...from study guides created for Death of a Salesman: Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis, MN; Kennedy Center, Washington, DC; Lyric Theatre, London; Royal Lyceum Theatre Company, Edinburgh; Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven, CT. © 2010 Weston Playhouse Theatre Company, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational and cultural institution. WPTC Performance Guides may be duplicated at no charge for educational purposes only. They may not be sold or used in other publications without the express written consent of the Weston Playhouse Theatre Company. Weston Playhouse Theatre Company Weston Playhouse Theatre Company DEATH OF A SALESMAN Study Guide for Teachers TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Interview with Director Steve Stettler The Playwright Arthur Miller in his own words Inspiration for Death of a Salesman Writing Death of a Salesman The Characters Synopsis The Setting Themes Motifs...
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...main character is brought to extreme suffer or sorrow, especially as a consequence of a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with lack of approval or support. Arthur Miller’s tragedy play, Death of a Salesman can be viewed as a urology of a man who was a constant dreamer, which represents his life and tragic death as he tries to fulfill his visions of having the American Dream. American tragedy explores the great myths that govern a society by examining the lives of its most ordinary citizens. Miller vividly expresses ideas throughout his play by demonstrating a changing society. Also, reading Death of a Salesman allows the play to be psychologically viewed as one man’s journey from shame and his own lack of self-confidence. Arthur Miller portrays Willy, his family, and other characters situation by the use of symbolism and themes, he accurately puts into words what every human being thinks, feels, and worries about, but often has trouble expressing. The lead character is Willy Loman, a failing door-to-door salesman coming to the end of his life but doggedly holding on to lost dreams. In the beginning of the play, we see Willy returning home to his wife Linda after almost crashing his car. Linda begins to worry about her husband and fears what may happen in the future. We soon learn why Willy is unable to continue his career as a salesman, which he has followed for many years. He starts to explain to his wife why he has returned so early and empty handed: I was...
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...Willy's Loneliness and Alienation in Death of a Salesman Willy Loman’s feelings of alienation and loneliness are direct psychological results of his interaction with society and the conditions that are found within it. Although, he does not necessarily have the ability or allow himself to have the ability to define his feelings as such, they are still very much a part of his everyday existence. This is evident in his constant bragging and attempted compensation. He does not feel that he is truly a part of society. Indeed, he is not. Miller himself seems to be saying that this is not necessarily a bad thing; this society is not that wonderful. Yet Willy still yearns to be like his brother, Ben, and the other men he sees making up the work force. He desperately wants to command respect and be a part of the group. Although usually he just goes about his business as best he can, he does at times admit his feelings: ‘Because I get so lonely—especially when business is bad and there’s nobody to talk to. I get the feeling that I’ll never sell anything again, that I won’t make a living for you, or a business, Business for the boys. There’s so much I want to make for— (Baym 2001) He wants to provide for Linda and for the boys, but he does not know how to go about this within the confines of society and still maintain his individuality. Even the things he dreams of having for himself and for his family are shallow. He will never find relief from his search...
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...Miller New York: Harper Audio 3 january 2003 Comparition between Blanche Du Bois from and Willy loman characterstheir responsible failures and consequences. Blanche is already a fallen woman in society’s eyes. Her family fortune and estate are gone, she lost her young husband to suicide years earlier, and she is a social pariah due to her indiscrete sexual behavior. She also has a bad drinking problem, which she covers up poorly (Previn 50). Behind her veneer of social snobbery and sexual propriety, Blanche is an insecure, dislocated individual. She is an aging Southern belle who lives in a state of perpetual panic about her fading beauty. Consequently, Willy is an individual who craves attention and is governed by a desire for success. He constantly refers to his older brother Ben, who made a fortune in diamond mining in Africa, because he represents all the things Willy desires for himself and his sons. Because Willy has an incorrigible inability to tell the truth, even to himself, and an unreasonable mode of thinking, he justifies his death by saying that his sacrifice will save his sons, particularly Biff; the insurance money they collect will be a tangible remembrance of Willy. Willy Loman is a tragic figure who is largely to blame for his own downfall. He is fired from the Wagner Company because he is no longer effective and gets angry with and lies to the boss. He misjudges his sons and fails to accept the truth about either of them ( Miller...
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...Building Castles in the Air: An Attempt at Living in Them Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman is a fast paced drama. In this play, he manages to bring out the elements of the American Dream. Miller illustrates the materialism shrouding the American dream. The effects of the American Dream may not be as profound in the present as they were in the time after the World War II. Today, the United States of America has the option of criticism and an in-depth self-analysis that saves people from the post-war tensions and immense contradictions. At the time of the setting of the play, there was a lot of denial, and this saw the rise of the ilk of artists and writers who fought for self-realization and created an awareness of the importance of “self.” Miller’s play, The Death of a Salesman, set in the post-war period, 1949, exemplifies the necessity to see the American as a myth because it does not have the capacity to encompass the innate human weakness such as doubt and insecurities and also economic changes. He illustrates this through his character Willy Loman who held the American dream as his unshakable tenet and his faith in it resulted in his tragic death....
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... The play was shown all over the world in America, China, England, Germany and India. (Miller, Arthur) Arthur Miller’s first success was Death of a Salesman which was performed in Broadway in 1949. He had a rough start with his first play he ever wrote, The Man Who Had All the Luck which got cut off after being shown only four times. Arthur grew up in the east side of Manhattan until the Wall Street Crash. His family moved and he had to work three jobs to save enough money to attend the University of Michigan. Arthur won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award twice. In 1949 he was presented with the Pulitzer Prize.( Miller,...
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...Power of Success The unflinching conflict of obtaining success is eloquently portrayed throughout Arthur Millers “Death of a Salesman”. In this modern tragedy, Miller successfully depicts the human condition in midst of denying failure. The play unfolds around a washed- up salesman named Willy Loman, whose obsession with reaching concrete evidence of success, creates unfortunate repercussions on his family, and himself. Willys conviction that a man must not only be like, but he must be well liked (Miller, 1250), along with his uninterrupted focus on prominence, reflects on his two sons, Biff and Happy, as he infuses them with values of social status as well as future success. Willy’s sense of self value depends on the response of others. Such gestures of recognition provide signals that society is a comfortable home for him, one where he hopes to make his sons as happily at ease as he (Jacobson, 249). This is doubtlessly a mirage of security for Willy, as he desperately suppresses his inner motions of regret, and refuses to embrace his conscious identity. Ultimately, Willy Lomans self- delusion of success disabled him to obtain his true identity, and influence a displacement of identity in his sons. Most people in today’s society develop a constant necessity to better their lives, as well the quality of life for their family. For many, this necessity stems from their core beliefs of what a comfortable life should contain in our society, along with secure elements for their...
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...Willy and Oedipus Tragedy Essay Oedipus is a play by Sophocles about a man who saves a town from a sphinx, becomes king,weds with his mother, and kills his father. His whole path is driven by fate. Death of a Salesman is a drama by Arthur Miller about a salesman named Willy Loman who has this big dream to be successful. He ends up failing and commits suicide. Both Oedipus and Willy are exquisite tragic figures, but Willy is superior because he has a higher relation to the audience, had a chance to make it, and Oedipus had no control over what happened to him. Aristotle and Arthur Miller had very different views on what a tragedy entaled. Aristotle thought that a tragedy must start out great, but end in a tragedy. It must have magnitude and...
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...young age from their parents, that allows growth and understanding of norms, people will have difficulty with many human functions that come normally to others. In particular children who have experienced the loss of a parent undergo such difficulties. They tend to feel abandoned and as a result carries this fear of abandonment throughout their lives; consequently affecting their ability to develop healthy relationships. Arthur Miller explores this theme of abandonment in his play Death of a Salesman through the life of William“Willy”Loman, using father-son relationships. The author demonstrates how an individual like Willy who was abandoned in the past has insecurities caused by such trauma, which can affect their future. At the tender age of 3, Willy and his older brother Ben were abandoned by their father, who had left for Alaska. Willy who was young at that time never had the chance to fully understand what a “father” actually was, as he didn’t know his own. In act 1, when Ben enters the scene the two brothers begin to reminisce about old times and Willy shows his curiosity and lack of knowledge about his father when he says: “No, Ben! Please tell about Dad. I want my boys to hear. I want them to know the kind of stock they spring from. All I remember is a man with a big beard, and I was in Mamma’s lap, sitting around a fire, and some kind of high music.” He grew up without knowing what it means to be a parent, and reflected this upon his own family and children, by holding...
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...The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Reaction Paper- Fiction: Drama Sherryl Cascella September 1, 2014 ENG/125 Judy Williams The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Reaction Paper- Fiction: Drama The Death of a Salesman tells the story of Willy Loman’s last day. The entire story addresses Willy’s inability to change or accept responsibility for the mistakes he made. He is unable to acknowledge that he is an average man in America living an average life. Even with the love and support from friends and loved ones, he still feels an immense amount of regret about decisions he made in the past and spends a large amount of time retreating into the past and reliving moments where he felt successful. The three themes within the play are denial, contradiction, and the desire to live the “American Dream” by being liked and successful. Denial is portrayed in many of the characters. Willy is in denial about the amount of success he has achieved as a salesman. He is unable to accept the fact that he is nothing but a mediocre salesman and even has to take out a loan from his friend in order to pay his bills. Later in the story Happy begins to display some of the very same characteristics that Willy does. He is seen to exaggerate his job position in order to appear more successful than he is, leading to a fight with Biff. Willy makes several statements about how “easy” it is to live the American Dream and even makes the statement “Certain men just don’t get started till later...
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...Narcissism and the American Dream in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman Narcissism och den amerikanska drömmen i Arthur Millers en handelsresandes död. Fredrik Artan Faculty of Arts and Education Subject: English Points:15.0 Supervisor: Magnus Ullén Examiner: Anna Swärdh 2014-06-18 Serial number Abstract This essay focuses on the theme of the American Dream in relation to narcissism in Miller’s Death of a salesman. The purpose is to demonstrate that a close reading of the main protagonist, Willy Loman, suggests that his notion of success in relation to the American Dream can be regarded as narcissistic. This essay will examine this by first observing how Willy´s notion of success is represented in the play, then look at how his understanding of it can be viewed from a narcissistic standpoint. The results I have found in my analysis show that there is a connection between Willy’s understanding of success and his narcissistic behavior. He displays traits such as grandiosity, arrogance, need of specialness and denial of emotions. His relationship with other characters reveals his lack of empathy, manipulation and exploitation of others as well as his need of superiority and fear of inferiority. The conclusion is that Willy and his notion of success could be considered as narcissistic. Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................1 The American...
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...shoeshine. For year Willy Loman lives a life of traveling and selling, but as his age increases his mental state declines. In Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, we follow a delusional, suicidal man who is forced to face the harsh truth of his life. Throughout this play, Willy reimagines his life as he saw, but is really running from the truth with his delusions of grandeur. He believes he plays an important role in his job, his oldest son Biff is a prodigy, and that his is going to make it out alive. As readers watch Willy’s mental state unravel, his death is inevitable and unavoidable. The death of Willy Loman rests in the hands of his son Biff; once his true identity is revealed it’s too much for his father to bare. Biff is the apple of his father’s eyes, he was a football star, an aspiring salesman, and idolized his father. In many of Willy’s delusions we see him...
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...Character Morphing Into Personality “The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the image which I try to create in the minds of others in order that they might love me.” Stated by W. H. Auden, this quote aptly illustrates Willy Loman’s external image conflict as well as society’s changed perspective regarding character and personality. Willy Loman, the main character in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” was determined to become a successful salesman because society regarded the charismatic occupation highly. Willy, striving on the idea that “being liked” made an individual successful, ultimately failed in embracing his true identity, becoming a carpenter, by devoting...
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...During pages 8-10 Arthur Miller uses Linda and Willy’s interactions to display Linda’s misguided attempts at restoring Willy to mental stability. Throughout the rest of the play Miller’s permissive characterisation of Linda catalyses the deterioration of Willy’s psyche and relationships. Miller presents Linda as Willy’s enabler; she is seen as not only allowing but socialising Willy into a self-destructive way of being. Miller incorporates the symbolism of the flute into the stage directions to symbolise Willy’s hamartia, a tragic flaw that leads to a character’s downfall. Although Willy Loman does not fit the criteria of the tragic hero, Arthur Miller wanted to show the fate of one of the many ordinary people who are rejected by a system which should support them. In Tragedy and the Common Man, he wrote, “I believe that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were”. As Willy enters a “small fine melody on a flute is heard”. A flute is an artificial object; it could be interpreted that its elusive and indistinct sound represents fantasy, a product of the imagination. Furthermore, its “small” and “fine melody” hints at childlike imagery. All of these attributes relate to the character of Willy. Children strive for unattainable fantasies; Willy, as an adult, should be more rational. Miller presents Linda as being a contributor to this flaw due to her need to conceal the cracks in their relationship, covering up issues rather than confronting...
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...America and Willy Loman America is a madman. America became a man who fell off his rocker and is free to roam the earth to disturb the minds of those who inhabit it. The American dream is often considered a fantasy by those who criticize it. Capitalism sometimes may not be all that it is cracked up to be when you get down in the dirt and start building. Even when you begin to believe you are moving forward you can be eternally unsure of the direction you are moving. At this point, the race to the top can drive you crazy. In Arthur Miller’s play A Death of a Salesman, the central character Willy Loman embodies the American dream and he is certainly mad. In the story, Willy works as a growing salesman who is getting older and tiring from travelling for work for small returns. His hard work goes unrewarded as each paycheck goes right into the house which always needs to be serviced and mended. This house as it gets to be paid off after 25 years finally becomes owned by the family who ironically may soon not live in the house together. Willy’s family consists of his humble and caring wife, Linda, and his two handsome and able-bodied sons Happy and Biff. The story centers around the external conflict of Willy pushing Biff to be what he wants him to be and Biff’s internal conflict of what it is he would like to do with his life. Death of a Salesman is considered by many to be a tragedy as the play’s events lead to the ultimate suicide of its central character. The play does not lend itself...
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