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Comment on Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman
Analysis of death of a salesman by arthur miller
Analysis of death of a salesman by arthur miller
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Recommended: Comment on Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman
“The present and the past coexist, but the past shouldn't be in flashback” -Alain Resnais. The play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller follows the life of a man named Willy Loman, and his family life with his two sons; Biff and Happy Loman, and wife, Linda Loman. Throughout the play, Willy has delusional episodes of past events in life, which he believes he is reliving, and these flashbacks are providing him an escape from dealing with the obstacles he is facing in life. The reader discovers that Willy is having an affair with a mistress titled The Woman, and he retreats to memories of their time together for an ego boost, though in reality he is arguing with his sons. Willy has an encounter with his brother Ben at the same time that he is playing cards with his neighbour Charlie, and because Willy’s mind is so far gone into the memory, Charlie leaves. During this flashback Willy sees his life compared to his successful brother, but he will not accept his lack of skill at being a salesman. His final flashback is a fake encounter he believes he has with his brother, and this progresses to Willy’s final act of suicide. Willy’s flashbacks are evidence that he is delusional because he cannot differentiate between a past event and reality.
In the restaurant, Willy, Biff and Happy are discussing Biff’s encounter with Bill Oliver, the man Biff goes to see about getting money to start his sporting goods business. During the conversation, Willy begins being drawn into a delusional flashback with The Woman, and he is unable to continue his discussion with his sons:
HAPPY: Sit him down, Biff!
BIFF, going to get him: Come on, slugger, drink us under the table. To hell with it! Come on, sit down, pal.
On Biff’s last insistence, ...
... middle of paper ...
...s the ultimate cause for his death.
Willy Loman experiences flashbacks of past events, and hallucinates that have never occurred. He uses flashbacks with The Woman to escape present problem. His delusions are so powerful; he loses touch with reality, like in the case of The Woman in the restaurant and with his brother, Ben, and Charley. His delusions become so strong by the end of the play, Willy cannot interpret what has actually occurred and what is a delusion. He has a flashback with his brother, though he fabricates what his brother says. Willys’ delusions are what ultimately lead to his final act of suicide.
Works cited
Miller, Arthur and Gerald Clifford Weales. Death of a salesman. New York: Penguin Books, 1996. Print.
Unknown. "schizophrenia." TheFreeDictionary.com, 2014. Web. 11 Apr 2014. .
According to Frye's definition, tragic heroes bring suffering upon themselves. Willy Loman is delusional and has a skewed view on the world he lives in. Willy asserts that he is young, popular, and respected among his family and workmates. Flashbacks of past memories, which interrupt the present day flow of time, prove that Willy is not everything he used to be in his younger years. This constant misconception of time is Willy Loman's main flaw, and he is the main victim in this suffering. Willy's misunderstanding of the world around him is shown in key scenes, such as his conversation with his brother Ben in the garden near the end of the play (Miller 99). The death of Willy Loman is also a consequence of his flaw: Willy's disorganized state of mind causes him to jump into a car and crash.
... Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin, 1996. Print. The. Sherk, James.
Sources Field, B.S. & Y.S. "Death of a Salesman" Twentieth Century Literature. January, 1972. 19-24. The.
Willy Loman’s delusional dream continuously brings him into the past because he cannot accept that conditions of his current life. Willy incorrectly thinks that “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it — because personality always wins the day”, which is absolutely not true and causes him to be a poor role model for his children (Miller 65). It also leads his Howard firing him, which is nicely described as the “The underlying struggle is that of the individual attempting to gain his ‘rightful’ position in his society” (Miller 144). The fact that Willy is not able to adapt with society and a...
Biff never kept a steady job during his young adult life, and did not possess a healthy relationship with anyone that was in his life. As the play progresses the reader sees how much Biff becomes more self- aware. An online source states, “Unlike the other members of his family, Biff grows to recognize that he and his family members consistently deceive themselves, and he fights to escape the vicious cycles of lies.” When Biff returns home it becomes a struggle to keep a healthy relationship with his parents. Once Willy and Biff decide together that Biff will go and ask Bill Oliver for a loan is when the differences between the two characters are truly seen. Biff accepts reality for the first time in his life, and realizes how ridiculous it is to ask Bill Oliver for a loan, when he barely knows the man and worked for him about ten years ago. When Biff meets up with Willy after the ‘meeting’ Biff is talking to his Father and says, “Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!” This quote reveals that Biff recently has just experienced an epiphany, and realizes that what he was doing was making no sense. Biff is escaping the self- deception he was caught in with the rest of his
Relations between fathers and the younger generation have been and continue to be an important theme for various literary genres (King Lear, Shakespeare; Fathers and Sons, Turgenev). For many famous writers the significance of fathers’ influence on their children forms a subject of particular interest. . In the play, Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller shows in a very striking manner that the father's influence can be either positive or fatal. The dispiriting story of the three generations of the Lomans family contrasts with the happy account of the life of their neighbors, Charley and his son Bernard.
Foster, Richard J.Confusion and Tragedy: The Failure of Miller's `Salesman', in Two Modern American Tragedies: Reviews and Criticism of Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar NamedDesire, Edited by John D. Hurrell, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961, Pp. 828.
Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman follows protagonist Willy Loman in his search to better his and his family’s lives. Throughout Willy Loman’s career, his mind starts to wear down, causing predicaments between his wife, two sons and close friends. Willy’s descent into insanity is slowly but surely is taking its toll on him, his job and his family. They cannot understand why the man they have trusted for support all these years is suddenly losing his mind. Along with his slope into insanity, Willy’s actions become more aggressive and odd as the play goes on. Despite Willy and Biff’s “family feud”, his two sons Happy and Biff truly worry about their father’s transformation, Happy saying: “He just wants you to make good, that’s all. I wanted to talk to you about dad for a long time, Biff. Something’s – happening to him. He – talks to himself” (Miller 21). Willy, as a father, cares about his children but he wishes they would do better. He believes Biff should have been an athlete. According to Harrington, “Even figuratively, Willy is haunted, and particularly in Biff’s failure to achieve success as a sports figure” (108). This haunting is part of what led to Willy’s slow plunge into madness. As Willy’s career in sales fails, he also fails, even failing his family. Heyen adds: “He didn’t have anything of real value to give to his family, or if he did, he didn’t know what it was” (48). His debilitating flashbacks and delusional hallucinations with Uncle Ben cement his horrifying realizations that he has let down his family. Willy Loman blames the economy for his downfall in his career. In one of his more extreme outbursts he exclaims, “There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining this country! Population is getting out of control. ...
Miller, Arthur. “Death of a Salesman”. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. Dana Gioia and X.J. Kennedy.10th Ed. New York: Pearson, 2007.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Seventh Edition. X.J. Kennedy, and Dana Gioia. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 1999. 1636-1707.
Eisinger, Chester E. "Critical Readings: Focus on Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman: The Wrong Dreams." Critical Insights: Death of a Salesman (2010): 93-105.
The play Death of a Salesman, written by Arthur Miller, is about an average salesman living in Brooklyn, New York in the 1940’s named Willy Loman. Willy firmly believes in the American dream and is living his life aspiring to gain the wealth and materials associated with those of higher status in society. This American dream tears apart his family and the end result is his own demise. Glengarry Glen Ross, by David Mamet, has a plot similar to Death of a Salesman in that it is about salesmen and it shows the effects of capitalism on people and society. A difference between the two, however, is that Glengarry Glen Ross includes a group of salesmen working a firm who are trying to win a sales contest in which the first prize is a Cadillac, the second price is a set of steak knives, and the remaining salesmen will be fired. The main difference in the plays is that Death of a Salesman is decidedly a modern play and Glengarry Glen Ross is a postmodern response to Death of a Salesman.
The line between reality and illusion is often blurred in Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman. Whether it is incorporated in the content or the actual structure, this struggle between recognizing reality from illusion turns into a strong theme; it eventually leads to the downfall of Willy and his family. Willy is incapable of recognizing who he is, and cannot realize that he, as well as his sons, is not capable of being successful in the business world. Happy and Biff both go through some battle between reality and illusion that cause a collapse in some part of their lives. The line between Willy’s flashbacks and current time also send him into turmoil when he cannot distinguish between the two.
Death of a salesman. : McGraw-Hill, 2007. Print. The. "
In the play, The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller portrays the Loman’s as a dysfunctional family. Willy Loman is aging and becoming unsuccessful at his sales job, he lives in the past and often talks to himself and his sons and wife are concerned about his loss of concentration. Specifically, “No, it’s me, it’s me. Suddenly I realize I’m goin’ sixty miles an hour and I don’t remember the last five minutes.” (Miller Act I: 1557). Here, in the beginning of Act 1, it is emphasized that Willy gets frustrated and finds himself losing track of what he is doing. Throughout the play Willy mentions that his father abandoned him and his family when he was very young. As a result, this event can impact the way Willy plays his role as a father. Additionally, Willy obtains