Death of a Salesman
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| Death of a Salesman | |
 Cover to the Penguin Group edition |
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| Written by | Arthur Miller |
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| Characters | Willy Loman Linda Biff Happy Bernard The Woman Letta Charley Uncle Ben Howard Wagner Jenny Stanley Miss Forsythe Waiter |
| Date of premiere | February 10, 1949 |
| Genre | Tragedy |
| Setting | -Willy Loman's house -Various places in New York and Barnaby River -Late 1940s |
Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play by Arthur Miller and is considered a classic of American theater.[citation needed] Viewed by many as a caustic attack on the American Dream of achieving wealth and success without regard for principle, Death of a Salesman made both Arthur Miller and the character Willy Loman household names. The play raises a counterexample to Aristotle's characterization of tragedy as the downfall of a great man, whether through (depending on the translator) a flaw in his character or a mistake he has squandered.
It was greeted with enthusiastic reviews, received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1949, the 1949 Tony Award for Best Play, as well as the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. Death of a Salesman was the first play to win these three major awards, helping to establish Miller as an internationally known playwright.
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[edit] Characters
- Willy Loman, an elderly salesman, is no longer able to earn a living, and receives only a small commission. He is losing his mind and has attempted to kill himself by inhaling exhaust fumes, as well as crashing his car. He is obsessed with the post war interpretation of the American Dream: making as much money and being as successful as possible. He originally intended to work with his hands, but after seeing the success of others, went into the sales business.
- Linda Loman, Willy's wife, cares much about her husband and encourages him despite his desolate state. She is Willy's "foundation and support." However, she, alongside Willy's friends and family, reinforce and fail to contradict the delusions that result in Willy's suicide.
- Biff Loman, the elder son of Willy and Linda, follows the older American Dream, of working out in the open and being free. This displeases Willy, as he believes that Biff will never be successful this way. Biff used to love his father deeply, but after discovering his father had an affair, he abandoned all of his dreams and set out to make his own way.
- Happy Loman, the younger son of Willy and Linda, epitomizes all of Willy's negative points, such as his lust for money and women. Happy is generally supportive of his father, and although shows concern for him, carries on to encompass Willy's dream.
- Ben, Willy's wealthy and recently deceased older brother, only appears during his time shifts.
[edit] Minor characters
- Howard Wagner, Willy's boss
- Charley, a neighbor of the Lomans
- Bernard, Charley's son
- Stanley, a waiter
- Miss Forsythe, a woman that Biff and Happy meet
- Letta, a woman that Biff and Happy meet
- The Woman, Willy's mistress, referred to by Willy as 'Miss Francis'
- Bill Oliver, a previous boss of Biff's
- Jenny - Charley's secretary
- Dave Singleman, a fat and successful salesman
[edit] Plot summary
Willy Loman, a salesman based in New York City, returns from a trip to Yonkers. His sons, Biff and Happy, and his wife, Linda, greet him and then retreat into the other room. Biff, who had been working on a farm in Texas, talks to Happy about working outside, and how this house brings back bad memories, and boxes him in. Willy goes outside and flashes back to Biff's childhood: Biff is the football star of his high school, and their neighbor, Bernard advises him to study math but Biff and Willy ignore him and carry on playing football. Willy goes inside, where Linda talks to him about their budget. Willy is reminded of an encounter he had with The Woman, during which he gave her some stockings, and when he returns from the flashback, he sees Linda mending some stockings and snatches them away in guilt. Later, he and Charley engage in a poker game, during which Willy is reminded of his brother Ben. Ben begins a dialogue with him, some sort of mix between internal monologue and flashback, and Willy contemplates why he can't become successful. In most other flashbacks involving Ben, Willy asks Ben how he made his millions. Ben had tried to go to Alaska to get involved in logging but ended up in Africa. In Africa, he "stumbled" upon the diamond business and become wealthy by the time Willy was old enough to care about his own career. Willy feels that he can also become successful by luck alone. However, it is made apparent that Ben never spent much time with the rest of the Lomans and gave only rudimentary descriptions of how he gained his wealth; whenever Willy asks Ben (in his flashbacks) how he made his millions, Ben only answers "When I walked into the jungle, I was 17. When I walked out, I was 21, and by God I was rich." In addition, Willy worked for a man who only had to wake up in the morning, put his slippers on, and make phone calls, and had made millions of dollars. Willy assumes that one does eed to work or have ambition, but that all these men needed was a "smile and a shoeshine" to be successful.
This dream does not come true: Willy has been reduced to working for commission alone, and must travel. He has to borrow money from Charley to make ends meet. In order to escape from his own failure, he pressures his sons to make something of themselves, then is crushed when they don't live up to his expectations. The family discovers he's tried to kill himself when Linda finds a tube and "a new little nipple" on the heater, at which point Loman mentions he's deliberately crashed the car on several occasions. Biff has just returned from Texas after several years, during which he never contacted his family, and he is therefore not entirely welcome. In an effort to please their father, Biff and Happy plan to start a sporting goods business in Florida and put on exhibitions for publicity. Willy is excited by this plan, though it is ludicrous, and the boys plan to ask Bill Oliver, Biff's past employer, for startup money. Willy asks his current employer for a job in New York, so he doesn't have to travel so much. His employer instead fires him. Willy is outraged, and goes on a rant about the immorality of it, to which his employer responds "I have to see some people, can you hurry this up?" Willy runs into Bernard, who mentions that, during Biff's last year in high school, he had gone to Boston to visit Willy but on his return home, had lost all interest in school, thereby failing math. Willy denies anything happened in Boston. Charley mentions that Bernard is going to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court, which astounds. Charley offers Willy a job when he finds out that Willy got fired, but Willy refuses as he's still jealous of Charley.
Biff tells Happy about his encounter with Bill Oliver; he never got a chance to speak with Oliver, as he didn't even remember who Biff was. Infuriated, Biff stole Oliver's fountain pen and fled, at which point he realized his life was a lie and he was only a shipping clerk to Oliver. Biff tries to tell Willy the truth, but Willy so desperately wants good news that he forces Biff to lie. When Biff resists, Willy demands to know why Biff didn't pass math, and cries that his life falling apart. Biff takes pity on Willy, and lies that his encounter with Oliver went well, which allows Willy to continue denying reality. Willy has another flashback, during which he relives the night Biff found him in Boston; Biff walked in on Willy and The Woman, saw through Willy's lies, and fled back to New York. Willy then wakes up in the bathroom, where he had somehow dozed off, and goes back home, where he begins planting seeds outside and talking to Ben. When Biff returns, he admits that he had spent some time in jail, that he saw through the lies Willy had created, and shows him the tube with which Willy had attempted suicide, and refuses to continue living Willy's lies. Willy tells him to rot in Hell, and Biff leaves. That night, Ben taunts Willy into committing suicide, as the proceeds from his life insurance would allow Biff to succeed in life. The play, not including the Requiem, ends with Willy driving off.
The Requiem is a funeral scene, with Happy, Biff, Linda, Charley and Bernard standing over Willy's grave. At that point, Biff has learned to accept himself for what he is, Happy still wants to carry on Willy's dream of success in the city, and Linda ends the play with a monologue alone. In this monologue, she explains that she can't cry, and that she had made the last payment on the house, ending with the words "We're free, we're free..."
[edit] Style
The play is mostly told from Willy's point of view, and the play shows previous parts of Willy's life in his time shifts, sometimes during a present day scene. It does this by having a scene begin in the present time and adding characters onto the stage that only Willy can see and hear, representing characters and conversations from other times and places. One example of this is during a conversation between Willy and his neighbor Charley. During the conversation, Willy's brother Ben comes on stage and begins talking to Willy while Charley speaks to Willy. When Willy begins talking to his brother, the other characters do not understand who he is talking to and some of them even begin to suspect that he has "lost it." However, at times it breaks away from Willy's point of view and focuses on the other characters, Linda, Biff and Happy. During these parts of the play, the time and place stays constant without any abrupt flashbacks as usually happens while the play takes Willy's point of view.
The play's structure resembles a stream of consciousness account: Willy drifts between his living room, downstage, to the apron and flashbacks of an idyllic past, and also to fantasized conversations with Ben. The use of these different "states" allows Miller to contrast Willy's dreams and the reality of his life in extraordinary detail; and also allows him to contrast the characters themselves, showing them in both sympathetic and villainous lights, gradually unfolding the story, and refusing to allow the audience a permanent judgment about anyone. When we are in the present the characters abide by the rules of the set, entering only through the stage door to the left; however, when we visit Willy's "past" these rules are removed, with characters openly moving through walls. Whereas the term "flashback" as a form of cinematography for these scenes is often heard, Miller himself rather speaks of "mobile concurrences." In fact, flashbacks would show an objective image of the past. Miller's mobile concurrences, however, rather show highly subjective memories. Furthermore, as Willy's mental state deteriorates, the boundaries between past and present are destroyed, and the two start to exist in parallel.
[edit] On stage
- Lee J. Cobb - Willy Loman
- Mildred Dunnock - Linda Loman
- Arthur Kennedy - Biff Loman
- Thomas Chalmers - Uncle Ben
- Alan Hewitt - Howard Wagner
- Cameron Mitchell - Happy Loman
- Howard Smith - Charley
- Hope Cameron - Letta
- Winnifred Cushing - The Woman
- Ann Driscoll - Secretary
- Constance Ford - Miss Forsythe
- Don Keefer - Bernard
- Tom Pedi - Stanley
Produced by Kermit Bloomgarden and Walter Fried
Written by Arthur Miller
Incidental music by Alex North
The original production opened on February 10, 1949 at the Morosco Theatre, and ran for 742 performances. Lee J. Cobb starred as Willy. The production won the Tony Award for: Best Play; Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Arthur Kennedy); Best Scenic Design (Jo Mielziner); Producer (Dramatic); Author (Arthur Miller); Best Director (Elia Kazan). The play won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Jayne Mansfield, a Hollywood actress once compared, in some ways, to Marilyn Monroe, performed in a production of the play in Dallas, Texas in October, 1953. Her performance in the play attracted Paramount Pictures to hire her for the studio's film productions.[1]
The play has been revived on Broadway three times since:
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- June 26, 1975 at the Circle in the Square Theatre, running for 71 performances. George C. Scott was Willy.
- March 29, 1984 at the Broadhurst Theatre, running for 97 performances. Dustin Hoffman played Willy. In a return engagement, this production re-opened on September 14, 1984 and ran for 88 performances. The production won the Tony Award for Best Reproduction.
- February 10, 1999 at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, running for 274 performances, with Brian Dennehy as Willy. The production won the Tony Award for: Best Revival of a Play; Best Actor in Play; Best Featured Actress in a Play (Elizabeth Franz); Best Direction of a Play (Robert Falls). This production was filmed.
[edit] Film and television versions
- 1951, starring Fredric March, Mildred Dunnock, Kevin McCarthy and Cameron Mitchell. It was adapted by Stanley Roberts and directed by László Benedek who won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director. The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Fredric March), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Kevin McCarthy), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Mildred Dunnock), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.
- 1961, En Handelsresandes död starring Kolbjörn Knudsen - directed by Hans Abramson (in Swedish)
- 1966, a television production starring Lee J. Cobb, Gene Wilder, Mildred Dunnock, James Farentino, Karen Steele and George Segal. It was directed by Alex Segal.
- 1968, Der Tod eines Handlungsreisenden starring Heinz Rühmann and directed by Gerhard Klingenberg
- 1985, a television production starring Dustin Hoffman, Kate Reid, John Malkovich, Stephen Lang and Charles Durning. It was directed by Volker Schlöndorff.
- 1996, a television production starring Warren Mitchell, Rosemary Harris, Iain Glen and Owen Teale. It was directed by David Thacker.
- 2000, a television production starring Brian Dennehy, Elizabeth Franz, Ron Eldard, Ted Koch, Howard Witt and Richard Thompson. It was directed by Kirk Browning.
[edit] References in popular culture
- Death of a Salesman is alluded to in the Seinfeld episode "The Subway". Jerry Seinfeld reminds George Costanza not to whistle in the elevator (the same advice Willy gives Biff). Jerry then continued to call George "Biff" (This can also be seen in "The Boyfriend, Part 1" when Jerry mocks George's idea of becoming a buff, saying, "So Biff wants to be a buff."). Furthermore in "The Boyfriend, Part 2" George's date Carrie refers to him as Biff Loman; and at the end of the episode Jerry says to George, "So Biff, what's next?"
- In the Seinfeld episode "The Summer of George", after accidentally winning a Tony Award, Cosmo Kramer tells his new friends of a discussion with "Arty" that he should have called his play Life of a Salesman.
- In the movie Soapdish, Kevin Kline's character, a formerly-famous soap actor, stoops to playing Death of a Salesman to near-deaf senior citizens in a dinner theater.
- In an episode of Family Guy, Meg Griffin plays the part of Linda, reciting the line "Willy Loman never made a lot of money, his name was never in the paper, but attention must be paid to such a person." Then a hitman, playing the role of Happy Loman, stands up and tries to fire at Lois.
- During an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Richard Lewis asks Larry David "Who are you, Willy Loman?", whilst Larry is selling cars at a car dealership. Larry David was the executive producer of Seinfeld, which also includes character references
- In the movie American Beauty, Carolyn Burnham (Annette Benning) tells Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) that "'the Lomans just moved out next door" - alluding to the family in Death of a Salesman.
- In "Burns, Baby Burns", the fourth episode of The Simpsons' eighth season, Mr Burns opens a door to a theatre in his home, an actor is saying "You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit." --- Willy Loman, Act 2, Death of a Salesman
- In another episode of The Simpsons Goo Goo Gai Pan, the family travels to China and seas a Chinese interpretation of the play, which includes dragons and Chinese opera. After the curtain closes, Homer says that he finally understands the play.
- In Stephen Sondheim's Assassins, John Wilkes Booth uses Linda's line, "Attention must be paid..." while talking to the suicidal Lee Harvey Oswald.
- In an episode of Roseanne, a traveling salesman dies in the Connor's kitchen and Dan refers to the corpse as "Willy Loman."
- In a Halloween-themed episode of Home Movies, Mr. Lynch is searching for Melissa and Jason, dressed up as the Grim Reaper and an insurance salesman respectively. He asks if anyone "has seen death and a salesman" and an off-screen voice references the play by saying "Sure, Arthur Miller, it's a classic."
[edit] References
- ^ Va Va Voom by Steve Sullivan. General Publishing Group, Los Angeles, California, Page 50
[edit] Bibliography
- Sandage, Scott A., Born Losers: A History of Failure in America, (Harvard University Press, 2005)
- Foster, Richard A Smolen, "Confusion and tragedy: the failure of Miller's 'Salesman'" in Two Modern Tragedies: Reviews and Criticisms of 'Death of a Salesman' and 'Streetcar Named Desire', Ed. John D. Hurell. Scribner's, 1961, pp. 82-8
[edit] External links
- GradeSaver analysis, glossary, themes and quizzes on the novel
- Death of a Salesman: A Celebration by Joyce Carol Oates
- Death of a Salesman and Death of a Salesman: The Swollen Legacy of Arthur Miller
- Death of a Salesman Reviews
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