Death of a salesman essay
Death of a salesman essayThere is something magical and sometimes overpowering to the
majority of mankind: It is the thing that allows people to live in
mansion's with helipad's as well as underground society forced to
live in the many tunnels and passageways under New York City
and to beg for their meals. Although this is definitely the extreme
that I have described. It is sometimes indescribably cruel and
other times very gracious. This thing that I write about is the
American system. In Arthur Miller's moving and powerful play,
"Death of a Salesman", Miller uses many character to contrast
the difference between success and failure within the system.
Willy is the dreamy salesman whose imagination is much larger
than his sales ability, while Linda is Willy's wife who stands by
her husband even in his absence of realism. Biff and Happy are
the two blind mice who follows in there father's fallacy of life,
while Ben is the only member of the Loman family with that
special something needed to achieve. Charlie and his son
Benard, on the other hand, enjoy better success in life compared
to the Lomans.
The play romanticizes the rural-agrarian dream but does not
make it genuinely available to Willy. Miller seems to use this
dream merely to give himself an opportunity for sentimentality.
The play is ambiguous in its attitude toward the business-success
dream, but does not certainly condemn it. It is legitimate to ask
where Miller is going. And the answer is that he has written a
confused play because he has been unwilling or unable to commit
himself to a firm position with respect to American culture. Miller
prepares us for stock response-relief in escape to the West and
the farm; firm satisfaction in the condemnation of the tawdry
business ethic.1and then denies us the fulfillment of our
expectations. The play makes, finally, no judgment on America,
although Miller seems always on the verge of one, of telling us
that America is a nightmare, a cause of and a home for tragedy.
But Willy is not a tragic hero; he is a foolish and ineffectual man
for whom we feel pity. We cannot equate his failure with
America's (Eisinger .0 p. 174. Indeed, there is a lot of room for
failure as well as great success in America. The system is not the
one to blame. Willy can only blame himself for not becoming
what he wanted to be.
The next character, Willy Loman's wife Linda, is not part of the
solution but rather part of the problem with this dysfunctional
family and their inability to see things for what they really are.
Louis Gordon is in agreement stating, "Linda, as the eternal wife
and mother, the fixed point of affection both given and received,
the woman who suffers and endures, is in many ways, the earth
mother who embodies the play's ultimate moral value, love. But
in the beautiful, ironic complexity of her creation, she is also
Willy's and their sons' destroyer. In her love Linda has accepted
Willy's Greatness and his dream, but while in her admiration for
Willy her love is powerful and moving, in her admiration for his
dreams, it is lethal. She encourages Willy's dream, yet she will
not let him leave her for the New Continent, the only realm
where the dream can be fulfilled. She want to reconcile father
and son, but she attempts this in the context of Willy's false
values. She cannot allow her sons to achieve that selfhood that
involves denial of these values" (Gordon p. 316). Linda is also
caught up in Willy's lies and therefore does nothing but help fuel
the fire in the inferno of their dreams and ambitions. She lets this
whole masquerade continue right in front of her instead of doing
something to stop their out of control lies.
Also, Biff the oldest son, continues to search for his purpose in
life. Due mainly to all the "hot air" Willy always feeds him, Biff
continues to stumble in his fight for life. Biff has never had the
ability to hold down a job very long due to his inability to take
orders and do his time in the trenches before becoming a success
at a particular job.
Richard J. Foster states, "Biff, who in the play as an amplification or reflection of Willy's problems, has been nurtured on Willy's dreams, too. But he has been forced to see the truth. And it is
the truth-his father's cheap philandering-in its impact on a
nature already weakened by a diet of illusion that in turn
paralyzes him. Biff and Willy are two versons of the idealist, or
"drealmer" may be a better work, paralyzed by reality: Biff by
the effects of disillusionment, Willy by the effects of the illusions
themselves. This is how they sum themsleves up at the end of the
play, just before Willy's suicide: "Pop ! Biff cries, "I'm a dime a
dozen, and so are you!" "I am not a dime a dozen!" Willy
answers in rage. "I am Willy Loman, and you are Biff Loman!"
And the tragedy-if it is tragedy-is that they are both right
(Foster p. 316).
In addition, Happy, the youngest son, never realizes his father's
fallacy of "be well liked and you shall never want". Happy tried
to make it in the city with a similar sales career like his father. He
also lives a lie in the fact he claims to have a certain position with
his company when in reality he is in the lower bracket of the
company. Happy is not able to see himself for what he is, unlike
his brother, who finally has an epiphany of who he is and what he
stands for.
*Inge's work reveals the deep passion
seething beneath the surface of
ordinary lives.
In agreement, Lois Gordon remarks, "Hap, less favored by
nature and his father, perhaps as Willy was in comparison with
Ben, has escaped the closeness with his father that destroys Biff
in social terms. Thus worshipping his father from afar, Hap has
never fully come to realize that phony part of his father and his
father's dreams. He does have longings to be outdoors and to
get away from the crippling fifty-weeks-of-work-a-year routine,
but because he has never seen his father's feet of clay, he has
more fully than Biff accepted his father's dreams. He is not a
social rebel, and he will carry on with the life of a salesman, and,
one suspects, go on to the death of a salesman. He will violate
the boss' wife out of some lonely desperation, as Willy sought
support and solace in his Boston woman. He will also prove his
manliness with fast cars and fancy talk, but again like Willy, he
will never really believe in his own manliness in any mature way.
Just as Willy is called a kid throughout, and referred to as the
diminutive Willy be everyone except Benn….Happy has been
trapped by the infantile American Playboy magazine vision of the
male" (Gordon p.324).
In contrast, Ben has become extremely successful in life
compared to his brother Willy. Ben is the only member of the
Loman family to achieve greatness. He is the example of the true
entrepreneur in every sense, "Never fight fair with a stranger"
was Ben's wisdom and his faith-"When I was seventeen I
walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out.
And by God I was rich!" Although, this information was never
enough for a blueprint for Willy to follow, Willy always sought
his brother Ben's advice to reach the pot of gold under the
rainbow.
Likewise, Charlie is also Willy's opposite in many ways in the
play. Charlie stands for different beliefs and ends up quite
successful. Charlie tries to help Willy as well… However, Willy
will not listen to Charlie's advice. For instance, Charlie warned
Willy not to let his kids steal from a nearby construction site and
that the night watchman would eventually catch them. Willy said,
"I got a couple of fearless characters," and Charlie said, "The
jails are full of fearless characters." Charlie is always being the
voice of reason but Willy is too stubborn to listen to him. R. H.
Gardner states, "Willy's refusal, from the standpoint of dramatic
significance, seems less a product of his insanity than of his
lifelong feeling of competition with Charlie. Acceptance would
have been tantamount to admitting that Charlie's philosophy had
proved to be the right one, and Willy simply isn't big enough a
man to make such an admission" (Gardner p.320). In other
words, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him
drink. Charlie tries to lead Willy to the fountain of knowledge but
Willy refuses to take in this precious liquid.
Furthermore, there is the anemic Bernard-at least that is what
Willy calls him. Bernard I Charlie's son, and Biff and Happy's
schoolmate. R. H. Gardner states, "A physically unattractive,
spectacles-wearing lad, Bernard's chief claim to fame rests upon
the fact that he is the boy who furnishes Biff, the school hero,
with the right answers at exam time. In exchange for this
privilege, Biff lets Bernard carry his shoulder pads into the locker
room at game time and, in other small ways, bask in the
glory-which is all the glory Bernard can aspire to, since, as Biff
explains to his tickled father, Bernard is not "well liked." It is,
therefore, interesting to note that not well liked though he may
be, Bernard, through persistent application of his native
intelligence, grows up to be an eminent lawyer who, the day Biff
and Willy are finally forced to face the unpleasant fats of their
lives, embarks for Washington to plead a case before the
Supreme Court. That Mr. Miller chose to contrast Willy's and
Biff's failures with an obvious example of how one can succeed
in this country makes it difficult to interpret the play as an attack
upon the American system, either as constituted or as popularly
imagined. Bernard is, in fact, living proof of the system's
effectiveness, an affirmation of the proposition that persitent
application of one's talents, small though they may be, pays off.
And this, after all, is the substance of the American Dream"
(Gardner p.320).
In conclusion, there are many forms of failure as well as success
that are spawned by our American system. The Lomans are all
an example of what life is like if you continually live in a dream
world and never train yourself for anything. Ben is the exception
in the Loman family. He is the only one of them to turn our
successful. However, Charlie and his son Bernard were able to
achieve greatness and to make the system work for them. In the
end, the decision to make it in this American system is, ironically,
up to the individual.*
Works Cited
Eisinger, Chester E. "Focus on Arthur Miller's 'Deathe of a
Salesman': The Wrong Dreams," in American Dreams, American
Nightmares, (1970 rpt In clc. Detroit: Gale Research. 1976 vol.
6:331 Foster, Richard J. (Confusion and Tragedy: The Failure of
Miller's 'Salesman' (1959) rpt in clc. Detroit: Gale Research.
1983 vol. 26:316 Gardner, R. H. ("Tragedy of the Lowest
Man," in his Splintered Stage: (1965) rpt in clc. Detroit: Gale
Research. 1983 vol. 2l6:320 Gordon, Lois "Death of a
Salesman": An Appreciation, in the Forties: 1969) rpt in clc.
Detroit: Gale Research. 1983 vol. 26:323
Themes/Purpose/Ideas
The main theme in Death of a Salesman is illusion versus reality.
Willy has lived his entire life in a world of illusions. These
illusions include Willy's belief that being well-liked is the key to
success, as well as the literal illusions that Willy has of his past.
Originally, Biff shared Willy's illusions of success and greatness,
but by the end of the play he has become completely disillusioned.
Once Biff comes to fully understand his place in life, he says to
Willy, "I'm a dime a dozen, and so are you." Willy, however, has lived
too long in his dreams and cannot understand what Biff is trying to
say. If Willy had to face reality, he would then be forced to examine
the affair he had in Boston, his philosophy, and all of his illusions.
Instead, he prefers to live in the past. And now Biff, who is trying
to confront the truth about himself, finds that he is completely
unable to commuicate with his father.
Another theme of Death of a Salesman is the old order of agrarian
pride and nobility versus the new order of industrialization. In the
beginning of the play, Willy foreshadows this theme by criticizing the
changes brought about by industrialization. "The street is lined with
cars. There's not a breath of fresh air in the neighborhood." It is
this conflict between the old and new orders that brings about Willy's
downfall. Willy's father, a pioneer inventor, represents the
traditional values and way of life that Willy was brought up on. So
does Dave Singleman, the eigthy-four year old salesman that inspired
Willy to go into the sales industry. Howard, the young boss of Willy's
company, represents the impersonal and ruthless nature of capitalistic
enterprise. When Willy goes in to ask Howard if he can be transferred
to a job in New York, Howard refuses to help him even though Willy has
been working for the company for several decades and was good friends
with his father. When Willy asks why he cannot be reassigned, Howard
replies, "Šit's a business, kid, and everybody's gotta pull his own
weight," thus demonstrating Howard's cold indifference to Willy's
situation.