One Man Against the World? Wider Reading (Drama) 12: Death of a Salesman

In the spring of 1948 Arthur Miller retreated to a log cabin in Connecticut with the first two lines of a new play already fixed in his mind. He emerged six weeks later with the final script of Death of a Salesman - a painful examination of American life and consumerism. In creating Willy Loman, his destructively insecure anti-hero, Miller himself defined his aim as being "to set forth what happens when a man does not have a grip on the forces of life."

As a playwright, Miller portrays many common themes in his plays. The themes of ordinary people experiencing extraordinary tragedy, the vast, unattainable American Dream and the tragedy of simply being human, in particular are explored within Death of a Salesman, causing it to be frequently dubbed "the first Great American Tragedy."

The structure of this play also plays a large part in showing Willy's struggle for identity and ultimate deterioration. Miller does this through the use of both past and present and careful weaving of the text, thus showing, rather than telling, the audience about Willy's downward spiral into madness. The question of what is illusion and what is reality is also frequently raised. The episodic structure, as well as the themes and focus on a single character, draw many comparisons to Tennessee Williams' play "A Streetcar Named Desire."

Death of a Salesman - Identity Quotations