When Arthur Miller was asked to respond to a statement made by a critic that his play Death of a Salesman was a “ticking time bomb under capitalism,” Miller responded by stating, “he hoped it was, or at least under the b.s. 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” (Miller, p. xxiv). Indeed, in the broader sense Death of a Salesman is an indictment on the capitalist system, but more specifically, it is an uncovering of the falsehood of the capitalist American Dream, the idealized life wished for by so many in modern America.
Death of a Salesman is a character driven play, with the majority of the action centered on the Loman family, Willie, his two sons Biff and Happy, and his wife Linda. Miller has always succeeded in creating three-dimensional characters rife with humanity, with perhaps no better example than that of Willie Loman.
Willie in the present day action of the play is an aging, failing salesman, although it is doubtful he was ever very successful in his prime. Nonetheless, Willie sees the salesman as the hero of the American drama, the embodiment of the American Dream. Willie relays this vision in a conversation with his boss by describing a well-loved and successful salesman he met as a young man. “What could be more satisfying than to go, at the age of eighty-four, into twenty or thirty different cities, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many different people? – when he died, hundreds of salesman and buyers were at his funeral” (Miller, p. 61). This of course, is the type of life and death that Willie has envisioned for himself.
Willie has always believed that all obstacles in life could be overcome by a winning personality and business acumen. In Willie’s eyes, all successes and failures are hinged upon an individual’s ability to force other people to like him, in fact this is a principal that Willie has subscribed to his entire life, and passed on to his two sons. Miller allows the viewer to see that Willie in fact realizes that his philosophy of life has failed him, through a serious of contradictions that Willie makes throughout the play.
One of the most notable contradictions between Willie’s idealized version of life and reality is demonstrated during a conversation between Willie and his wife Linda. “Oh I’ll knock ’em dead next week. I’ll go to Hartford. I’m very well liked in Hartford. You know, the trouble is, Linda, people don’t seem to take to me” (Miller, p. 23). This conflict, between Willie’s idealized life and reality, or between what kind of man he could have been and what he actually is, has rendered him unstable in this late stage of life, both mentally and emotionally.
The reaction evoked by the character of Willie Loman is one of simultaneous sympathy and disgust. Sympathy for his misguided path through life, and disgust for the way he has blindly pursued it, ruining himself and his family in the process. I believe the reason Willie Loman is so imminently relatable because everyone knows a Willie Loman, or a person who exhibits similar qualities, blind, sycophantic ambition, misguided priorities, and unrealistic and ultimately unattainable goals.
Willie’s unstable mental and emotional state cause him to relive the past through flashbacks, in which much is revealed about his earlier life and his relationship with his sons. Ironically, as much as Willie reveres success in business and financial realms, it is made clear through the flashback portions of the play that Willie regrets his mistakes as a parent much more than his failures in the business world. Willie instilled his sons with the same warped values that have poisoned his own life. In the flashback scenes, when Willie sees his son Biff as a young man, he marvels at his good looks and popularity, sure that these qualities will equal a remarkable life for Biff.
The most important part of the play is a flashback in which Willie relives a scene when Biff discovers him having an affair with another woman. At this point, Biff realizes his father is a fraud, an incident which leads to Biff’s disenchantment with his father and his ideals. When Willie’s wife Linda observes that Biff is “very lost,” Willie cannot accept this truth, as it is in direct conflict with everything he believes. “Biff Loman is not lost. In the greatest country in the world, a young man with such – personal attractiveness, gets lost” (Miller, p. 6).
The adult Biff eventually realizes the errors in his father’s view of the world, and believes he has found where he belongs, working outside on a ranch. After going to unsuccessful meeting to secure funding for a business venture after much goading by his father, Biff asks Willie, ” What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool out of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I way I know who I am (Miller, p. 106).
I found the character of Biff in the present day to be very sympathetic, and ultimately an admirable one, for overcoming his father’s influence and realizing his true place in the world. If Willie did not possess such a warped view of the world, he would be proud of his son, because in fact the adult Biff has attained a high level of truth and self-realization in his life. Biff has figured out what Willie could not, that being well liked and successful in business is not the ultimate existence, and in fact is not for him, or his father, at all.
Willie’s younger son, Hap, is almost a secondary character in the play, because his father has ignored him for most of his life. In an effort to gain his father’s attention, the adult Hap has chosen a career path very similar to his father. He, too, lacks any moral compass, as he regularly engages in bribery and adultery with very little compunction. Perhaps the most telling result of Happy’s desire to gain Willie’s attention comes out at Willie’s funeral, when Happy announces his intentions to pursue Willie’s dream. “Willie Loman did not die in vain, he had a good dream- He had a good dream. it’s the only dream you can have- to come out number one man. He fought it out here, and I’m going to win it for him” (Miller, p 111).
The character of Happy brings on a sense of dread, because it is obvious to the viewer that he plans to carry along in his misguided, father’s footsteps. At the end of the play the viewer is left with the sense that the same unfortunate cycle is about to begin again, with Happy taking the place of his father. The argument could be made that the real tragedy in the play is the fact that Happy has learned nothing from his father’s life and death, and seems doomed to repeat his tortured existence, complete with vast misconceptions about the world and unattainable goals.
Willie’s wife Linda is a long-suffering supporter of Willie and his dream. Linda is Willie’s biggest supporter, yet it would seem that Willie would be a very difficult man to live with. It is assumed that Linda does not know about Willie’s infidelities, yet it is curious how Linda chooses to deal with Willie’s suicide attempt. She discovers the hose in the basement that Willie intends to commit suicide with, yet she unable to remove it or confront her husband about it. This could be seen as an unconscious manifestation of her resentment towards Willie, a reaction to both his infidelities and the gross missteps he has made in the parenting of their two sons.
My reaction to the character of Linda was a mixed one, as she is certainly a victim of Willie’s delusional worldview, but she is also complicit in the continuation of it. In part, Linda is also responsible for the inherent dishonesty in the Loman family dynamic. She seems very concerned with keeping up appearances for Willie, encouraging her sons to cater to him, rather than making an honest attempt to deal with the issues plaguing her family.
Death of a Salesman is often described as an indictment of the American capitalist system, and there are certain aspects of the play that support that view. Willie’s funeral coincides with the final mortgage payment on their home, a demonstration of the ultimate futility of a life that is entirely predicated upon success in the capitalist system. It is the story of a man at the end of his life, who realizes he has wasted his years in pursuit of a goal that is not only unattainable, but was never real to begin with.
In a sense, Miller presents Willie Loman as a by-product of the great American society. Willie is sucked in by the great façade of opportunity in twentieth century America, but instead of emerging victorious; he becomes grist for the capitalist mill, one of the unknown cogs in the system, and is unable to cope with his role as such.
I found that perhaps the more compelling theme in the play is that of the failed relationships between fathers and sons, and how these troubled relationships can repeat themselves generation after generation. Willie was failed by his father, who abandoned his family, and yet Willie has idealized his father his entire life. In turn, Willie has failed his own sons with his unrealistic dreams and faulty parenting, and Happy seems determined to carry on in Willie’s footsteps and repeat this cycle. Perhaps through Happy’s continuation of this delusional life, Miller is also showing the false hopes and unattainable dreams of the Lomans to be an inescapable aspect of American society.
SOURCES
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. 1998. New York. Penguin Books.
