Death of A Salesman by Arthur Miller - Book Report/Review Example

Lecturer: Death of a Salesman Death of A Salesman is a play written in 1949 by Arthur Miller, it won several awards including the highly acclaimed Pulitzer Prize for its themes that revolved around social issues that the population felt was relevant to them at the time including the struggle for acceptance, role of family and social expectations versus the desires of an individual. The main characters of the play are Willy -an aged salesman and head of the Loman family, his wife Linda, their firstborn Biff and his younger brother Happy. As seen below the novel is still relevant to modern day life. Psychological In the play, Willy feels that his sons are not as successful as they should be for their age and that they lack vision and that they should be more aggressive in their search for success citing himself as an example of a man to look up to. He also feels this especially towards Biff who he thinks was doing particularly well until he went on to campus and failed his mathematics and thus never finished it. The psychological context is also brought out by the fact that Willy’s family and friends feel that he is losing his sanity (Miller 15). Happy and Biff discuss the mental degradation of their father but do not bring this out to him since they feel that he would not accept what they are telling him, his wife Linda is also aware of his mental problems but won’t tell him either because she is trying to unite the family which already appears on the verge of splitting up. Willy’s problems do however show themselves when he gets into an argument with his boss Howard over the rejection of his application for a town job. Willy loses his temper over a trivial matter showing his volatility and the dangers of depression. Willy’s spiral into depression is also shown by his constant hallucinations. He constantly hallucinates of his past years of success such as 1928 when he was driving a red Chevrolet (Miller 13) of having conversations with his older brother as well point to his dementia. The constant hallucinations are thought to be a defense mechanism for the harsh realities that he is facing and were to prevent the onset of full scale depression, this however is not avoided as at the end of the play he still succumbs to it and commits suicide. Several factors are responsible for this depression the most important being his denial of the reality that he is not as successful as he imagines himself to be, and that Biff was never the successful football player that he imagines himself to be The success that Biff had was instead a touchdown that he scored while in high school. Willy’s imagination of success is shown when he goes to confront Howard’s father about his sacking citing the time in 1928 when he earned an extremely large bonus, he defends himself towards his boss by citing the time twenty years ago when he found financial success and this is what he uses as his defense to have himself reinstated“. The play is set in 1949 showing that Willy’s peak are twenty years past and yet he still clings on to them to prevent his acknowledgement that he is not as successful as he dreams(Miller 82). The theme of unrealistic parental expectations is constantly shown in Willy who believes that his son Biff is a failure, he wants his son to take up a job as a salesman and constantly berates him for not, he keeps reminding him about his high school successes and clings on them as proof that Biff has potential. He also keeps pressuring Bill to marry as he says that he was popular with everybody both boys and girls but as Linda points out Biff is rough with women and so it is difficult for him to settle down (Miller 31). The relationship between Linda and Happy also show how her expectations of him are more than what he can be even when trying, she complains that Happy should be doing more with his life and yet Happy is constantly providing money for her and Willy to use to supplement his income. Happy also has motivation to succeed and wants to become the manager of his store however this motivation is not acknowledged by the family (Miller 18). The irony of the parents’ expectation of the children to be successful is seen with Willy constantly borrowing money from his neighbor Charley on the premise that his situation will improve, Charley however knows that in reality this is not the case and instead lends it to Willy to save him embarrassment of accepting his state of affairs. The effects of parental relationships and how they affect the children is also seen such as with Happy who does not have a relationship with his father at all (Karolides 25). Willy is too busy focused on Biff to realize that his son Happy does have the desire to join the sales field and to teach him. Willy at one point in his life has an affair with a receptionist and Biff discovers it, this is one of the facts that not only drives him away his father but also makes him drift away from a career he liked as he fails to attend an interview in Boston. The role of the family in an individual’s success is therefore not something to be underestimated. Gender Roles The roles of gender in the mid-20th century are also seen with the way Willy handles his situation in poverty. The man was viewed to be the primary caretaker and a man who couldn’t provide for his family would not be viewed as respectable in the community. The role of men as providers is also seen when Happy talks of the women he’s slept with some of whom have been engaged to executives in the store which he works (Miller 19). It is clear that these women view him as desirable and attractive however due to his meager wages they don’t marry him and he himself doesn’t want them since he does not think himself fit to get married to such, instead talking praise for his mother who even though they aren’t living successfully continues to make due and not belittle their father. The role of women in that time was to be supportive of their husbands and to exude qualities such as loyalty and compassion. It was not a woman’s role to question her husband even if she knew that he might be wrong. This is seen with Linda who at no point criticizes her husband even as she sees him losing his mind and even as Biff points out to her he has done a few things that weren’t right she insists that Biff and Happy are the ones in the wrong with their lack of success in the world (Miller 43). Women are also seen as sexual objects as is shown by the carefree manner in which Happy handles them and that their father has an affair with a receptionist. This is also brought out in the manner in which Happy tells Biff not to promise anything as he views them as too simple minded to know that it is all wishful thinking. Women are also not supposed to be providers in the family as is shown with Linda’s reluctance to admit that Happy has been giving them money to supplement the income that Willy earns. The role of women as house makers is fixed and they aren’t supposed to start becoming the financial managers even if they are better than their husbands in this aspect (Miller 45). The reason for this is that there was a certain image a man should portray in line with the American dream as independent, aggressive and superior to his wife, this could be pointed out as the reason that Willy treats Charley so harshly because he constantly has to borrow money from him and this injures his pride (Bloom 19). The Death of a Salesman is a highly acclaimed novel due to its analytical view of the American and the high expectation of success that was drilled as the image of a man. The book addresses the acceptance of failure and its adverse effects on an individual including dementia and death if untreated. Arthur Miller shows that denial is harmful to an individual as it can prevent them from realizing the positive things around them. The play also looks at the role of women in society and the expectation that they should be submissive and thus forces them too to live in denial as they cannot confront the men in their lives. Although written over fifty years ago the play will remain a class is due to it addressing these issues. Works Cited Miller, Arthur. Death of a salesman: Longman study edition. New Delhi: Longman. 2008 Karolides, Nicholas. Reader response in secondary and college classrooms. New Jersey: Lawrence Eribaum, 2000 Bloom, Harold. Death of a salesman Bloom’s guides: Comprehensive research and study. New York: Infobase, 2004 Read More