Death & “Death Of A Salesman” By Arthur Miller Essay, Research Paper

Death is such a contradicting situation. It is always a sad event, but in some

perspectives it may or may not be a joyous event. Not to say that death should be

celebrated, just to point out that life may have been a more dramatic experience.

For my first novel in G.T. I read Death of a Salesman, a play written by Arthur

Miller. Arthur Miller was born in 1915, in New York City. His parents were well To do

until the depression. He attended college where he won three drama prizes. Death of a

Salesman was his their Broadway play.

The play Death of A Salesman was an extremely confusing play, it was a dialogue

between a family of people. There were numerous flashbacks used to illustrate things that

happened in the past. The overall purposeof the flashbacks was to describe the situation

that Willy Loman, the main character, was dillusional. I feel that in this the characters of

this book are well described. The author describes Willy was an average man with a

somewhat normal life. His wife Linda is loving and like any woman she sticks by her man.

Happy and Biff are Willy and Linda?s sons. The play takes place when Biff and Happy

come to visit their parentsfor a couple of days.

The play is reality that most books and movies do not display. It shows an average

american family struggling to get by. In the play it is apparent that the characters have

strong dreams and aspirations. It is also obvious that they have not yet succeeded in

accomplishing them. Quite a few events happen that prove, no matter how hard someone

tries, in society things change and it is hard to reach full potential.

The authors of the play puts more reality into the central theme of the play. People

get old and begin to do odd things such as talk to people that are not there or people that

only exists in their minds. Throughout the play Willy would have conversations with

people that he believed were there, but they really were not. Willy strived to be the best

and if he was not successful, then things were not good enough. He was ashamed that his

money supply was not sufficentenough to support his family. The theme changed

throughout the course of the book. I believe the point that he was trying to emphasize

was to never give up and all the barriers in the way will be broken.

This play has taught me the lesson that life is how one individual person decides to

make it out to be. The plays point of view was from two or more characters having a

conversation. The play suggested that in life that certain things have to be completed in

life before death is bestowed upon someone. In this the example was that Willy had to

resolve his long term bad relationship with his son, Biff. The play will help me in my life

because like I have stated that the story or the plot may be fictional, but it could happen in

someone?s life. In other words it is reality.

The word usage for the dialect were elementary and some untasteful words were

expressed. For example the word fool is used several times. Other untasteful words are

used, but they are to untasteful to mention. The stage directions had a larger more

descriptive vocabulary. For example, when describing the house it says ?We are aware

of towering, angular shapes behind surrounding it on all sides.?

The movie that this play reminds me of would have to be a small made for

television only movie called ?The Red Door.? It is a movie about a family of six, a

mother, a father son, and three daughters. The mother, Mary works at a shopping center

and the whole theme of the movie is trying to get past the red door at the local restraunt.

In the play and the movie all of the characters are the average family and they thrive to

succeed in life.

The characters in the movie all correspond with the characters of the play. They

were both set in the past when it was a mans job to do the work and the woman to stay

home. Although, in the movie the mother does work because the father is unable to find

work due to the fact of some crimes he committed as a child. Both the play and the movie

deal very much with the past. In the play Willy?s son Biff has a resentment towards his

father because he commited adultery. Biff was the one who caught him in the act and it

devastated him. In the movie the father had childhood problems which he took out in his

son. In the movie it does have one single set, but it changes like years. When the father

and son grow up there is a strong animosity between them that might make there

relationship be lost forever.

This was an interesting play that had many high points. I enjoyed it and my

favorite part about it was the reality that it displayed. Families really do have problems

and this play illustrated this.