Death of a salesman
Death of a salesmanThe definition given (that the audience needs to have mixed feelings about the destruction of a human being for a play to be a tragedy) means that to establish ‘Death of A Salesman’ as a tragedy, we must be able to give evidence that not only is the audience made to feel sadness at Willy Loman’s demise, but also that they are made to feel that some measure of justice has been exacted on him for his behaviour both past and present. As this is the case I will first examine the reasons why the audience feels sadness at the misfortunes which befall Willy, and then go on to see why it is that the audience is also left to feel that Willy deserves all of the punishment which fate hands him throughout, and especially towards the end, of the play.
It is obvious right the way through ‘Death of A Salesman’ that Willy Loman’s life is bad, and that it is getting worse, despite Willy’s dreams and aspirations. His first major problem is with his job. From the very first scene we see that all is not well. Willy has returned from a work trip the same day as setting out for it, and it is made obvious that this is not the first occurrence of an incident of this type. Thus the audience is aware that Willy has problems with his job, and it is not long before they find out that Willy having trouble getting to work is the least of his problems. The real problem lies at work itself. It appears that despite all of Willy’s bragging, he is not actually a very successful salesman (the lack of people at his funeral perhaps indicates not only that he isn’t one, but also that he never was a particularly good one in the first place). He has in fact been ‘borrowing’ money from Charley to make Linda think that he is still successful. Willy lies so often about his work (as well as other things), that he has almost made himself believe his own lies, and one of the only indications to the contrary is when he admits, "I’m not noticed", when talking to Linda about his work.
Due to his lack of success, he is first taken off of steady pay and put on commission, this occurs before the start of the play, and then later when he goes to complain about this, he is told by his boss Howard that his services are no longer needed.
Willy’s problems at work, however, are not his only problems, and they are not even the most serious ones he has. Another of the major problems which Willy has is his relationship with his sons, and in particular Biff. Neither of Willy’s children seem to measure up to his expectations. Willy expected his children to ‘make it big’ in the city, and whilst Happy works in the city and is doing more to...
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