Death Of A Salesman Annotated Bibliography

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Recommended: Comment on Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" reflects the numerous issues post-war United States was dealing with during the late 1940's when it was written. Death of a Salesman was written and published in 1949, when the United States was booming with new economic capabilities and new found power, resulting in a golden age regardless of the growing tensions of the threat of communist invasion. Racial violence and the escalating issues regarding the deluded American dream that was turning out to be quite different than that which our founding fathers had originally idealized. During the time "Death of a Salesman" was created, Post-War United States was undergoing a metamorphosis into a new era of prosperity, communist paranoia, and social/philosophical change.

World War II had left the United States into an economic nightmare, but its resilient nature allowed a hasty return to glory. The United States entered the late 1940's as the strongest, most stable and powerful economy in the world (Wikipedia). Trade surplus and booming business's engulfed the country as the nation initiated into a new period of economic miracle. The deciding factors in this were the record breaking trade surpluses and the raising real income and investments into foreign business. Rising productivity and lowering unemployment allowed the nation to conjure a time where confidence in business and government reigned supreme. in business and government grew greatly, as large industrial corporations accounted for vast portions of the national income.

Nevertheless, the Yalta conference did make USSR the second leading superpower after Nazi Germany's fall in 1945 (The American Pageant). The Communist machine led a monstrous influence to countless countries and possible allies to the democratic United States. Such neighboring nations to the staggeringly huge Soviet led nation succumbed quickly to its humungous size and sheer military strength. The result of this was a terrifying internal attack on the United States by alleged communist enthusiasts. Led by the brainwashed and borderline insane Joseph McCarthy, the Red Scare during the 1950's led to a new concept of warfare dictated by the drawn out Cold War (Wikipeida).

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  • Death of a Salesman

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  • Character Analysis Of Death Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller

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    Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is quite a captivating piece of literature. I really thought this book was fantastic, even reading it for a second time. Since this is a play, the majority of the characterization had to be done through dialogue, but the astonishing depth of development that Miller achieved with his characters was astonishing. I truly felt that I intimately knew the characters by the end of the play despite how slim the volume was. Miller's play is an expose of the harsh reality of the American Dream, and while his play's message may not be hopeful, the honesty of his work will resonate with middle-class America even today. Miller's play showed me that not much has changed since post-WWII America. Average people are still struggling to capture the dream that we all feel this land offers us. Happy and Biff are the tragic characters that I hope never to become, but who can blame them for aspiring for something greater? Most disturbing of all, I truly hope that my parents' generation never fall victim to the same destructive hopes that possessed Willy Loman. Perhaps the scariest realization is that any one of us can get caught up in the delusion of what we believe we deserve.

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  • Analysis Of The Death Of The Salesman

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    The book is titled the death of the salesmen written in 1949 by Arthur Miller explores the impact which social forces exert on the individual into what society shapes individual identity, also about the dangers of idealism. This book introduced us to the Lomans family(Willy Loman, Linda Loman- Willy’s wife ,and two sons-(Biff and Happy)) who live in America where the cost of living is too much high.Willy head of the family who works as a salesmen was the victim of capitalist ,he was obsessed in his two boys Biff and Happy in their futures success ,Biff was living on the present now no longer at school where he used to be an expert in soccer he is older enough to become much more successful on his own ,but he is a drifter who has fallen into life of crime and his brother Happy is womanizer who is unable to establish a stable life for himself.Willy was an old man who thought he might still do his job but fortunate his sales was decreasing even his boss saw that ,Willy knew that in life you have to be successful especially when you live in America it was a place of wealthy people. Good business and successes like his brother Ben.It is when Willy started to lean on Biff’s past where he was still at school playing football and bringing home some prizes that he had won at school .that was the past but Willy kept on reminding Biff of what he would have become the most popular son.

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    “The American dream is, in part, responsible for a great deal of crime and violence because people feel that the country owes them not only a living but a good living.” Said David Abrahansen. This is true and appropriate in the case of Willy Loman, and his son Biff Loman. Both are eager to obtain their American dream, even though both have completely different views of what that dream should be. The play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller shows the typical lives of typical Americans in the 1940’s. Miller’s choice of a salesman to be the main character in this play was not a coincidence, since it represents the typical middle-class working American, some of which have no technical skills what so ever. Miller’s play gives us insides on the daily lives of many Americans, this through the eyes of Willy and Biff Loman, he also shows what kind of personalities, what dreams they have, and their different points of view of what the American dream means.

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  • Death of a Salesman

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    The playwright Arthur Miller once insisted that any great play must deal with the question, "How may a man make of the outside world, a home." It was his belief that the most tragic issue which one could document was the embittered battle between society and the individuals which it was supposed to protect and nourish. Contrasting forms of this topic are well evidenced through his works, especially the plays All My Sons and Death of a Salesman. Both of these plays archive a day or so in the lives of the Keller and Loman families’ respectively. While the climax of both these plays lies in the present, invariably most of the major action takes place in the past. Events are revealed throughout the course of the play that further complicate a seemingly straightforward issue. However, Miller attempts to answer his essential question of, "How does a man adapt to the society in which he lives" in two very different ways, both of which represented in each play by the fathers of both families. In All my Sons we are introduced to the seemingly kind-hearted Joe Keller, a man who has refused society’s dominion over him, and has attempted to put his own family’s well being above all else. In contrast, Death of a Salesman portryas Willy Loman as quite the opposite; Willy has completely succumbed to society’s will, and is trying to forge a life for him and his family in the way he believes society preaches success. Disturbingly enough, even though both men are sundry to the core and would never be friends had they met, their divergent strategies towards living within society deals them parallel fates.

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  • Literary Analysis: Death of a Salesman

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    Willy Loman is one of the most tragic heroes in American drama today. He has a problem differentiating reality from fantasy. No one has a perfect life. Everyone has conflicts that they must face sooner or later. The ways in which people deal with these personal conflicts can differ as much as the people themselves. Some insist on ignoring the problem as long as possible, while some attack the problem to get it out of the way. In the case of Willy in Arthur Miller’s, Death of a Salesman, the way he deals with his life as a general failure leads to very severe consequences. Willy never really faced his problems in fact in stead of confronting them he just escapes into the past, whether intentionally or not, to those happier childhood times where problems were scarce. He uses this escape as if it were a narcotic, and as the play progresses, we learns that it can be as dangerous as a drug, because of its ability to addict Willy, and it’s deadliness.

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  • Death Of A Salesman Critical Analysis

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  • Theme Of Marxism In Death Of A Salesman

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    The “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller is a play deeply composed of many fundamental Marxist ideologies and beliefs. Marxists mainly believed Capitalism would lead to greed and uncontrollable consumerism which is applicable to the play as it follows the protagonist Willy Loman, a door to door salesman in mid to late 1940’s America, who in the later stages of his life is struggling to live up to his expectations of the ‘American Dream.’ The major theme in the play is the pursuit of this dream and the title represents the falsehood of it. The word ‘death’ in the title of the play initially foreshadows the death of Willy but also symbolises the death of the ‘American Dream.’ This is shown by Lois Tyson in “Critical Theory Today” through saying:

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