Author’s argument for Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman  

 In Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman (1949), Miller portraits the struggle of an average man on his quest to become successful. Willy, the father did everything possible he could in life to ensure that his children would live lives of ease, but his children have other dreams. In the case of Biff, the oldest son, he rather work on a farm and not be in the business world, something his father Willy wants him to be, but Biff realizes he is not fit to be in that type of world. Miller portraits through Willy the pain and suffering of the common man and what he goes through to succeed by whatever means it takes. Given the time set this play was written in Miller is able to depict the struggles and scarifies of the average man. Biff being the oldest, Willy has big expectations of Biff being a great business man and making it big and thus sacrifices what he thinks will let Biff f accomplish the dream Willy has for Biff. In the end, Willy’s tragic outcome just shows the extremes the common man is willing to go and what he has to do even if he has to lie, cheat, and steal in their attempt to succeed.

 Vocabulary:

Simonize-to polish with wax

Incipient-beginning to appear or develop

Carte Blanche- permission or authority given to somebody to act with freedom or discretion

Imbue- soak something with something

Enthralled- completely fascinated

 Tone:

Longing, solemn, reflective

 Rhetorical strategies:

Metaphor- “Linda: Biff, a man is not a bird, to come and go with the springtime” (54).

Telegraphic sentence- “Willy: Biff Loman is lost” (16).

Allusion- “Charley: Why must everybody like you? Who liked J.P. Morgan?” (97)

Rhetorical question- “Linda: And what goes through a man’s mind driving seven hundred miles home without having earned a cent?” (57)

Periodic sentence- “Linda: …But now his old friends, the old buyers that loved him so and always found some order to hand to him in a pinch- they’re all dead, retired”(57).  

 Questions:

How did Biff’s discovery of his father’s affair affect their relationship?

What role did the flashbacks play in the character of Willy?

Is it worth going to the extremes for success for a dream that one has and not the other person?

 Memorable quote:

"Happy: All right, boy. I’m gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It’s the only dream you can have- to come out number-one man. He fought it out here, and this is where I’m gonna win it for him” (138).