October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005

1

Arthur Asher Miller, the son of a women's clothing company owner, was born in 1915 in New York City.

His father lost his business in the Depression and the family was forced to move to a smaller home in Brooklyn.

After graduating from high school, Miller worked jobs ranging from radio singer to truck driver to clerk in an automobile-parts warehouse.

2

Miller is perhaps best known for several of his earliest works, most notably "Death of a Salesman" and "The Crucible”.

In both works, the past works upon the present, but in dramatically different ways.

3

Tragedy4

A modern tragedian, Miller says he looks to the Greeks for inspiration, particularly Sophocles. "I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing-his sense of personal dignity,"

Miller writes. "From Orestes to Hamlet, Medea to Macbeth, the underlying struggle is that of the individual attempting to gain his 'rightful' position in his society."

Tragic Hero5

Miller believes. "It is time that we, who are without kings, took up this bright thread of our history and followed it to the only place it can possibly lead in our time-the heart and spirit of the average man."

hes' a human being, (protagonist)6

In the play, Miller writes, "Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But hes' a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him."

Protagonist: Willy Loman Antagonist: In a broad sense, competitive America society

7

DEATH OF A SALESMAN (1949)

8

Playwriting

• "When I began to write," he said in an interview, "one assumed inevitably that one was in the mainstream that began with Aeschylus and went through about twenty-five hundred years of playwriting."

(from The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller, ed. by Christopher Bigsby, 1997)

9

• The play is a scathing critique of the American Dream and of the competitive, materialistic American society of the late 1940s.

• The storyline features Willy Loman, an average guy who attempts to hide his average ness and failures behind delusions of grandeur as he strives to be a "success."

10

• Death of a Salesman relates the tragic story of a salesman named Willy Loman, whose past and present are mingled in expressionistic scenes.

11

What is Expressionism?

12

13

14

15

Background of Expressionism

In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche presented his theory of the ancient dualism between two types of aesthetic experience, namely the Apollonian and the Dionysian;

16

A dualism between the plastic "art of sculpture", of lyrical dream-inspiration, identity , order, regularity, and calm repose, and, on the other hand, the non-plastic "art of music", of intoxication, forgetfulness, chaos, and the ecstatic dissolution of identity in the collective.

17

The analogy with the world of the Greek gods typifies the relationship between these extremes: two godsons, incompatible and yet inseparable.

18

According to Nietzsche, both elements are present in any work of art. The basic characteristics of expressionism are Dionysian: bold colors, distorted forms-in-dissolution, two-dimensional, without perspective.( to depict the inner emotions)

19

Title

• Willy is the salesman throughout the play, and he is the character that ultimately dies, but the title can be seen as figurative, rather than literal.

. The complete title of the play is Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem.

The first word of the title refers not only to the death of the main character, Willy Loman, but also to the death of his career and his hopes for a better life for himself and his family.

" Requiem means rest. Requiem refers to a song for the dead.

20

Time Shifts ---- Style

21

• The characters will also be allowed to pass through the walls that are only obeyed to in the present as told in Miller's stage directions in the opening of ACT 1.

22

Dramatic Techniques

• Flashbacks would show an objective image of the past.

• Miller's mobile concurrences show highly subjective memories.

23

What is Stream of consciousness?

24

Stream of consciousness

A Willy's mental state deteriorates,

the boundaries between past and present are destroyed, and the two start to exist in parallel.

25

Stream of consciousness

• About the writing of the play, Miller says, "I wished to create a form which, in itself as a form, would literally be the process of Willy Loman's way of mind."

26

Reality and Illusion

• Throughout the play the Lomans in general cannot distinguish between reality and illusion, particularly Willy.

Willy cannot see who he and his sons are. He believes that they are great men who have what it takes to be successful and beat the business world. Unfortunately, he is mistaken. In reality, Willy and sons are not, and cannot, be successful.

Opposing Realities

27

Willy has created network of Lies in which he has become trapped.

28

29

Willy dies self-deceived.

Willy believes that to be well liked is the means to being successful. This is an illusion that Willy lives in.

On the literal level, Willy very often lapses into a flashback and appears to be reliving conversations and situations that occurred years ago. This itself is an inability to see reality.

Predicament

30

What has added to his predicament?

31

A number of Fatal Errors of Judgment

32

Tensions & Pressures

33

34

The Dangers of Modernity• Death of a Salesman premiered in 1949 on the

brink of the 1950s, a decade of unprecedented consumerism and technical advances in America. Many innovations applied specifically to the home: it was in the 50s that the TV and the washing machine became common household objects. (Run for More Money)

• Willy Loman's career - traveling salesmen are rapidly becoming out-of-date. Significantly, Willy reaches for modern objects, the car and the gas heater.

Stock market in the age of consumerism

35

36

The Dangers of Modernity

Willy Loman's career - traveling salesmen are rapidly becoming out-of-date.

37

Madness

Madness is a dangerous theme for many artists, whose creativity can put them on the edge of what is socially acceptable.

Protagonist

Anti-heroHe possesses few heroic

qualities---Anti-hero

Domestic Problems

Hero Larger than life

Problems of Cosmic Scale.

(grandiose)

38

39

Cult of Personality

40

Nostalgia

41

Opportunity

42

Growth

The members of the Loman family are stuck with the same character flaws, in the same personal ruts throughout time.

Growth

Willy does not recognize that his business principles do not work, and continues to emphasize the wrong qualities.

Biff and Happy are not only stuck with their childhood names in their childhood bedrooms, but also are hobbled by their childhood problems: Biff's bitterness toward his father and Happy's dysfunctional relationship with women

43

44

Growth

45

Unrealistic Expectations

46

Know Thyself

The words on the ancient Greek temple at Delphi advised, "Know thyself." But Willy continually fails to recognize his limitations. He does not know himself. Consequently, he constantly overreaches himself and thus constantly fails

47

An American resident experiences a sense of confinement.

What do you think Linda and Willy feel themselves confined to?

48

Freedom and Confinement

49

What is success?

Is Success related to happiness?

50

SuccessSuccess

"Success" starts being a relative term. You’re only successful if you’re more successful than other people you know; your job is only good if it’s better than the one next door/your brother/… .

51

52

Multiple Setting

• Playwright enables us to witness several rooms in a house simultaneously.

• Most of the action is set in Willy Loman’s home and yard in New York City.

53

Setting---house

• The Lomans’ house is boxed in by apartment buildings, adding to the characters’ feelings of confinement and desire to escape.

• The house is small and fragile, like the characters in this play.

54

What about the tone of the play?

55

Tone of the Play

The tone appears to be mocking of Willy’s blind acceptance of a very hollow, materialistic version of American Dream.

56

Do you find conflict in the play?

Willy Loman, like so many other American men of the last century, is in conflict with society, his family, and himself.

In his struggle to compete in materialistic America, he comes up short; society beats him down.

In his effort to communicate with his son Biff and mold him into a success, he fails.

In a war with his own inner self, he refuses to accept what he is–ordinary, average, unremarkable. Ultimately, Willy's inner and outer conflicts destroy him. .

57

Plot Analysis Act IWilly comes home early from his work trip because he is no

longer able to drive. For a traveling salesman, this means he also can’t do his job. Things are falling apart and money is a problem.

His wife, Linda, encourages him to ask his boss for a non-traveling job.

Willy’s mental health isn’t so good, and his sons are noticing that he’s talking to himself more than is socially acceptable. Willy’s mental wanderings are preoccupied with Biff’s aimlessness and inability to find success in business.

To please his dad, Biff decides to ask a former employer, Bill Oliver, for a business loan the next day in order to start a small business.

As a result, both Willy and Biff go to sleep with a plan and high hopes of the next day bringing financial and business success.

58

Plot Analysis Act IIThe following morning, Biff leaves to talk to Oliver and

Willy heads to his boss’s office to ask for a job transfer. Oliver refuses to see Biff for more than a few seconds and Biff definitely doesn’t get a loan. Biff realizes that he was totally deluded and steals Oliver’s pen.

Willy has approached his boss to get a non-traveling job, and has totally failed. He ends up begging to keep his original traveling gig, but is fired instead.

Depressed about his failed dreams of success, Willy attempts to hide from his son’s failures as well. Biff continues to try to force the truth on his father.

The argument ends with Willy understanding that Biff loves him. However, Act II still ends with Willy’s suicide

59

Plot Analysis RequiemThe Requiem takes place at Willy’s funeral. Biff declares that his father pursued the wrong

dream and didn’t know himself. Biff refuses to live life as his father did.

Happy, however is defensive and buys into his dad’s misguided dreams.

Linda, on the other hand, can’t figure out why her husband killed himself, especially since she just made the last payment on their house that day. Linda is still clueless.

60

61

"Why do I need to know or read this play?”

(How far the assigned literary text is relevant both to themselves and to today's world.)

62

Was Death of the Salesman inevitable?

If you were Miller how’ll you end

the play?

64

Text Bibliography

65

Electronic Bibliography

66

Research outline

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

67