The significance of the fact that death of a salesman is subtitled - Essay Example

?Introduction Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman has a sub of “private conversations in two acts and a requiem.” The reason for this is becauseWilly has private conversations throughout the play with himself, as he lives inside his head because reality was too tough to bear. The requiem is obviously the death of Willy himself, but also is represented by the death of Willy's dreams, which happened long before he actually committed suicide. This paper will explore these themes in greater detail and show why the play had the subtitle that it did. Discussion The significance of the term “private conversations” is the fact that Willy has conversations with himself, inside his head. This means, of course, that the conversation is very private as it is between himself and nobody else. The play starts out as Willy is recounting one of these conversations with himself – he was in upstate New York, in his car, when he started to daydream to the point that his car went off the road. He complained about his “thoughts, his strange thoughts” (Miller, 2006, p. 163). One gets the impression that Willy lives inside his head while he is on the road, because he has come to a number of conclusions about his life and about the world – such as when he stated that his life was not one of accomplishments “no, no, some people – some people accomplish something” (Miller, 2006, p. 164). His head is a better place for Willy to live, to be sure, for there is always optimism there and a dream of the past, when things were better and Willy could still believe that the best years of his life were still ahead – such as how he feels about his son, who was also a failure in life - “remember how they used to follow him around in high school? When he smiled at one of them, their faces lit up. When he walked down the street...” (Miller, 2006, p. 165). He also talked about how Biff was on a championship football team, describing him as “a young god. Hercules – something like that” (Miller, 2006, p. 204). This game was no doubt one of the high points in his life, as he felt his son's glory, and he brought some buyers, so he was able to share in Biff's glory with them. Willy felt so proud that this son acknowledged him from the field - “Remember how he waved to me? Right up from the field, with the representatives of three colleges standing by?” (Miller, 2006, p;. 204) Willy can contrast these past images of idealism with the bitter reality that is his current life – he is a failed salesman, never having reached higher then that in his life, his sons have not found success either, and his surroundings are not what he wants them to be. It is tragic that he worked all of his life and he was still only a salesman – a “low man on the totem pole” (Parker, 1988, p. 32). Willy is also “pathetic” - the proof of this is the fact that Willy has a lack of control over his mind, has a lack of moral strength, and is victimized by society (Aarnes, 1988, p. 97). This is why Willy continually thinks of the past. He even sometimes believe that he is in the past, such as when he believed that he was driving his 1928 Chevy. All of this dreaming is affecting Willy to the point where he is a danger driving, not just in the opening scene, but through the play – such as when Biff states that Willy “stops at a green light, and then it turns red and he goes” (Miller, 2006, p. 167). Perhaps it is a great irony that, as a salesman, Willy is in the business of selling a fantasy, as it were, according to Innes - “even if the salesman carries sample cases, inside are not material objects but the dreams those materials stand for: popularity, prosperity, security and success” (Innes, 1988, p. 61). He even imagines his funeral to be grand, which is another way that Willy lives in his head - “But the funeral - Ben, that funeral will be massive! They'll come from Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire! All the old-timers with the strange license plates – that boy will be thunder-struck, Ben, because he never realized – I am known, Ben, and he'll see it with his eyes once and for all!” (Miller, 2006, p. 246). Cohn (1989) states that Willy envisioning his funeral in this way, stating “Geography and repetition sound lyric notes for Willy, but the old-timers with the strange license plates are dead, if they ever existed; only the family and the faithful Charley come to Willy's actual funeral” (Cohn, 1989, p. 43). This actual “conversation,” seeing as it takes place between Willy and his dead brother Ben, is another private conversation, as it is between Willy and himself, again, essentially, as Ben is no longer present. Hoeveler (1988) concurs with this interpretation. He states that Willy lives in his mind, and that the characters of Linda, Biff, Happy and Charley exist to try to make Willy's dream into real life, and that Willy does not live in reality, but, rather in a dream. Hoeveler states that this is apparent in the way that the other characters appease Willy and attempt to keep his fantasy of a different, better life going for him – such as the time when the boys “tell his father what he wants to hear, not what has actually happened” (Hoeveler, 1988, p . 78). Therefore, Hoeveler agrees that one of the private conversations to which the play refers is the conversation that Willy has inside his head, as he is constantly trying to recreate his reality to something that is palatable, a reality where Willy is “handsome, a loving husband and devoted father, and his sons are able to 'lick the civilized world.'” (Hoeveler, 1988, p.78). Heyen (1988) states that Willy is somebody who will not let the truth “get the best of him...[Willy] chose to continue dreaming unto death” (Heyen, 1988, p. 50). The tragic part of the equation is that Willy's death comes on the heels of hearing something that does not square with his dream world, and that is Biff's declaration of independence, as it were. Biff finally gets to the point where he wants to live his life for himself, and not to appease Willy's dream of who he should be. Because of this, Biff turns down a sales job in Florida, because he realized that this is not what he wants for his life - “why am I trying to become what I don't want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am...I am a dime a dozen, and so are you!” (Miller, 2006, pp. 250-251). Biff is clearly angry at Willy, and this adds to Willy's need to drift off into a life of fantasy. Biff's anger “derives partly from Willy's weakness and helplessness, partly from his bitterness, but partly also from his love for him, a love that won't cut Biff loose from his own sense of guilt” (Bigsby, 1989, p. 123). All at once, the reality of Willy's life, as well as Biff's life, comes crashing down to him, as Biff tells him the harsh truth of the matter – that he, Biff, is still a failure and probably will continue to be a failure, as he is 34 years old and still has no idea what he wants to be. He has had plenty of time to figure it out, and has not done so. Worse, still, Willy is also a failure, and, unlike Biff, there is nothing that can be done about that. Willy is in his sixties, he was fired from his job, and, at his age, probably will have a tough time finding another job, so his dreams are officially finished. Biff tell him the truth of the matter, and Willy cannot handle it. So, Willy's mind goes back to his private conversation with himself, as he has one last daydream about Biff's past glory in football - “now, when you kick off, boy, I want a seventy-yard boot, and get right down the field under the ball, and when you hit, hit low and hit hard, because it's important boy” (Miller, 2006, p. 253). Thus, Willy is having a private conversation right up until the end, before his suicide. Therefore, the term private conversation throughout the play is the private conversation that Willy has inside his head is because the reality of his life was such that he had to live in a fantasy world. The fantasy that he had, the way that he talked to himself constantly, this was the most private of conversations, as it was between Willy and Willy. The requiem part of the title is obvious, in that Willy died in the end. More than that, however, the requiem is kind of a death of the dream of all the Willies in the world, wherever they might be. These are the men in the world who live a life of quiet desperation, toiling away in menial jobs in a world that values only success. Back in Willy's day, the death of a dream takes place because life moves so fast, as does the world, and, if you get left behind, as Willy was, this is a tragedy that needs to be mourned. Hence the term “requiem.” The term “requiem” may also refer to the way that life was, and how it changed, which forced Willy to say goodbye to a possibly simpler life and forced him into a life where he needed to pursue superficial modes of success. In other words, Willy longed for a day when he could grow carrots in front of the house, and life was slower - “This time of year it was lilac and wisteria. And then the peonies would come out, and the daffodils” (Miller, 2006, p. 166). Brucher (1988) termed this as “the clash between the old agrarian ideal and capitalistic enterprise” (Brucher, 1988, p. 83). Therefore, Willy has to say goodbye to a life that could have made a man like him happy, for, if society is simpler and superficial success is not important, then Willy could have been somebody special. The requiem for the dream, to use a cliche, is still very much a theme in today's society, especially in light of the recession and worldwide job loss. It has become increasingly more difficult for people to become a success, the kind of success that would cause “attention to be paid” in Willy's world. It is not hard to imagine that Willy's predicament – failing in life, while imagining a better life, is one that is universal, and this is the tragedy. There are men, and women, everywhere who feel just as Willy does, and the requiem is meant for all of them. Conclusion “Certain private conversations and a requiem” is an appropriate title for Death of a Salesman. The private conversations means the fact that Willy lives inside his head, so he has conversations with himself. This is necessitated by the reality of his life. Willy has to live inside his head, because, if he did not, he would fall apart. This ended up happening anyway, partly because he wanted to finally give Biff something, in the form of his life insurance policy, and partly because of Biff's attempt to bring Willy into reality. The requiem refers to the fact that Willy's dream died, long before Willy himself actually did. In fact, it seems like Willy's dream never got a chance to live, as there doesn't seem to be a time when Willy was a success. Since success in work is the only definition of success that Willy knows, he was never a success. So, of course, Willy's body died at the end of the play, but his will died long ago, and this is what the requiem is all about. Bibliography Parker, B. (1988) Point of view in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. In Bloom, H. (1988) Interpretations. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. Cohn, R. (1988) The articulate victims of Arthur Miller. In Bloom, H. (1988) Interpretations. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. Heyen, W. (1988) Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and the American Dream. In Bloom, H. (1988) Interpretations. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. Innes, C. (1988) The salesman on the stage: A study in the social influence of drama. In Bloom, H. (1988) Interpretations. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. Hoeveler, D.L. (1988) Death of a Salesman as psychomachia. In Bloom, H. (1988) Interpretations. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. Brucher, R. (1988) Willy Loman and the Soul of a New Machine: Technology and the common man. In Bloom, H. (1988) Interpretations. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. Aarnes, W. (1988) Tragic form and the possibility of meaning in Death of a Salesman. In Bloom, H. (1988) Interpretations. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. Bigsby, C. (1988) Death of a Salesman: In memoriam. In Bloom, H. (1988) Interpretations. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. Miller, A. (2006) Death of a Salesman. In Arthur Miller: Collected Plays 1944-1961. New York: Penguin Group. Read More