Arthur Miller's play (and book) Death of a Salesman is somewhat hard
to follow in spots where it becomes difficult to separate Willy Loman's
fantasy world from his reality. It is, however, one of the greatest plays
available to watch or to read, and Miller's genius really comes through in
the characters and what they go through during the story. The purpose of
this paper is to utilize five different sources to analyze this story, and
to show how different parts of the story are looked at in different ways.
Death of a Salesman has been reviewed quite extensively in books, in
journals, and on the Internet. One of these reviews discusses how Loman
suffers so greatly as he sees himself and his family slip into ruin. He
believed that his family was destined for greatness, but eventually he
places all his hope in his children, who also fail him. This is the last
straw for Willy, because he finally realizes that nothing he and his family
does will ever be good enough (Amazon, 2003). They are not destined for
greatness after all, but instead are doomed to misery and failure, which is
much the way the human condition is, and this kind of difficulty is shared
by a great many people throughout the world.
Much of what Death of a Salesman deals with is the morals that
society has embedded in it and how they sometimes fail, even though the
best of intentions remain. Loman is torn between running for the money and
simply running away from everything, and it is taking its toll on his body
and spirit (Shurley, 2003). Loman has had several opportunities in his
life to have great adventures and make a lot of money, but he has declined
the offers each time, not realizing what they could have done for him. Now
he regrets that, but it is too late for him to go back and change things
(Shurley, 2003). That is why he puts the pressure on his sons to succeed,
but they fail as well,...