Death of Salesman by Arthur Miller .pptx

A Study of American Literature

1. GOVERNMENT ARTS
COLLEGE
VALLBHIPUR
DEATH OF SALESMAN

CHAVDA KHUSHALI

2. i
Arthur Miller

October 17, 1915 — February 10,
2005

3. Biography

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.

4. Best Works

* 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.

5. DEATH OF A SALESMAN (1949)

6. 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)

7. 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."

11. * A dualism between the plastic "art of
sculpture", of dream-inspiration,

, 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.

12. 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.

13. Time Shifts ---- Style

* 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.

14. 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."

15. Stream of consciousness

* As Willy's mental state deteriorates, the
boundaries between past and present are
destroyed, and the two start to exist in
parallel.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. Madness

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

19. Cult of Personality

He believes that it is not what a person is able to
accomplish, but who he knows and how he treats
them that will get a man ahead in the world.

This viewpoint is tragically undermined not only
by Willy's failure, but also by that of his sons, who
assumed that they could make their way in life
using only their charms and good looks, rather
than any more solid talents.

20. Opportunity

* America has long been known as a land of opportunity.
Out of that thinking comes the "American Dream," the
idea that anyone can ultimately achieve success, even if he
or she began with nothing . America claims to be the land
of opportunity, of social mobility. Even the poorest man
should be able to move upward in life through his own
hard work.

+ Miller complicates this i f rtunity by linking it to
time, and illustrating that new opportunity does not occur
over and over again.

* Can you tell me how?

21. Growth

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