International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature

Bakhtiar Naghdipour

Rahma Uneeb

U. H. Ruhina Jesmin

houcine tahiri

pawan sharma

Gaziosmanpasa University Social Sciences Researches Journal

nihal demirkol azak

International Res Jour Managt Socio Human

What’s New in the New Europe? Redefining Culture, Politics, Identity

Raad Abd-Aun

Mohammad Reza Khodadust

Edupedia Publications

International Journal of Research (IJR)

Professor Anup Kumar Dey

Revue Campus

Thamir Shayyal

Mariam Elgohary

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

105 Death of a Salesman Essay Topics & Examples

Death of a Salesman is Arthur Miller’s multiple award-winning stage play that explores such ideas as American Dream and family. Our writers have prepared a list of topics and tips on writing the Death of a Salesman thesis statement, essay, or literary analysis.

Death Of A Salesman And Its Conficts Against 50’s Idealism

Ben tells Willy that he went into the jungle when he was seventeen and when he came out at twenty-one he was rich. After Biff overhears Willy talking to himself, he asks Linda whats wrong with him. Linda explains that Willy is exhausted and has even tried to kill himself. When Willy enters the scene, Happy tries to cheer him up by announcing that he and Biff are going to start their own sporting goods company. He tells Willy that Biff is going to see Bill Oliver in the morning and ask for a loan.

Charley gives Willy the money and then Willy leaves to meet Biff and Happy at a restaurant. When Willy arrives at the restaurant, Biff tries to explain to him that he has been living an illusion and will never amount to anything extraordinary. Willy refuses to listen to him and pretends that Biff has another appointment for the next day. When Biff tries to make Willy face the truth, Willy becomes furious and goes off to the bathroom. Biff and Happy then leave the restaurant. While Willy is in the bathroom, he goes into another illusion.

He finds himself in a hotel room with a woman. She is telling him how much she loves his sense of humor. Then knocking is heard at the door, and at first Willy refuses to answer it. As the knocking continues, Willy tells the woman to wait in the bathroom. He opens the door and finds Biff there. Biff tells Willy that he has flunked math and asks that Willy talk to his math teacher about it. Biff explains that his teacher doesnt like him because he once caught Biff imitating him in class.

To export a reference to this essay please select a referencing style below:

Related essays:

Leave a comment cancel reply, death of a salesman and its conficts against 50s idealism.

Ben tells Willy that he went into the jungle when he was seventeen and when he came out at twenty-one he was rich. After Biff overhears Willy talking to himself, he asks Linda what’s wrong with him. Linda explains that Willy is exhausted and has even tried to kill himself. When Willy enters the scene, Happy tries to cheer him up by announcing that he and Biff are going to start their own sporting goods company. He tells Willy that Biff is going to see Bill Oliver in the morning and ask for a loan.

Biff shows Willy the imitation and they both start laughing. The woman hears them laughing and comes out of the bathroom. Willy hurries her out of the room, but not before the woman demands the stockings that Willy promised her. Willy tries to explain the situation, but Biff won’t listen. He accuses Willy of giving away Linda’s stockings and calls him a liar and a fake. Willy is startled out of his illusion by the waiter who has come in to check on him. Willy asks if there is a seed store in the neighborhood and then leaves.

Go back to the Miller page for more texts and other resources.

Death of a Salesman: Success or Happiness

The notion of Success or Happiness in Death of Salesman

Death of a Salesman is centered around one man trying to reach the American dream and taking his family along for the ride. The Loman's lives from beginning to end is a troubling story based on trying to become successful, or at least happy. Throughout their lives they encounter many problems and the end result is a tragic death caused by stupidity and the need to succeed. During his life Willy Loman caused his wife great pain by living a life not realizing what he could and couldn't do. Linda lived sad and pathetic days supporting Willy's unreachable goals. Being brought up in this world caused his children to lose their identity and put their futures in jeopardy. Willy lived everyday of his life trying to become successful, well-off salesman. His self-image that he portrayed to others was a lie and he was even able to deceive himself with it. He traveled around the country selling his merchandise and maybe when he was younger, he was able to sell a lot and everyone like him, but Willy was still stuck with this image in his head and it was the image he let everyone else know about. In truth, Willy was a senile salesman who was no longer able to work doing what he's done for a lifetime. When he reaches the point where he can no longer handle working, he doesn't realize it, he puts his life in danger as well a others just because he's pig-headed and doesn't understand that he has to give up on his dream. He complains about a lot of things that occur in everyday life, and usually he's the cause of the problems. When he has to pay for the repair bills on the fridge, he bitches a lot and bad mouths Charley for buying the one he should of bought. The car having to be repaired is only because he crashes it because he doesn't pay attention and/or is trying to commit suicide. Willy should have settled with what he had and made the best of things. He shouldn't have tied to compete with everyone and just made the best decision for him using intelligence and practicality. Many of Willy's problems were self-inflicted, the reason they were self-inflicted was because he wanted to live the American dream. If he had changed his standards or just have been content with his life, his life problems would have been limited in amount and proportion. Willy's problems in life were usually caused of his chase towards the American dream. Every problem he had and every upsetting or hostile moment he experienced was also inflicted upon Linda, his wife. The hell she went through everyday was because she was his wife. Linda took each day one at a time and each day was filled with stressful worrying about Willy. Imagine how she felt when she found out about Willy's suicidal tendencies, she must have tried extremely hard, as not to take it personally. Linda tried as best she could to try and help Willy, but it wasn't her fault she was not able to get through to him. Willy did not respect Linda or give her the treatment and recognition she deserved. She spent the days mending her silk stockings getting gray hair and worrying about her husbands welfare. Meanwhile Willy found companionship with numerous mistresses and gave away Linda's well-deserved stockings. Linda agrees with everything Willy says and stays content throughout the whole play. The one time she explodes is when the boys came home from the restaurant after leaving Willy alone. She shows emotion and with a little anger and hostility her true feelings. Biff and Happy's futures when they were small all depended on the way they were brought up. Willy was the only one with any say in the way the kids were brought up. Linda went along with whatever Willy said. Willy taught them that if they were handsome and successful, opportunity will come to you. Happy learned nothing from Willy's demise but insists that his father had "the only dream you can have- to come out number-one man". Biff and Happy idolized their father when they were young. The stories they were told made them picture their father as a popular, successful, well-known salesman. As Biff grew up, he found himself being told things about his father like "A salesman has to dream, it comes with the territory." At the end of the story when Linda says they we free, Biff is free to realize his dream of owning a ranch out West where he can live close to the natural world. Biff also realizes that his father had the wrong dreams and didn't know who he was. Biff is sure he won't make the same mistakes his father did. Meanwhile, Happy is more like his dad, determined to stay in town and prove himself to everyone. Having Biff acknowledge the dishonesty of his own life, insists on the end of their phony dream. Although the Loman's lives were full of many problems, the problems were not a ll caused by Willy striving for the American dream. Willy's problems, (that usually affected the whole family) were caused by little decisions made throughout his lives. He had a choice of whether or not to do something, he just made the wrong decision most of the time because he wanted to live the American dream. The majority of problems Willy encountered were decide upon with the idea of the American dream in mind, although the end result of the problems were not purposely meant to turn out as bad as they usually did. Willy Loman put his family through endless torture because of his search for a successful life. He should have settled with what he had and been happy. One dream is not worth all the pain and problems his caused, he should have learned to be content and, as harsh as it may be to believe, he should have realized what he could have accomplished and given up on his dream.

Death of a Salesman Idealism and Truth Essay

• No Comments

? Idealism describes the belief or chase of a perfect vision frequently based upon unrealistic rules. This chase is frequently contrasted and opposed by truth. The truth and world in an individual’s life is what enables this individual to stay grounded and down to Earth. An single must put themselves high outlooks in order to be their best. but they must besides admit the fact that everything they desire is non accomplishable. The instability of idealism and truth in an individual’s life can hold black effects.

It is important in an individual’s life because it can take to the impairment of an individual’s saneness. devastation of household relationships and finally decease. This is exemplified in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. by Willy Loman. Willy spends his whole life prosecuting the American Dream. This chase leaves him in debt and missing less than a splinter of saneness. This adult male lacks the capacity to confront the truth ; the world of his state of affairs. The negative consequence that his dream has on his household and life is merely unmarked and ignored.

As Willy’s life swerves out of control. he tumbles deeper into the abysm of his idealism. to a point of no return. The inability for an person to accomplish a resolved dream can take to the impairment of their saneness. In Willy’s instance. he has spent his whole life prosecuting the American Dream ; a dream that is impossible to accomplish. His inability to get by with the failure of his life at first merely causes him to experience lost. but finally causes him to travel insane. Ironically plenty this adult male. so set on holding the perfect life. has an matter with a secretary of one of the purchaser.

We Will Write a Custom Essay Specifically For You For Only $13.90/page!

This is merely a fiscal dealing of gifts for sex and entree to the purchasers. Willy does this to get away the truth of his life. and in the procedure wholly contradicts his ends. In an effort to protect himself from the world of his life. he goes into self-defense manner. His ain head morphs his memories to accomplish and set up his desires. Willy’s changeless flashbacks lay the basis to back up that he is going senile and that his idealistic inclinations caused him to lose the ability to acknowledge world from semblance.

Willy is a really insecure person. and he tries to do himself look better by lying to himself and his household. In his universe of psychotic belief. Willy is a enormously successful adult male. He disguises his profound anxiousness and diffidence with utmost haughtiness. Biff nails it on the caput when he points out the fact that Willy “had all the incorrect dreams. All. all. incorrect. ” The overmastering chase of idealism over truth can take an single to miss the ability to get by with world. Willy has a batch of possible. but he besides has a humongous instance of self-deceit paired with ill-conceived life ends.

He has based his whole life on back uping others and does non cognize how to populate any other manner. The consequence of missing a manful figure during his vernal development is significant consequence in how Willy raises his ain boies. In Willy’s chase of the American Dream. he clearly instills in his boies that being well-liked is more of import than character. By stressing likability as being the most desirable quality for success he places a higher premium on outward projection over interior strength of character. He merely passes on these unrealistic qualities to his boies.

“I ne’er in my life told him anything but nice things. ” Willy’s memories reveal that the values with which he raised his boies has made Biff comes to see himself exceeding and entitled to whatever he wants irrespective of how difficult he works or whether it harms others. Biff’s perfect semblance is shattered when he discovers that his male parent is holding an matter and he feels hateful and confused about his father’s actions. His inordinate chase of idealism shatters Willy’s relationship with his boy ; this is something that he does non hold the ability to fix.

Willy’s chase of idealism in his life was highly unrealistic and finally prevented him from holding the ability to see the truth in life. He spent his whole life seeking to supply for his household. He wanted the life of a salesman. To be well-liked and have a monolithic funeral when he dies. The world is that he spent his whole life prosecuting unrealistic dreams based on negative personal values. Willy himself points out that he’s “worth more dead than alive. ” It’s rather tragic that Willy believes he has to kill himself to experience that he is deserving something to his household.

The world of the state of affairs is that his decease is in vain. The Loman’s merely had one more payment left on the house. and don’t really necessitate the money any longer. But in his blinded semblance. Willy can non see through or get by with his failure. This causes him to believe that he is deserving nil more alive and kills himself to enable his household to roll up his life insurance money. The variability of idealism and truth in an individual’s life can take to the loss of saneness. impairment of relationships and even decease.

By holding a good balanced of idealism and truth. there is a greater potency that an person will detect contentment in life. While prosecuting an ideal. an person may be confronted with truth that must be recognized. and if ignored will hold cataclysmal consequence. Idealism provides a good beginning of motive to endeavor for excellence and truth reminds us that we are all flawed. Together. with an appropriate balance of both. you have the tools to populate a life happy.

Related essay samples:

• Self-Identity Of Willy Loman Essay
• Death of a Salesman: Universal Themes
• Looking At Death Of A Salesman English Literature Essay
• Isolation in Death of a Salesman
• Willy and Biff – Death of a Salesman Essay
• Looking At Death Of A Salesman Willy Loman English Literature Essay
• Death of the American Dream. Miller’s protagonist
• Idea Of The American Dream English Literature Essay
• Corruption Showed in A Raisin in the Sun Essay
• “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller, Essay
• Biff Loman’s Role in Death of a Salesman
• Linda A Wife With Asian Characteristics English Literature Essay
• Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (cited) Essay
• “Horses of the Night” by Margaret Laurence Essay
• Why We Need Horror Movies Essay
• Anthropology
• Communication
• Computer Science
• Construction
• Criminology
• Engineering
• Environmental Sciences
• Environmental Studies
• Film Studies
• General Studies
• Human Resources
• Human Rights
• Information Systems
• Information Technology
• International Relations
• International Studies
• Physical Education
• Project Management
• Social Policy
• Social Work
• Young People

Previous Post The Physics Involved in Generating Electricity in Austin, Texas Essay Sample

Next post employer obligations following a strike.

• Free Essay Checker Online
• Free Essay Topics
• Free Essays Online for College Students
• Terms & Conditions
• Privacy Policy

© 2024 Essaylead.

• Architecture
• English Language
• English Literature
• Hire Writer

Hi! I'm Amanda

Would you like to get a custom essay? How about receiving a customized one?

Haven't Found The Essay You Want?

For Only $13.90/page