Death of a salesman essay
Death of a salesman essayThere is something magical and sometimes overpowering to the
majority of mankind: It is the thing that allows people to live in
mansion's with helipad's as well as underground society forced to
live in the many tunnels and passageways under New York City
and to beg for their meals. Although this is definitely the extreme
that I have described. It is sometimes indescribably cruel and
other times very gracious. This thing that I write about is the
American system. In Arthur Miller's moving and powerful play,
"Death of a Salesman", Miller uses many character to contrast
the difference between success and failure within the system.
Willy is the dreamy salesman whose imagination is much larger
than his sales ability, while Linda is Willy's wife who stands by
her husband even in his absence of realism. Biff and Happy are
the two blind mice who follows in there father's fallacy of life,
while Ben is the only member of the Loman family with that
special something needed to achieve. Charlie and his son
Benard, on the other hand, enjoy better success in life compared
to the Lomans.
The play romanticizes the rural-agrarian dream but does not
make it genuinely available to Willy. Miller seems to use this
dream merely to give himself an opportunity for sentimentality.
The play is ambiguous in its attitude toward the business-success
dream, but does not certainly condemn it. It is legitimate to ask
where Miller is going. And the answer is that he has written a
confused play because he has been unwilling or unable to commit
himself to a firm position with respect to American culture. Miller
prepares us for stock response-relief in escape to the West and
the farm; firm satisfaction in the condemnation of the tawdry
business ethic.1and then denies us the fulfillment of our
expectations. The play makes, finally, no judgment on America,
although Miller seems always on the verge of one, of telling us
that America is a nightmare, a cause of and a home for tragedy.
But Willy is not a tragic hero; he is a foolish and ineffectual man
for whom we feel pity. We cannot equate his failure with
America's (Eisinger .0 p. 174. Indeed, there is a lot of room for
failure as well as great success in America. The system is not the
one to blame. Willy can only blame himself for not becoming
what he wanted to be.
The next character, Willy Loman's wife Linda, is not part of the
solution but rather part of the problem with this dysfunctional
family and their inability to see things for what they really are.
Louis Gordon is in agreement stating, "Linda, as the eternal wife
and mother, the fixed point of affection both given and received,
the woman who suffers and endures, is in many ways, the earth
mother who embodies the play's ultimate moral value, love. But
in the beautiful, ironic complexity of her creation, she is also
Willy's and...
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