Failure in a Success Oriented Society in Death of a Salesman Essays

Failure in a Success Oriented party in Death of a Salesman In the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the playwright focuses on the theme of failure in a success oriented society. Willy Lowman, a failed salesman, is the central character. Willys downfall is caused by his belief in the propaganda of a society that only has room for winners. The conditional relation of this theme, still very relevant today, is heightened by Millers skilful use of a range of key techniques, including setting, characterization and symbolism. The drama focuses on the life of a middle aged salesman, Willy Lowman, who, at the outset of the play is on the barrier of a nervous breakdown. He lives with his adoring but over contraceptive wife, Linda, who acts as a buffer between her husband and their two self-aggrandising sons, Biff and Happy, whose relationship with their father is permanently under tension. The play plots the tragical collapse of a man who cannot face up to his moral responsibi lities in a society whose false values attach a knockout importance to success as measured in such fugitive terms as income and material possessions. Living according to these values federal agency that failure is likewise defined in economic terms. The plays setting contributes to our sympathy of the significance of this theme. Willy Lowmans home is presented as small and fragile-seeming, dwarfed by a wall of flat blocks whose presence contributes to the trapped, claustrophobic atmosphere. He makes reference to a time earlier the build up of this area when there were two beautiful elm trees, nowadays cut down by the builder and a garden in which scented wisteria and lilacs bloomed in profusion.Willy complains of the airless quality within his apartment, despite... ...ary society. For todays audience, Willy Lowman trunk a poignant figure of failure, partly as a result of societys false value system but partly because of Willys own unfitness to confront life with integrity. Works Cited and Consulted Baym, Franklin, Gottesman, Holland, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 4th ed. New York Norton, 1994. Corrigan, Robert W., ed. Arthur Miller. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, 1969. Florio, Thomas A., ed. Millers Tales. The New Yorker. 70 (1994) 35-36. Hayashi, Tetsumaro. Arthur Miller Criticism. Metuchen, NJ Scarecrow Press, 1969. Martin, Robert A., ed. Arthur Miller. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, 1982. Miller, Arthur. The Archbishops Ceiling/The American Clock. New York plantation Press, 1989. ---. Death of a Salesman. New York Viking, 1965.