Subjugaiton of women in death of a salesman

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Arthur Miller said about women, “I like the company of women. Life is boring without them” (guardian.co.uk). The company that Miller believes women provide becomes an important aspect in the decisions he makes in his adulthood. During his adulthood, decided to engage in short-lived relationships and marry three different women. Quickly after college, Miller married his college girlfriend, Mary Grace Slattery, and started a family with her. Soon afterwards, Miller met and immediately connected with iconic Marilyn Monroe. He later decided to leave his wife of six years and two children to marry Monroe. After being together for two years, Miller decided to divorce the suicidal Marilyn Monroe. After his decision to leave Monroe, Miller married Igne Morath as an attempt to fill the void of not having a companion. Miller’s overall lack of concern of the feelings of women reflected in his writings This companionship that Miller desired throughout his adulthood led him to engage with many women, and his multiple relationships with women in his adulthood directly relates to the philandering actions that Happy and Willy promote and Biff ultimately rejects in Miller’s play Death of a Salesman1. Through the subordinate view of women that Willy holds, the treatment of women Happy engages in follow his father’s greedy motives, and biff’s dynamic change in his view of women, Death of a Salesman portrays the subordinate view of women through objectification and subjugation.

As a struggling salesman, Willy does not achieve the success and attention that he desires; consequently, he subjugates the women involved in his life by claiming superiority over Linda and involving himself in affairs to cope for the disappointments of himself. Wi...

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...new companionship blends itself into the writing of his play, Death of a Salesman. Through the lesson taught by Willy and the multiple women Happy engages with, both Willy and Happy promote the idea of having short-lived relationships with women, similar to the relationships Miller shared with women during his marriages with them. As a result of constantly engaging himself with many women, Happy, similar to Miller, is never content with the company a woman provides him. Although Willy was married, he was caught having an affair with another woman to add to his companionship and feel appreciated. Through Happy’s immaturity and constant philandering of women in the play, Happy’s future involving a stable woman in his life seems unlikely, where as Biff’s maturity provides credibility that he will find a woman that he will engage in a long term relationship with.

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