Literature adds to reality; it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides, and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.”
C.S. Lewis.
Literature is an essential aspect of life, and it contributes highly to your personal growth as a human being. Literature can show us the bitter truth of reality in the form of a story and can also help you dive deep into different aspects of life seen through another person’s eyes.
The Drama – ‘Death of a salesman’ is written by Arthur Miller and based on the American dream. The American dream is about how different people in the land of the United States of America can grow financially in their life with the power of dedication and hard work. But the stories of failures are not portrayed on the front pages of the different top-class magazines. The magazines and newspapers have only narrated the success stories, but they are yet to write an article about the broken dreams. The Death of a salesman summary is the story of a salesman ‘Willy Loman’ whose goals never got fulfilled, and in those days media never counted his report among the success stories of the American dream.
The American dream is the national philosophy of Unites States of America. James Truslow Adams coined the term “American Dream” in 1931. He explained the American dream as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the American dream as “the ideal that every citizen of the United States should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.”
Before understanding the plot of the Drama and analyzing the Death of a salesman message, we should get you introduced with the different characters in the Drama :
When doing Death of a salesman character analysis, these four characters are the play’s main characters. Some other characters who feature in the play are:
Death of a Salesman centers around Willy Loman, who is by profession a salesman and travels thousands of miles in the United States to sell products to earn his living. He looks for a desk job but cannot do so and finally becomes unemployed. His sons are also trying their best to earn for the family.
On the one hand, Biff can’t meet his family’s expectations of his family; on the other hand, Happy is unhappy being undermined by his family members. At the end of the play, Willy Loman takes a car, goes out, and finally kills himself so that his family gets the money for his life insurance policy.
At the end of the funeral of Willy Loman, only his family members were present despite Willy’s prediction that his funeral would be a big affair, making the drama count as one of the modern tragedies that happened during the times of the Great American Dream.
Not every American had a happy ending; some even had a tragic one. Willy Loman’s story is one of them.
There are different messages in Death of a salesman. Death of a salesman has some strong messages to convey, and we need to understand those messages. The Loman family is dysfunctional. We even see that the sons were never happy with their parents. Willy Loman has lost his mental stability, and post he couldn’t guide his family well. His relationship with his wife is also not great; romantically, he gets involved with another woman.
The different messages conveyed in the Drama are :
The American Dream is not only about getting a lot of success, but there were also some people whose dreams never got fulfilled and whose stories were not cherished.
The Loman family is unable to meet their monthly spending, and that’s also a cause that’s creating a void of happiness in the family. The play’s tragic hero even sacrificed his life to bring financial stability to his family.
You must read Death of a Salesman, a beautiful piece of literature. It’s a great example of an excellent observation of society and storytelling that touches the core of the reader’s heart.