The Death of a Salesman
Requiem and Conclusion
Outline
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Starting Questions
The Requiem:
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Arthur Miller’s “Tragedy and the Common Man”
Willy’s “tragedy”:
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Different Views of Willy Loman
The Survivors
The Work of the Environment
His Character
Different Kinds of Success
Critique of The American Dream
The Play as an Example of Expressionism
Starting Questions
1.
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3.
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5.
What do you think are the functions of Requiem?
Is Willy Loman a tragic hero who acts and wins
our esteem? Or is he a victim? A victim of his
own character or of a system of exploitation and
ruthless competition?
How about the other Loman characters?
Why is this play an example of Expressionism?
And a critique of the American Dream?
Requiem –formal, somber, a-temporal
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Stage Direction: (the only transition from car
crash to Requiem)
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Music: a frenzy of sound  A single cello string a dead
march;
Lighting: leaves and daylight.
Wall-line – crossed
Flowers put “at the limit of the apron (a space for the
past and Willy’s imagination).
Characters: put on mourning dresses (no resistance; no
surprise a sense of fatality)
Requiem: a mass at which people honor and pray
for a dead person
 Willy Seen from Different Perspectives
 //self-revelation
Willy and the Survivors
Happy and Biff: 1) criticisms= reveal their own
short-coming; 2) confirm, idealize the part of Willy
they themselves identify with.
Happy –
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defiant and angry, “had no right to do it. …We would’ve
helped him.”  empty promise
“He had a good dream.” Happy promises to maintain
Willy's dream and his fight.
Happy is the last one to leave the stage with the flute
music and images of apartment buildings.
Biff –
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realistic: "He didn't know himself.“
Forgetting that the stoop was constructed from stolen
materials, Biff muses fondly, "there's more of him in
that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made."
Willy and the Survivors (3)
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Charley --generous? Or over-sentimental?
"Nobody dast blame this man. [. . .]
And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He
don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or
give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue,
riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start
not smiling back – that’s an earthquake. Nobody dast
blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It
comes with the territory.” (1264)
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Charley: 1) self-contradictory, both realistic about,
and forgiving and generous to Willy.
2) Reveals the lack of foundation or substance to
Willy’s dream and capitalism as a whole.
(more later)
Willy and the Survivors (3)
Linda –
 ”I can’t understand it.”
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“I can’t cry.”
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disagrees; cannot understand Willy’s need of
self-dignity.
disapproves of him; numbed after the first
shock.
 “And there’ll be nobody home. We're
free and clear," she says to Willy,
sobbingly.
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free from mortgage & pressure; from family
members.
Arthur Miller’s “Tragedy and the
Common Man”
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Background: tragedy = Greek tragedy
Tragedy depicts the downfall of a noble hero or heroine,
usually through some combination of hubris (pride), fate,
and the will of the gods.
The tragic hero's powerful wish to achieve some goal
inevitably encounters limits, usually those of human frailty
(flaws in reason, hubris, society), the gods (through oracles,
prophets, fate), or nature. Aristotle says that the tragic
hero should have a flaw and/or make some mistake
(hamartia).
Ending: The hero need not die at the end, but he / she
must undergo a change in fortune. In addition, the tragic
hero may achieve some revelation or recognition about
human fate, destiny, and the will of the gods. Aristotle
quite nicely terms this sort of recognition "a change from
ignorance to awareness of a bond of love or hate." (source)
Audience’s response: pity and fear; catharsis
Arthur Miller’s “Tragedy and the
Common Man”
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Background: tragedy = Greek tragedy
Few tragedies nowadays due to
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the paucity of horoes among us.
the skepticism of science
the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy
in its highest sense as kings were.
Reasons: 1) In the light of modern psychiatry,
the situations of Oedipus and Orestes can be
applied to everyone in similar emotional
situations. 2) The mental processes of kings
shared by the lowly. 3) tragedy of the highbred
character is remote from common people.
Miller’s views of Modern Tragegy of
the common man
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Definition: “tragic feeling is evoked in us when we
are in the presence of a character who is ready to
lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing-his sense of personal dignity. [. . .] the
underlying struggle is that of the individual
attempting to gain his ‘rightful’ position in his
society.” (1266)
The flaw: his inherent unwillingness to remain
passive in the face of what he conceives to be a
challenge to his dignity, his image of his rightful
status.
Terror –from this total examination of the
"unchangeable" environment
Miller’s views of Modern Tragegy of
the common man (2)
In the tragic view the need of man to
wholly realize himself is the only fixed star,
and whatever it is that hedges his nature
and lowers it is ripe for attack and
examination.
 Wrong concept of tragedy it implies
more optimism
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Tragedy requires a fine balance between what
is possible and what is impossible.
Optimism: perfectibility of man
Modern Tragedy
Willy – circumstances & personality;
 Different concepts of Success
 Linda and Biff –resilience and
improvement
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The circumstances
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Willy's family background
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Three models: Father Loman, Ben and Dave
Singleman
The lack of a father who is around.
Ben’s opportunism
Dave Singleman – a loner of the past
American Capitalist/Industrial society
and the American Dream
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Willy outdated.  Yet he tries hard to
maintain his sense of dignity.
Personality
Blind: Cannot face his own and his son
shortcomings, nor their conflicts;
 Cares a lot about the empty appearance
and social connections;
 Dignified: cannot “walk away“; cannot
bend himself to work for Charley.
 A loving father  reconciles with Biff when
he finds that Biff loves him.
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Kinds of Success
1.
In the business world:
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Charley’s – money in the pocket; growing up/becoming
a man or adult;
Bernard’s –passing the test ( education); lawyer;
playing tennis; one friend with a tennis court at home;
Howard – owns a company, has a variety of playthings
(camera, handsaw, a recorder for only 150 dollars).
Ben– go to far away places [e.g. the West,
Alaska, Africa] for gold and diamonds
Willy’s – all of the above and
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Winning the football game; well-liked
building things [e.g. what Willy does to his house--as
Biff describes it in the Requiem]
Pride and Idealism  Mythic dimension: Biff as Adonis,
Hercules
Family togetherness.
Critique of the American Dream
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Americans dream of success
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which “should be” easy and quick “as long
as” you work hard
 Ben – easy and quick success
Materialism + Idealism –money + the
world of Nature
 Willy and Biff – their dreams of working
on a ranch and planting.
Male aggression & expansionism
 Women as target of possession, access to
power and revenge (e.g. pp. 1245, 1246)
  wives – supportive but without subjectivity
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Symbols re. Willy’s Dream
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Willy’s house vs. apartment buildings, etc. [e.g. the first
stage direction]
Properties and Possessions:
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Nature and The West –
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Football and the sneakers with U. of V on them.
the house and the mortgage, Things {Fridge, car, vacuum
cleaner ] that are broken/falling apart
Linda's stockings
Tennis
of power and status: wire recorder and pen
Seeds/plants/trees; light of green leaves
Working with tools/one's hands [e.g. Willy's argument with
Charley towards the end of Act I: :A man who can't handle
tools is not a man." "hammer a nail"]
Roads -- [being on the road] Cars/boats/trains: [e.g.
Willy's Red Chevvy; Willy compared to "alittle boat looking
for a harbor" by Linda; Ben's taking the train.]
Expressionism
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an artistic style in which the artist attempts to
depict not objective reality but rather the
subjective emotions and responses that objects
and events arouse in him.
Methods: through distortion, exaggeration,
primitivism, and fantasy and through the vivid,
jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal
elements (e.g. stage directions).
one of the main currents of art in the later 19th
and the 20th centuries, and its qualities of highly
subjective, personal, spontaneous self-expression
are typical of a wide range of modern artists and
art movements.(source)
In painting: EDVARD MUNCH’s
“Scream”
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Symbols –in stage direction
flute [Willy's father]– beginning of act 1,
when Ben appears,
 Willy’s theme (1255);
 Other kinds of music--e.g.
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jarring trumpet note (1249),
Ben's theme (1236);
the end of act II (1263)
End of Requiem—a noble and elegiac ending.