DEATH OF A SALESMAN BY ARTHUR MILLER

A LITTLE H ISTORICAL C OUCHING Set in 1949 and informed by The Great Depression/Stock Market Crash The 1920s Immigrant society looking to “pull themselves up” “The business of America is business” (Coolidge) The installment plan Hyper-patriotism The legacy of Manifest Destiny and The American Dream The special virtue of American people to accomplish things

ENTER WILLY LOMAN- BAFFLED BY FAILURE Play takes place in 24 hours Miller likened it to: Geological strata: different times are present at the same instant CAT scan: simultaneously reveals inside and outside

A MERICAN N IGHTMARE ? The house previously represented American dream, where he raised a family and reached for “the golden glitter of a dream” Now hemmed in by apts, and taunting him with his failure Work previously represented competition and dreams, now it feels like a dead end

THE FLUTE Play begins with the flute Takes Willy back to childhood- Father made and sold flutes Father deserted Willy and Ben Ben later deserted Willy. Miller’s notebook- Willy is living a temporary life, waiting for his father’s return and the return of dreams

PROPS All characters remain on stage throughout, being animated when they move into the forefront of Willy’s troubled mind or swung into view by a turntable. No blackouts Think about the effect of this stage direction.

WILLY JUMPS FROM RECONSTRUCTED PAST TO ANXIOUS PRESENT Gap between dreams and blunted ambitions cause- irony, guilt, disillusionment, and regret. Can’t bear reality, so he changes it Flashbacks are not accurate, they are constructions. Look for contradictions

WILLY “Willy is battling for his life, fighting to sustain a sense of himself that makes it worthwhile living at all in a world which seemingly offers ever less space for the individual” Irony- meaning lies less in himself and those around him and more on societal myths Denial and lack of self-awareness

MILLER’S INTERPRETATIONS “Its about the paradoxes of being alive in a technological society” “A story about violence in the family” “the suppression of the individual by placing him below the imperious needs of society” “all those feelings of a society falling to pieces which I had” “Love story between a man and his son, and in a crazy way between both and America.”

CRITICS Critics: “A time bomb under American capitalism” Miller: “or at least under the bs of capitalism, this pseudo life that thought to touch the clouds by standing on top of a refrigerator, waving a paid-up mortgage at the moon, victorious at last”

WHAT WILLY SELLS Miller: “He sells what a salesman always has to sell, himself”