Death of a Salesman (Penguin Plays)
Penguin (Non-Classics) - Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release date: 1998-10-06
Paperback
Author: Arthur Miller
Drama, Plays / Drama, Plays, American, Classics, Drama / American, Fiction / Literary
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Death of a Salesman (Penguin Plays)
Date undefinedThis classic play by Arthur Miller (1915-2005) examines human failure, high expectations, and the dark side of the American Dream. Willie Loman is an aging salesman whose figures have fallen to the point where he no longer makes a real living. Not only is his job in jeopardy; so is his family and self-worth. Loman reacts by deluding himself, living in the past, and by holding his sons to unrealistic expectations. Miller does a superb job in presenting a broken man sliding downwards. Such occurs in the sordid race of materialism and corporate success - one that leaves many broken souls in its path. Willie needs to face reality, and mend himself and his struggling family (and his family should help him too), but Miller's powerful script doesn't go there. Instead we have a deluded, beaten man sliding into mental illness - and worse.
Miller penned this play in 1949, as the USA was moving into postwar changes and a more suburbanized, corporate society. This play about the brutish world of expectations, materialism, and the illusive American dream is as much on target today as in 1949.
Death of a Salesman (Penguin Plays)
Date undefinedHopeless fathers & sons were a favorite theme of Miller. The pressure of failing aspirations. The horror of failure. Drawn between overconfidence and self-doubt. Flashbacks on scenes from a dreary life. Lies to others and oneself. Failures in job and family.
The play is one of the quintessential pieces of modern American theater. Its themes are known and have been expounded endlessly. Why is it still fresh? I have never watched it on stage nor screen. I have known it for ages, but could not find enough interest to look for a performance, nor to read it. Now LoA does it.
Looking at the reviews here on the Penguin modern classic page, I am wondering about the spread in reviews. From 5 to 1 stars all is there, with a downward slope towards the negative votes. The play has more friends than foes, but on an absolute level, the nays would sink an ordinary ship. Of course quality questions are not decided by democracy. One particularly daft observer produced a perfect inverted version of cultural Stalinism. With perfect perverted logic, he tells us that only positive depictions of the American dream are acceptable. That is completely in line with 'socialist realism': if the artist fails to enthuse about the reigning system, he is condemned.
Thanks to LoA for making me get to know the man Miller. I will definitely look for a movie version or go to a play if I find an opportunity.
Death of a Salesman (Penguin Plays)
Date undefinedSummary:
"Death of a Salesman" is a play by Arthur Miller about an aging man named Willy Loman and his broken dreams. Willy is in his sixties, and had just been demoted from his once fruitful job as a traveling salesman. Because of his growing depression and his frequent car accidents, he had his salary taken away, and has been put on commission.
Throughout the play, Willy recalls his life in a series of flashbacks, while we see what he has become in the present. He went from having an illustrious career where everyone loved him and he brought home a large salary, to a depressing home life and earning money off the occasional sale. His two sons Biff and Happy, were once successful athletes. Now Biff is 34 years old with no job and no high school diploma. Happy appears to be following in his fathers footsteps, making many of the same mistakes that he did. Willy can't stand to be around his wife, Linda, anymore because of his overwhelming guilt over an extramarital affair that happened several decades ago, that his son found out about.
Near the end of the play, Willy fantasizes that he is talking to his dead brother Ben, who had been an inspiration to him since he struck it rich in Alaska. Willy attempts suicide several times, once by hooking an exhaust pipe to the gas heater, and several times by purposefully driving recklessly.
When he tries to get his original job back, he gets fired by a man young enough to be his son. He tells this man, Howard Wagner, how he expected his life to turn out, and how he was let down:
"...Oh, yeah, my father lived many years in Alaska. He was an adventurous man. We've got quite a little streak of self-reliance in our family. I thought I'd go out with my older brother and try to locate him, and maybe settle in the North with the old man. And I was almost decided to go, when I met a salesman in the Parker House. His name was Dave Singleman. And he was eighty-four years old, and he'd drummed merchandise in thirty-one states. And old Dave, he'd go up to his room, y'understand, put on his green velvet slippers - I'll never forget - and pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, he made his living. And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want. `Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go, at the age of eighty-four, into twenty or thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many different people? Do you know? When he died - and by the way, he died the death of a salesman, in his green velvet slippers in the smoker of the New York, New Haven and Hartford, going into Boston - when he dies, hundreds of salesmen and buyers were at his funeral. Things were sad on a lotta trains for months after that. In those days there was personality in it, Howard. There was respect, and comradeship, and gratitude in it. Today, it's all cut and dried, and there's no chance for bringing friendship to bear - or personality. You see what I mean? They don't know me any more."
Later, he finds out that his son, Biff, doesn't get the job he was counting on. After a failed attempt to plant a vegetable garden, he decides that he couldn't live anymore and drives his car off a bridge.
My rating: 4/5
Commentary:
This was a good book. It had good character development and an intriguing plot. However, since I wasn't seeing the actual play, it was hard to tell what happened in some of the scenes. Anyone who likes period pieces will probably want to read this.
