CHAPTER – III

DEDICATION AND SACRIFICE IN

DEATH OF A SALESMAN

Miller’s plays reveal his deep concern for ordinary people and their values. He

is concerned with larger issues, values, morality and justice. Though Miller started

writing in 1930, he totally differs from his contemporaries in many aspects. His

passionate concern is that attention must be paid to the aspiration, worries and

failures of all men especially, of the little man who is the representative of the society.

According to Miller, truth, courage, responsibility and faith must be the central values

of men. Death of a Salesman is a play which centres round the problems of an

ordinary common man of the society.

It was in Broadway, on February 10, 1949, that Death of a Salesman was first

produced. It was excitingly staged by Elia Kazan and given memorable performances

by Mildred Dunnock, Arthur Kennedy and the excellent Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman.

To many spectators, the play seemed to be the most meaningful and moving

statement made about the American life upon the stage in a great many years. Since

then to the people who have seen the play, the vision of Willy Loman has been

overpowering, shattering and unforgettable. It is generally considered as Miller’s

masterpiece.

In Death of a Salesman, Miller has managed to rise above the ordinary flat-

lands of moralization and thesis drama. This play is a consummation of virtually

everything attempted by that part of the theatre which has specialized in awareness

and criticism of social realities. It is the climax of all efforts since the 1930’s to

observe the American scene and trace, as well as evaluate its effect on character and

personal life. Miller’s achievement lies in bridging successfully, the gulf between a

social situation and human drama. The elements in this play are so well fused that the

one is the other. The play succeeds as a character drama and an exceptionally good

example of so-called ‘middle-class tragedy’. It follows the fate and final reckoning of

a commonplace man in a commonplace environment.

Miller’s intention was to write a monodrama – a play called The Inside of his

Head – which would re-create a man’s entire life in terms of past and present – by

means of his recollections at a particular point of self-reevaluation, late in life. Death

of a Salesman is a drama of man’s journey into himself. It is a man’s emotional

recapitulation of the experiences that have shaped him and his values.

The plot in Death of a Salesman delineates the hero and arranges the events of

action. Americans consider success as a requirement of life and every free citizen;

irrespective of his being genius or mediocre, must treat it as his ideal towards which

he should constantly strive. So Willy’s search for success is the central idea of the

play.

Death of a Salesman depicts the life of Willy Loman, a traveling salesman,

aspiring for things beyond his reach. He not only lives in a world of illusions, but also

draws his family into it. The competitive spirit, the rat race of modern life is regarded

as something disgusting by Willy. His sons not only fail to live up to his expectations

but also they insult and blame him for their failures. The personal responsibility of

the individual to the society and the society failing the individual is the theme of this

play. Miller, by bringing the downfall of Willy, strikes at the very roots of the modern

society.

Willy Loman is a modern everyman as Miller himself once remarked. Being a

man of ideals, he is disappointed to find that his ideals are not recognized by the

larger world in which he lives. His dreams (which occupy half of the play), destroy

him and he dies in order to turn them into reality. His futile philosophy is opposed by

three main alternatives; the pioneering adventurous nature of Ben, the sensible

practicality of Charlie and the loyalty of Linda.

In Death of a Salesman, Miller employs new techniques of style, in order to

depict the inner reality of his characters. The subtitle, Certain Private Conversations

in Two acts and a Requiem, indicates that a good part of action in the play is intended

to be internal. Miller’s attempt is to give a glimpse into the mind of the central

character. Hence the psychological aspects of human behaviour are more in

prominence. The setting and representation of the action of this play, therefore,

represent a new approach adopted by the playwright. At the same time, Miller is still

concerned with the theme of man being a victim of the evils of a commercial society.

However the individual is humanized in detail and depth. The ultimate feeling is that

although in many respects man is a victim of society, he himself may be a weak

individual who is partially responsible for his fate.

The play Death of a Salesman is studied as a profoundly symbolic criticism of

the worship of material success. Willy Loman, a rounded and psychologically

motivated individual as well as a familiar American Babbitt embodies the stupidity,

immorality, self-delusion and failure of middle class values. He is not a man who has

a definite aim in life or one who strives desperately to achieve his goal. He is a man

who has accepted an ideal shaped for him and forced on him, by the making of his

society. His love for his delinquent sons has made him, in John Gassner’s apt phrase,

“a King Lear in mufti”

(John Gassner 102)

In the race of the survival of the fittest, Willy Loman is unable to keep pace

with the ‘high man’ of the American commercial civilization and hence dies

unnoticed. He is often seen as a deluded victim rather than as a dear sighted heroic

challenger. As such, Willy Loman is a much more interesting victim of the American

success myth because when he dies, he still embraces the dream that is killing him.

Willy has little choice than to conform and be destroyed in the process. Choudhuri, a

critic, in his book, An Outsider’s View, says:

Willy Loman’s artificial optimism, his innocent acceptance

of modern business morality, his illusion of success, his

bewilderment over a failure and his final collapse neatly sum up

the possible life history of an American little man who lives a kind

of dual existence in the world of his dreams and in the world of

reality

(Choudhuri 68)

The play centres round Willy Loman, a traveling salesman for Wagner

Company for thirty-four years. He likes to think of himself as being indispensable to

the company, especially in the New England territory which was his beat. Many years

ago, Willy had met another traveling salesman Dave Singleton who would go into

town, check into a hotel and do all his business over the phone. When he died, people

from all over his territory came to attend his funeral.

When the play opens, Willy has just come back from New England, tired and

exhausted. He tells his wife Linda that he can no longer concentrate on his driving.

He also asks about his son Biff who has just come home after having been away for

quite a long time. It is after fourteen years that Biff has returned home. He and his

brother Happy try to think of some job that he could do and settle down in New York.

Biff thinks that he could ask Bill Oliver with whom he had worked, some years ago,

for a loan of ten thousand dollars, with which he could start a business. Willy says

confidently that his two sons could conquer the world. He also says that the important

thing in life is ‘to be liked’ and ‘to have personal attractiveness’. Willy Loman’s

experience in his material ambition reflects the illusion which is the product of a

society based on commercial morality. The original American dream is the promise of

a land of freedom with opportunity and equality for all. Ever since the civil war, the

American dream has become distorted to the dream of business success.

The central theme of Death of a Salesman is derived from an explanation of a

particular aspect of culture, the twentieth century culture in which illusions take the

place of dreams and fantasy substitutes reality. This phenomenon, ignorance of reality

or non-recognition of facts, has been a potent source of European theatre since the

time of Greeks; Loman’s whole life has been shaped by his commitment to success

ideology.

Arthur Miller has emphatically portrayed in this play Death of a Salesman, that

illusions are the product of a society based on commercial morality. But he has

carefully focused our attention more on the sorrow and humiliation of Willy Loman

that on the denunciation of a social system. However in condemning Willy Loman to

die by his own hand, Miller is actually condemning the economic system that

fashioned his end. Hence the play has become ‘a signal event’ in the theatre and has

given a true dramatic intensity to the theatre of ideas.

In Death of a Salesman, the entire action takes place in one day, that is, the last

day of Willy Loman’s life. But a larger portion of this action is devoted to the

projections of Willy’s memory. They depict various incidents and developments of

Willy’s past so that the background story gradually unfolds itself on the stage along

with the happenings of the last day. Thus a major part of the play consists of action in

retrospect. In his ‘Introduction’ to Collected Plays, Miller describes this technique as

“the form of confession… now speaking of what happened, then suddenly following

some connection to a time twenty years ago”. (Introduction to Collected Plays 32)

The goal of a salesman is to make a deal, earn profit – accumulation of profit

being an unquestioned end in itself. Willy Loman is a devout believer in this concept

of salesmanship which has brought about a rat race competition.

Willy: …. Because the man who makes an appearance in the

Business world, the man who creates personal interest is a man

who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want.

(DOS 145)

In another occasion Willy remarks:

Willy:…. The wonder of this country is that a man can end with

Diamonds here on basis of his being liked.

(DOS 185)

In the words of Ronald Hayman in his book on ‘Arthur Miller’:

Willy’s faith in magic of personal attractiveness as a way to

success carries him beyond cause and effect to necessity.

(Ronald Hayman 40)

Willy’s obsession with ‘personal attractiveness’ is revealed when he speaks to

Linda. He says:

Willy: Biff Loman is lost. In the greatest country in the

world a young man with such personal attractiveness gets lost.

(DOS 50)

He has a firm belief that success falls inevitably on the man with the right

smile, the most charm – the man who is not just liked but “well liked”. Gerald Weales

observes this point in his critical essay, Arthur Miller: Man and his Image:

Nothing is more important to Willy Loman than his family;

but his main idea in bringing up his sons is to teach them to cash

in on their personal attractiveness – to equip them in effect, for

successful careers in selling.

(Gerald Weales 70)

Willy’s dialogue with his children substantiates this:

Willy: Bernard is not well liked, is he?

Biff: He’s liked, but he’s not well-liked

Happy: That’s right pop.

Willy: That’s just what I mean… You’re

both built like Adonises.

(DOS 146)

He tells Biff that his brother Ben always liked him and also that he should be

aware of how much personal attractiveness he had.

The next day Willy Loman plans to take his sons out for a dinner. He is so

pleased with himself that he decides to ask Howard Wagner, the owner of the firm

with whom he worked, for a job based in New York. Wagner tells him that there is no

vacancy in New York and besides that he could no longer represent the firm in New

England because he was doing harm to the company. Willy’s fortunes change

drastically: he is now without a job and has to go to an old friend, Charley to borrow

money to pay his insurance premium. It is now understood that Willy had been

borrowing fifty dollars a week from Charley and then pretending that this amount

was his salary. Charley offers Willy a job in New York but he says that he could not

work for him. Willy now leaves to meet his sons.

Biff and Happy meet in a restaurant. Biff tells his brother that he had been

living under an illusion all these years and that he never held a regular job and he

wanted to tell everyone of the state he was in; especially his father who still thinks

that he was capable of great things. When Willy arrives, he tells his sons that he had

been fired and refuses to listen to Biff’s story. Willy thinks that Biff has an

appointment the next day and when he learns that there was no such thing, he gets

angry. Biff and Happy leave the restaurant and Willy is left alone.

When Biff comes home at night, he finds his father planting seeds in the

garden and talking to his brother, Ben. But this is just an illusion because Willy had

not seen his brother at all for years and Ben had actually died before nine months.

Biff tells his father that it would be best that they part company because he was no

longer a great leader of men but a simple ordinary person. But Willy refuses to

accept this and says that he would become a great man. Biff breaks down when he

sees that his father incapable of seeing the truth. Willy thinks Biff is still a child and

needs him. He then decides to commit suicide because with twenty thousand dollars

as insurance money, Biff could make a grand success of himself. Thus Willy

commits suicide. He is seen as a forgotten man because no one attended his funeral.

The brief ‘Requiem’ shows the Willy family and Charley paying their homage

to Willy. Linda, full of remorse, does not understand why Willy killed himself. Biff

blames Willy for having the wrong dreams and is ready to go away on his

wanderings. Happy is determined to carry on his struggle to realize Willy’s dream of

success. He understands that Willy was the product of a commercial society and he

could not help being a salesman. A salesman, according to Charley, “is a man way

out there in the blue riding on a smile and a shoe shine. A salesman is got to dream,

boy”. (DOS 222) This description of Willy makes him a universal character.

Willy’s problems as a father are shown to be a direct result of his own

deprivation as a son. As his father left when Willy was a child, he remains a dim

figure in his son’s imagination. Willy’s resolve to give strong guidance to his sons is

a result of his sense of the lack of such guidance in his own life. He says:

Dad left when I was such a baby…. I never had a chance to talk to

him and I still feel a kind of temporary about myself.

(DOS 159)

Much of Death of a Salesman is devoted to recreating the happy past, when

Willy Loman’s sales were bigger. Miller introduces Loman right from the beginning

as a salesman, who has lost his small ability to sell and is therefore in the danger of

losing his job as well. He also faces the risk of losing his livelihood, and above all his

self-respect. He is a little man, a low-man in the eyes of the society, as his name

indicates. He is introduced as a salesman but there is no mention of what he sells; the

information, perhaps, is held back by Miller. Willy Loman stands for ‘all low-men of

American community’.

Since Willy’s career is based on things that are ephemeral, he is not a success

in business. His devotion to his family stands on his way to success in business. To

add to this, he is found carelessly sure of himself. His sons fail to understand him

though they love him thoroughly. Willy wants his sons to succeed where he has

failed. Thus he ruins Biff’s life with impossible aspirations and false ideals.

As Arthur Miller says, the trouble with Willy Loman is that he has

tremendously powerful ideals. The fact is that he has values and the fact that it cannot

be realized drives him just as it is driving a lot of other people also. Willy is shown as

lacking human decency in many respects, but is still a tragic figure.

The play has often been approached as a psychological drama with strong

Freudian colouring. From this point of view, it is found that the work concentrates on

family values and especially the father’s affection for his sons. Willy and Biff are

more like brothers than father and son and it is Biff who attains mental maturity first.

It is Willy’s own faults which ruin him. All the flashbacks and hallucinations in

Death of a Salesman are in Willy’s own anguished conscience. As is often said, every

great tragic figure has been true to his fault and precisely this is Willy Loman’s

commitment. His tragedy becomes unbearable because Miller has drawn the portrait

of a good man driven by false ideals, but who still represents the homely, decent,

kindly virtues of middle-class society. Willy may not be a great man but the pressures

of society make him a tragic figure. When Willy’s mistake is viewed in the light of

the present, it is inferred that he lacks moral stamina in his character through the

years which has resulted in his present irrational behaviour.

In the ‘Introduction’ to Collected Plays, Miller says that the tragedy in Death

of a Salesman grows out of the fact that,

Willy Loman has broken a law without whose protection

life is insupportable if not incomprehensible to him and to many

others; it is the law which says that a failure in society and in

business has no right to live. Unlike the law against incest, the law

of success is not administered by statute or church, but it is very

nearly as powerful in its grip upon men.

(Introduction to Collected Plays 35)

The nobility in Willy is found, not in the salesman, the symbol for the dream of

success, but in the father, the symbol of love. Till the end of the play, he tries to buy

his son’s respect and love at the cost of his own life and refuses to accept himself for

what he is. Success becomes an obsession with him and when he fails to succeed, he

shifts his ideal to his son, on whom it sits as a burden intolerable as death.

Regarding Willy’s dream, Neil Carson says:

It seems clear from the rest of the play, however, that we are

intended to blame Willy (as Biff certainly does) for having all the

wrong dreams or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we

are to blame him for holding on to those dreams long after they

cease to correspond with any possible reality.

(Neil Carson 57)

When the play is analysed, the inevitable question comes to mind. Is the play

primarily a socio-political criticism of American culture or does Willy Loman fall far

enough to be a tragic figure? According to Miller himself, either of these two views is

too simple and each destroys the possibility of the other. Certainly the play Death of

a Salesman cannot be both tragic and social for the two forms conflict in purpose.

Social drama treats the little man (Willy Loman) as victim and arouses pity and no

terror (for man is too little and passive to be tragic figure). Tragedy on the other hand,

destroys the possibility of social drama, since the tragic catharsis reconciles or

persuades to disregard precisely those material conditions. Jean Gould in his critical

book Modern American Playwrights has rightly stated:

The brilliance of Death of a Salesman lies precisely in its

reconciliation of these two apparent contraries. Miller has created

a sort of narrative poem whose overall purpose can be understood

only by a consideration of its poetic as well as narrative elements.

Death of a Salesman remains unequalled in its brilliant and

original fusion of realistic and poetic techniques, its richness of

visual and verbal structure and its wide range of emotional impact.

(Jean Gould 110)

In Death of a Salesman Miller finds appropriate symbols for the social realities

of his time and place. He achieves through a series of emotional confrontations

among the members of a single family an emotionally valid psychological statement

about the particular conflicts of the American family as well as the universal

psychological family struggle. By placing all these events, with in the context of one

man’s thoughts, rambling over his past and present life, he achieves an internal drama

of man’s epic journey to self-knowledge through experience. The entire play, in this

sense, is a recognition scene.

Though Willy is a tragic hero in the action of the play, he never achieves heroic

stature because of Miller’s strong criticism of his society. In the end, it is not Willy

Loman as a man, but the image of the salesman that predominates. It is the man, who,

from selling things has passed to selling himself and has become, in effect, a

commodity which like other commodities will at a certain point be economically

discarded.

Willy’s memories do not materialize at random. They are

triggered by certain incidents in the present and Willy is changed

by remembering

them.

(Neil Carson 48)

The behaviour of Miller’s characters is controlled by the constant threat of

economic and political crisis that has made society what it is.

Willy is obsessed with bringing his family up. He is mesmerized by two

romantic images: first of his brother, Ben who walked into the jungle at the age of

seventeen and walked out again, rich at the age of twenty-one; the second, of a eighty

four year old salesman who was still so popular, that in any of the thirty cities, he

could just pick up the phone and wait comfortably in his hotel room for the buyers to

come to him. The actual Willy, as he is understood, is far away from what he

conceives of himself. The play reveals to us the final disintegration of a man who has

never even approached his idea of what by rights he ought to have been. Willy’s ideal

may have been the old salesman in his green velvet slippers, but his model is that

mythic figure, the traveling salesman of the dirty joke.

The sons are Willy’s divided self of the future; one asserting the continuing

validity of Willy’s dream, the other rejecting it. As is common in most Miller’s plays,

The central situation centres around the child-father

relationship, in which the children at an age when it is about to

break loose from the family; in each case the father is faced with

the constant consequent breakdown of the family world he had

tried to create; in each case the conflict between the child and

father takes place in terms of the wider world breaching the walls

of protection, the father had built around the family

(Brooks Atkinson 70)

The play repeats, that archetypal plot in which the son looks

up to his father for moral direction, instead finds corruption that

shatters the bond of mutual respect.

(Tom Driver. 48)

Miller’s stage direction for this play makes it obvious that the setting is going

to be non-realistic. He makes a rather important use of music which symbolizes the

bucolic aspect of life which is one of the prominent themes of the play. That is why

even before any action starts on the stage, a flute is played and its melody is “small

and fine, telling of grass and trees and the horizon” (DOS 130). It is romantic in

contrast with which the set is that of towering, angular buildings in the midst of

which the salesman’s house appears like a cage. Another aspect of the set is that the

foreground area is in sky blue light whereas the background is to be in orange light.

Miller is trying hard not to be realistic as he states clearly in his ‘Introduction’ to

Collected Plays, “An air of the dream clings to the place, a dream rising out of

reality” (Introduction to Collected Plays 29).

The critic John Gassner in his book, The Theatre in our Times has noted,

a great deal of the richness in Death of a Salesman derives

from the intermingling of the real with the unreal.

(John Gassner 107)

Even Miller says that the dramatic projections of Willy’s memory should not

be regarded as flashback in a novel or film where the past scenes are re-created

independently and outside the consciousness of the characters. But in Willy’s case,

the quick changing scenes on the stage are the projections of Willy’s memories. And

sometimes, two memories project themselves simultaneously that along with the

present action, the total effect is that of multiple action. Consequently there is not

time sequence in them, because in real life too, memories do not flash to the mind in

a continuous time bound sequence.

The ‘American dream’ is symbolized by Dave Singleman, the salesman who

lived on trains and in strange cities and who by virtue of some dazzling, irresistible

personal lovableness built his fame and fortune. Finally the American dream is

symbolized, in its most noble embodiment, by Willy’s father, who not only ventured

into a pioneer’s wilderness with no security or assurance of success but who was also

a creator. He made flutes and high music. The music of flute also plays a significant

role in the play. This motif is skillfully employed to reinforce the meaning of the play.

The play both opens and closes with the music of the flute. In other words, the music

of the flute encompasses the entire action. It is heard at various other times too. The

flute becomes more important when, in the course of the play, it is understood from

Ben that his (and Willy’s) father used to manufacture and sell flutes. Willy’s father

too was a salesman. But there is an essential difference between Willy and his father.

Willy sells goods manufactured by others while his father produced his own flutes to

sell them, traveling with his whole family in a wagon and driving across the country.

So Willy’s father was both an enterprising and adventurous man, while Willy seeks

success only through a social charm, amiability and contacts. Towards the end of the

play, when Willy is planning for his suicide and then later Willy’s funeral, the flute

music captures Willy’s inability to emulate the example of adventurous father and

brother Ben. This flute music also suggests the world of illusion in which Willy has

spent his life.

Willy is a victim of this merciless social system which drives people to frantic,

all-consuming dreams of success. Willy is doomed not only by the grandiose nature

of these dreams but also by their inherent contradictories. The play seems to condemn

a system that promises and demands total commitment to success without regard to

human values. It is a system as Willy says to Howard, will, “eat the orange and throw

the peel away” (DOS 181). It is a society, in which the cruel inhuman son (Howard)

can replace his kindly father (Wagner) and say to a long time employee (Willy) who

gave him his Christian name: “Look kid, I’m busy this morning” (DOS 177). Willy,

with his limited sense of truth, does not realize the ethical implications of his cry of

protest. The blend of pathos and irony which marks the encounter between the two,

precludes any simplistic moral anger on the part of the spectators. But its troubled

echoes point at a social system which treats human beings as expendable and

demands from Willy, his final sacrifice.

Due to his affection, Willy tries to get the best for his sons, but unconsciously

spoils them, overlooks their dishonesty and tortures them with his ambition for them.

Willy always has a guilty consciousness of not having earned anything for his sons.

He realizes that he cannot sell himself in life, but can sell himself only in death, by

bequeathing to Biff, his paid up life insurance.

Miller sees Willy as a tragic figure as long as the intensity,

the human passion to surpass given bounds, the fanatic insistence

upon a self-conceived role is present.

(Allan Lewis 47)

The only member of the family who distrusts Ben is Willy’s wife Linda.

To her, the words of Ben are disgusting as they pose a threat to the family’s

stability and security. The strength and tenacity of her love for Willy and her

determination to hold her family together appear to be in reassuring contrast to

those around her. She represents the older values of decency, courage, sacrifice

and devotion. She has chosen a difficult path and has stuck to it. Indeed, it is

possible to suggest that part of the power of the play can be found not in the

way other members of the family tear each other apart, but in the way Linda

attempts to hold them together.

Linda is often oversimplified by critics and audiences. Her role in the

play is denigrated and caustic criticism is hurled on her, pointing to the obvious

bewilderment in her heart-breaking ‘I don’t understand’ (DOS 222) at the

funeral, she does understand Willy but only those aspects which are perceptible

to her. Other facets of his personality are beyond her comprehension of it is

precisely this uneasy combination of perception and incomprehensibility that is

integral to her relationship with the men in her family.

Miller, in describing her character in the stage direction, says:

Most often jovial, she has developed an iron repression of

her exception to Willy’s behaviour – she more than loves him, she

admires him, as though his mercurial nature, his temper, his

massive dreams and little cruelties, served her only as sharp

reminders of the turbulent longings with in him…

(DOS 131)

Linda has a painfully realistic insight into the character and situation of the

man she married. She knows that the fifty dollars, which he gives her as his pay

cheque, has actually been borrowed from Charley. She allows him his lie as she does

not want to rob him of his remaining dignity by informing him of her awareness of

his petty deception. She is also aware of his obsession with the idea of suicide. She

quietly subverts his plans instead of shaming him by revealing to him her knowledge

of it. Fully cognizant of his weaknesses, Linda can also comprehend Willy’s decency,

loneliness and heart-break. In her overwhelming devotion to him, she has helped to

build a doll’s house around him and consequently, has done to Willy, what he has

been doing to Biff and Happy. Also she has been spurred by the same motivation:

love. In being a good wife, Linda has extended her devotion to an extreme that has

become destructive not only to her husband but also to her sons, who have also

become victims of her gingerbread house. Describing her as ‘the mother earth’ Lois

Gordon explains:

In her love Linda accepted Willy’s greatness and his

dreams, but while in her admiration for Willy, her love is powerful

and moving, in her admiration for his dreams, it is lethal. She

encourages Willy’s dreams, yet she will not let him leave her for

the New Continent, the only realm where the dream can be

fulfilled. She wants to reconcile father and son, but she attempts

this in the context of Willy’s false values: she cannot allow her

sons to achieve that self hood that involves denial of these values.

(Lois Gordon 105)

To a great extent, Linda’s follies are attributable to her longing for security and

relatedness.

Willy could never deceive his wife with quite the same facility with which he

had impressed his sons. His wife Linda serves as a kind of conscience making him

confess his true earnings and his real sense of inadequacy. He succeeds in gaining

sympathy because more than for wealth or fame, he longs for friendship.

It is a poignant scene when Linda talks to her sons about Willy’s pitiable

condition. She describes the crisis which Willy is facing:

But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to

him. So attention must be paid. He is not to be allowed to fall into

his grave like an old dog. Attention must be paid to such a man.

(DOS 162)

Linda’s loyalty and affinity for her husband Willy is seen in the impeccable

scorn she shows towards her sons after their behaviour with Willy in the restaurant.

Linda: You’re a pair of animals! Not one, not another living

soul would have had the cruelty to walk out on that

man (Willy) in a restaurant.

(DOS 211)

May be the wife in Linda wants to be kind to the ‘unlucky husband’ even after

accepting all his faults.

Willy is also equally affectionate on his wife Linda. The love of Willy for his

wife Linda is realized from his conversation with Ben.

Willy: Now look, Ben, I want you to go through the ins an

outs of this thing with me. I’ve got nobody to talk to,

Ben, and the woman (Linda) has suffered.

(DOS 212)

Linda also points out to her sons the painful difference between Willy’s past

and present circumstances which proves her affection for her husband:

He (Willy) drives seven hundred miles and when he gets

there no one knows him any more, no one welcomes him. And

what goes through a man’s mind, driving seven hundred miles

home without having earned a cent.

(DOS 163)

Bechtold Heilman, a critic points out that:

Our reaction to Willy is like the experience we suffer in

contemplating on the highways a run-over and killed dog

(Bechtold Heilman 87)

According to this critic, there is pathos, but no elevation of spirit; there is no

expansive sense of the possibilities of human kind, only an acute sense of limitation.

Had Willy like Oedipus, come to understand his errors, to see through his delusions

to a clear vision of self, the audience might have got the full sense of tragic irony that

comes when a tragic hero acquires self-knowledge only at a point when he cannot

stop the consequences of his earlier ignorance. It might have been left with the

feeling that there was yet potential in Willy who might have finally abandoned his

futile dream and pursued a life of gardening or carpentry. But Willy dies in service of

the dream he has worshipped all his life, the dream has nurtured a vision of self that

bears little resemblance to reality and he leaves that dream as legacy to his sons

who‘ve no more chance of success than Willy has had. Willy’s weary form casts an

immense shadow over all modern drama, but because he goes to his death without the

wisdom of self-discovery, he remains a pathetic ‘low-man’.

Biff’s sympathy for his father’s suffering finally does overcome his

resentment. He makes a last and desperate attempt to open Willy’s eyes to the truth –

to make him understand that neither of them can achieve success for which Willy has

hoped. In the final encounter Biff says:

Pop I’m nothing: I’m nothing, pop,

Can’t you understand that? There’s

no spite in it any more..

I’m just what I am, that’s all

(DOS 217)

Willy realizes that Biff does not totally hate him for his failures but in fact

loves him. This realization leads him to his enlightenment. His false image of

fatherhood is torn by the truth that Biff loves him as he is in himself and not as he

would appear to be.

According to the old, traditional view, the tragic hero is to be a person of high

rank or status, so that his downfall could produce the appropriate emotional effect on

the audience. Besides, the old view of tragedy emphasized the element of fate as

being responsible for the misfortunes of the tragic hero. Even in the plays of

Shakespeare, although character is largely responsible for the undoing of the tragic

hero, the mysterious working of fate is distinctly brought into focus. In other words,

Shakespeare attributes human misfortunes mainly to the fault of the sufferers

themselves but partly to the hidden forces which are described as fate or destiny.

Miller seems to depart from both these concepts of tragedy. In the first place, the

tragic hero in Death of a Salesman belongs to the middle class which means that this

play is a bourgeois tragedy. Miller doesn’t believe in that a tragic effect can be

produced by the downfall of a highly placed individual. It is not the high social rank

of the individual but the intensity of his commitment to an idea or system that is

important. Secondly, although Willy is to some extent himself responsible for his

tragedy, the chief villain is society which means that it is a social drama. Miller’s

tragic vision is thus distinctively modern because the emphasis in the play is firstly

on an ordinary man and secondly on the social context, in which he lives, suffers and

dies. Death of a Salesman is unquestionably a deeply affecting play. In the words of

Eric Bentley, it has been regarded as:

One of the triumphs of the Mundane American stage. It

moves its audience tremendously; it comes close to their

experience or observation; it awakens their consciousness; and it

may even rouse them to self criticism.

(Eric Bentley 87)

Willy’s flaw and compensating virtues place him as a hero along the classical

lines. He, like Joe Keller in All My Sons, finds a readymade ‘society image’ to attach

himself, and becomes a victim of the attachment. Miller looks upon the salesman’s

ideal of success with an angry but discerning eye and he sees its hollowness and

treachery. Even a casual reader of Death of a Salesman would agree that Miller has

very much concerned with man and his family in this play. The success of the play

has proved his artistic achievement; Death of a Salesman ran into more than seven

hundred performances.

Death comes to Everyman, in the midst of life, and of

course is feared, the attempt made to avert it. But the action,

confidently, takes Everyman forward to the edge of that dark in

which he must disappear, and the most remarkable aspect of this

confidence is that physically, on a scaffold above the dark room.

God himself is waiting for Everyman to come.

(Raymond Williams 88)