Death of a Salesman

Abstract

Death of a Salesman stands apart from almost all of Arthur Miller’s other work. Nothing in The Man Who Had All the Luck or All My Sons prepared New York audiences for the quite extraordinary achievement of Salesman; and many critics have never forgiven the playwright for not repeating the triumph. Salesman seems both the epitome of everything Miller has aimed for in the theatre and a separate and unique creation. It is the exception to almost every easy generalisation about the dramatist. It was written in almost a single burst of creative inspiration, from personal experience not from an outside source; it contains a deep vein of humour and a compassionate tolerance not always found in Miller’s work; it is one of the few instances when the playwright has projected himself into a character quite unlike himself, writing in this play from the point of view of tie father rather than the alienated son; and it is Miller’s most successful attempt at creating individual characters with universal significance. When he first appeared on the American stage, Willy Loman was recognised as a kind of American Everyman — a universal symbol made real by hundreds of minutely observed details of speech, manner and psychology.