DEATH OF A SALESMAN

Rating:
Summary: Realistic and Timeless
Review: After recently finishing The Crucible and now having read Death of a Salesman, I am in awe of Miller's talents as a playwright. In both works, he draws factual evidence from history to support the reality of his own experiences in creating what can only be called a masterpiece. Miller, through Death of a Salesman, affected the national psyche of his time. He based the play's central father-son relationship on that of he and his uncle and fashioned a summary of idealistic American notions of success and individuality. The use of prose and time-suited characters give his works a sense of realism that ultimately brings them to life for the reader.

Miller employs various devices within the play. The most obvious are perhaps flashback and stream-of-consciousness dialogue, which the reader sees through Willy. These elements can make it difficult to distinguish Willy's reality from his imagination by the text alone, but both add to the reader's understanding of Willy's past and the gradual decline of his mental stability. Miller also employs multiple instances of foreshadowing, including his choice of title for this play. If the reader pays close attention to detail, the play's conclusion can be predicted long before the last few pages are read. One major theme is Willy's interpretation of the American Dream - that a "well-liked" and "personally attractive" businessman will indubitably and deservedly acquire material comforts, as opposed to becoming successful through one's on skill and hard work. This outlook drives his urge to "die well," another of the play's primary themes.

I must say that Death of a Salesman contains one of the best looks at human life. This play illustrates the death of the American Dream. While literally portraying a man fighting to maintain mental stability, it symbolically shows how Americans have turned the pursuit of happiness into the pursuit of money. For me, this novel spoke volumes. It emphasizes the human obsession to "get ahead" in life, only to wind up farther behind - ultimately losing the battle of life. As an adolescent, the strained father-son relationship of Willy and Biff forced me to examine whether or not I live up to the expectations of my own parents and question the traditional cliché. Do parents indeed know best? Overall, the novel is a beautifully realistic portrait of a family not unlike those of today. Death of a Salesman contradicts the erroneous "perfect family" model, solidifying it as a timeless classic.

Rating:
Summary: Death of the Salesman- Nowadays American Average Man?
Review: Willy Loman the protagonist of the play „Death of the Salesman" is supposed to embody the American average man. An American average man is married, has children, lives in a house, possesses a well paid job. Hence he spends his quality time with his family, so most of American fathers use to teach their children football, baseball or other sport activities. Willy Loman the protagonist in Arthur Miller's play just seems to fulfill the duties of an American average man. Yes, he is married to Linda, yes, he also has children, two boys named Biff and Happy. Willy and his sons are footballphile. Nevertheless, he lives in a house and he seems be to be succesful as a salesman. But while you read the play you will realize Willy Loman is just a faker who is still dreaming and has not woke up yet. Willy Loman has internalized wrong values which are money, success and „being well liked". He wanted to earn respect and lost his view for the most significant values a human being should have such as being satisfied with yourself and having people around you who support and love you. The consequence of having wrong values is Willy Loman alienated himself from society, although he deeply wanted to be part of succesful people. Ironically Willy Loman is a product of society. He tried to adapt himself to society's expectations and actually lost himself in the crowd. Willy has always looked for more, more than he actually was able to achieve. Willy wanted success, money and respect which people should bring towards him.

At this point I am wondering if these goals will lead individuals to become satisfied with themselves. Can people be actually pleased with money and success? Or are these aims only an illusion? Biff and Happy Loman experience whether money and success are worthy values you should set your life on or not. They both come up to a different conclusion. Happy still holds on to success and money. He believes that these values are the key to life. Money rules the world. Whereas Biff has found other criterias he wanted his life to be based on. Biff believes in his individual talent, he trusts his feelings what they tell him to do. Biff goes his own way, therefore he prefers to work on a ranch. Biff came off from what society thinks, what society expects him to do.

Therefore I think Death of the Salesman has lost a little bit of topicality. Arthur Miller focuses his play especially at Willy Loman's failure in society because of his wrong values. But today I think people have enough courage to stand and speak up for themselves as Biff does by the end of the play. Our daily American and even European society is a crowd of individuals.

Rating:
Summary: Missed Dreams and Unrealized Hopes
Review: Money and materialism are strong themes in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman". One gets a real sense of this from beginning to end. In the first scenes, already the importance and pursuit of wealth and money are key in understanding what the play is about, and we see this in the frustrated dialogue exchange between the husband and the wife. The main character (the husband) is an aging door-to-door salesman named Willy Loman, who is obsessed with the American dream of financial prosperity as epitomized through his exceptionally successful big brother, Ben, but he's hounded by bills because he doesn't make enough money on commission; he says to his wife Linda: "I just ain't makin' the sales I used to." Therefore, he's forced at one point in the play to go to Howard, his employer, for a raise to get a more convenient position at the sales firm as a desk sales clerk. But Howard doesn't believe in Willy's ability to make enough money for him and refuses to give him the job, or any raise. In fact, he fires Willy on the spot. "Go home, Willy," he says, "take a vacation", in an attempt to get Willy out of his office. Willy feels humiliated and more desperate than ever. He goes straight to his friend and neighbor Charley to borrow money but refuses to take a good job offer from him because he's too proud to be dependent on Charley for his income. "Here's the 500 dollars, Willy," says Charley, to which Willy is quick to respond: "You know I'm good for it, Charley." Willy is hounded by debt and he begins to wish he had gone to Alaska with Ben as a young man and made a fortune mining for gold, but instead he settled for the life of a salesman and its hard, unrewarding occupation. Willy is full of regret and feels he has wasted his life. Throughout the play, from beginning to nearly the end, Willy is left wishing his older son, Biff, had succeeded as a football player and been accepted at a college, but he came just short of graduating and that was the beginning of the end of Willy's dream of fulfilling his own materialistic dreams through Biff. And he is constantly reminding Biff of his failure and blaming himself for it just as much. "If only you had passed your math, things would have turned out different," he says to Biff in the hotel room after he's caught by Biff in adultery. But instead, Biff, for whom Willy had such high hopes, turns out to be an even bigger failure than himself. This play is one big story of missed dreams and unrealized hopes in terms of money and the materialistic pursuit of wealth in a capitalist system.

David Rehak
author of "A Young Girl's Crimes"

Rating:
Summary: A Picture of the New America
Review: Arthur Miller, one of American's greatest modern playwrights, wrote Death of a Salesman during the 40s. The play turned heads upon its first production in 1949 and has continued to be read and preformed ever since. Through Miller's many characters, he captured the heart and soul of many post-World War II Americans.

Miller constantly paints a picture of a new era, the business era. He openly portrays the business world as mean and ruthless. His character, Willy Loman, accurately represents many of the people who face hardships in the name of business. Willy's depressing home life is a result of his pursuit of success in the business world.

Miller's ideas of the American dream abound throughout the play. He demonstrates this through his character: Happy. Happy is a carefree young man whose only desire is to please his father, Willy. His idea of the ideal American dream is the typical 9 to 5 job with the perfect house and family. While he may desire these goals, his main objective is his father's approval.

Throughout the play, Miller constantly reverberates different ideas and values. For instance, he shows the negativity of parents who live their lives through their children. This philosophy can be seen through the character of Biff, who constantly is straining to be free from his oppressive father, Willy. While Biff wishes to please his father, he doesn't want to be the man his father wants him to become. His dreams are different from that of his fathers, yet Willy disregards his son's dreams.

Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is unique and groundbreaking for his time period. I honestly enjoyed the play despite the depressing plot. I don't recommend that u read, but rather see it or perform it. In straight lines, the play makes no sense, but with the added lighting and acting, it comes alive in a way that makes u enjoy the story.

By studying this classic play, I have come to realize that life is what you make it to be, not what is handed to you. If you really want something, you have to work for it. Nothing is free, and everything comes with a price. No one can tell you how to live your life. Your ideas and desires are what counts, not the ideas and desires of another person. You have to live with yourself, so fill your life with happiness and joy. We only live once, so live it to the fullest.

Rating:
Summary: The Death of a Salesman
Review: Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman was and is the best play of the time which is about a man named Willy Loman who was a very successful person who ruled New England as a respected salesman and is fired only to have nothing to leave his wife and two sons, Biff and Happy, Willy comes to a decision to kill himself so the insurance company will pay his family twenty thousand dollars so they can get out of the congested city they live in.
Arthur Miller was writing about the greatest dream of the American person, to be successful and to be well liked and Willy is pushing Biff to be a better salesman and become more like his father, and Arthur Miller is writing about that this is not the American way, this is the way the business man and that is not the right way to look at life, you should take it as it is, and will not be pressured by the world to be well liked and respected throughout the world.
Some of the main lessons I have learned though this script is that you have two ears and only one mouth so you can listen two times as much than you can speak. As in the case of Willy and Biff, the tend to talk too much and not let the other person even get a word in, and they don't listen and they were not liked well because of that, Even other people can do that, in the case of Biff and Bill Oliver, Bill did not even look at Biff when he went to see him, so as some sort of revenge, Biff went into his office and stole his fountain pen.
I would recommend this play because it shows exactly what the people of America think today and this shows that they are completely wrong and should look to the way of working harder then you can be liked.

Rating:
Summary: Beyond the term "Classic"
Review: This play blew me away when I read it some ten years ago. And the same thing happend when I saw it on Broadway as a revival many years ago. One can only imagine the impact it had on audiences when it first came out. Truly, there has been nothing as harrowing, riveting, and emotional in the theatre since. The "idea" of the play is powerful enough, but couple this with the "American dream" theme and you've got explosive material. The intensity of this piece of theatre is hard to match. A few other great works come to mind ("Sophie's Choice by Styron or McCrae's "Bark of the Dogwood"--though those are books or movies) but even so, something about "Death" is beyond that. Why this isn't required reading in school is something I'll never understand. Arthur Miller is a national treasure and if he had written this play only, his reputation would have been confirmed forever.

Rating:
Summary: The shattering of the American dream
Review: One of the most popular and famous plays of post-O'Neill theater, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is the playwright's masterpiece and a true classic not only of American drama, but also of American literature as a whole. Though it came out in the late 1940's, its universal applicability has endured throughout the ensuing decades and the play still has much to tell us today. As has been noted, 20th century American drama tended to focus primarily on the family. The family presented in Death of a Salesman -- like the families in Tennessee William's The Glass Menagerie and Cat On a Hot Tin Roof -- is, in many ways, the prototypical American family, although many would not like to admit it. Salesman's dysfunctional family preceded the rosier, harmonious families that would come to dominate 50's television; it doesn't take a prophet or even a sociologist to determine which of the two is more true-to-life. In the Loman family, we can see much of ourselves and our families -- even if it is the parts that we would rather not think about and focus on. The play also deals with the capitalist system as it stood in the middle of the 20th century; most agree that, to the extent that it has changed since then, it has only been for the worse. Willy Loman, the play's main character and the prototypical Everyman, is a victim of the dog-eat-dog world of business that is a true manifestation of "survival of the fittest": good times are forgotten; nobody cares what one has done in the past: all that matters is, What have you done for me lately? The play shows how a man -- and yes, a man: the play was written in the 1940's, after all... and notice that the matriarch, despite the family's hard times, does not work -- is judged not by whom he is, not by his virtues, but simply by what he does and how much money he makes (of course, nearly 60 years later, this now extends to women as well.) It doesn't matter how good a man is, how much he loves his family, how much he cares for his children, how much he loves his wife -- if he can't make enough money to keep food on the table. A man who doesn't do that, at least in society's eyes, is a complete and total failure: nothing else matters. Willy's inability to escape from this system leads to his total and complete focus on money and work, driving his attention away from what matters most to him, his family, and ends in his tragic fate. Such a plight is, no doubt, familiar to many Americans. The right to the "pursuit of happiness" may be in the Declaration of Independence for all to read, but achieving the proverbial American Dream isn't always that easy: it's trying, it's difficult, it's hard -- and, indeed, it can be fatal. This is what the play tells us, and its truth is why the play has endured through the years and why it will continue to endure. This is a true masterpiece that deserves to be read by all.

Rating:
Summary: Missed Dreams and Unrealized Hopes
Review: Money and materialism are strong themes in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman". One gets a real sense of this from beginning to end. In the first scenes, already the importance and pursuit of wealth and money are key in understanding what the play is about, and we see this in the frustrated dialogue exchange between the husband and the wife. The main character (the husband) is an aging door-to-door salesman named Willy Loman, who is obsessed with the American dream of financial prosperity as epitomized through his exceptionally successful big brother, Ben, but he's hounded by bills because he doesn't make enough money on commission; he says to his wife Linda: "I just ain't makin' the sales I used to." Therefore, he's forced at one point in the play to go to Howard, his employer, for a raise to get a more convenient position at the sales firm as a desk sales clerk. But Howard doesn't believe in Willy's ability to make enough money for him and refuses to give him the job, or any raise. In fact, he fires Willy on the spot. "Go home, Willy," he says, "take a vacation", in an attempt to get Willy out of his office. Willy feels humiliated and more desperate than ever. He goes straight to his friend and neighbor Charley to borrow money but refuses to take a good job offer from him because he's too proud to be dependent on Charley for his income. "Here's the 500 dollars, Willy," says Charley, to which Willy is quick to respond: "You know I'm good for it, Charley." Willy is hounded by debt and he begins to wish he had gone to Alaska with Ben as a young man and made a fortune mining for gold, but instead he settled for the life of a salesman and its hard, unrewarding occupation. Willy is full of regret and feels he has wasted his life. Throughout the play, from beginning to nearly the end, Willy is left wishing his older son, Biff, had succeeded as a football player and been accepted at a college, but he came just short of graduating and that was the beginning of the end of Willy's dream of fulfilling his own materialistic dreams through Biff. And he is constantly reminding Biff of his failure and blaming himself for it just as much. "If only you had passed your math, things would have turned out different," he says to Biff in the hotel room after he's caught by Biff in adultery. But instead, Biff, for whom Willy had such high hopes, turns out to be an even bigger failure than himself. This play is one big story of missed dreams and unrealized hopes in terms of money and the materialistic pursuit of wealth in a capitalist system.

David Rehak
author of "A Young Girl's Crimes"

Rating:
Summary: Death of a Salesman
Review: By all means, read this novel. It concerns the American dream and truly is a classic. It has brilliantly realitic characters and, though it is short, has an truly meaningful story.

Rating:
Summary: "Death of a Socialist Salesman" by RexCurry.net
Review: Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman" has become a repudiation of socialism/communism. Miller intended the play as anti-capitalist propaganda, but failed. Miller's play is so fuzzy about it's veiled socialism, that no one who saw the original play comprehended Miller's intended message. Later, the play (sometimes referred to as "Death of a Socialist Salesman") became a darkly humorous, unintentional repudiation of socialism because of Miller's naive attempt at propaganda.

socialist trio of atrocities The play centers on Willy Loman, an aging salesman who is beginning to lose his grip on reality. (On losing the grip on reality compare the socialist trio of atrocities: the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, The People's Republic of China, the National Socialist German Worker's Party). Willy, who has always placed high value on being well-liked, (compare all socialist leaders) dreamed of dying successful - living a life of luxury (compare socialism's absurd strive for "universal everything-for-free care").

Instead, all of Willy's aspirations seem to have failed (compare the U.S.S.R., P.R.C., N.S.D.A.P.): he becomes unemployed, none of his old friends remember him, his child has not prospered as he hoped, and he is forced to rely on loans from his former rival (capitalists). His other son pretends to be successfully climbing the ladder but is actually lying to his father about the full measure of his success (compare the socialist trio).

In contrast, Charlie, Willy's rival (who he used to criticize for not being well-liked) is a successful businessman and his son, Bernard (whom Willy derided as a child for the same reason) is a brilliant lawyer (as socialism's rival, capitalism contrasts as a great success). Meanwhile, Willy is haunted by memories of his brother, Ben, who at an early age left for Alaska and became rich (as so many people fled the U.S.S.R., P.R.C., N.S.D.A.P. to prosper in capitalist countries). Pursued by his dreams of success and the reality of failure, at the end of the play, Willy commits suicide (compare the collapse of the former U.S.S.R. and Hitler of the National Socialist German Worker's Party etc., and the mass slaughter perpetrated by the socialist trio of atrocities (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (65 million), the People's Republic of China (35 million), the National Socialist German Workers' Party (21 million) etc).

One central point of the play seems to be the idea of "greatness" just as it is for socialists (compare the former U.S.S.R., the P.R.C., the N.S.D.A.P.). Willy longs to achieve great things and to be remembered after his death, and instills that hope in both of his sons. All three fail, while Ben, Charlie, and Bernard (the "capitalists") succeed, and do so without even trying.

The American Dream is a major theme throughout the play. Biff and Willy both have very strong (although unspoken) ideas about what it is just as Arthur Miller had strong unspoken ideas about socialism/communism that he tried to insert into his play, though he failed and instead he unintentionally wrote a metaphor for the failures of socialism/communism.