This is the second time I've read this and this time I read it in 2 days. An important work about the American dream, capitalism, and the curses we unknowingly pass onto our children. ( )

My eyes got watery.

Presently reading Gil Bailie’s new book, “The Apocalypse of the Sovereign Self” in which Gil unpacks Miller’s classic through mimetic desire. So I needed a refresher.

What a play! Such power, profundity and emotion. Truly great. ( )

Not a happy play. Very instructive on the role of work, and how we can't all expect to feel passion about our jobs. ( )

Willy Loman es un viajante de comercio que, en los umbrales de la vejez, se siente perseguido por un pasado mediocre. Los recuerdos lo llevan a hacer un examen de las relaciones que ha tenido con su mujer, Linda, comprensiva a pesar de todo, y sus dos hijos, que ahora lo desprecian y que, en otro tiempo, lo consideraban como un hombre superior al resto de los demás.

It’s weird sometimes how in life media can appear at the right time. The day I finished Death of a Salesman I also watched Synecdoche, New York, a movie that features Death of a Salesman heavily in its first half. Understanding Death of a Salesman’s themes helps to understand where Synecdoche, New York is going before it gets there. Do these appearances mean anything? Probably not. It’s likely just a frequency illusion: a cognitive bias where a term or book (or play) someone has become aware of recently seems to appear with an unlikely frequency. Or maybe it does mean something.

Anyway, Death of a Salesman: I’m impressed with playwright Arthur Miller’s ability to write about a salesman, yet never condemn (and barely touch on) the societal pressures of the American Dream expressed in capitalism. Willy Loman is a family man in his sixties with a long-suffering wife, Linda, and two grown sons, Biff and Happy. Willy and Linda have typical American Dream debts: the mortgage, the car, the fridge. The play shifts between present day and Willy’s deluded memories of happier times or things that led to his current situation. Willy will be happy only when he’s rich or his sons are successful, not realizing that he has succeeded in the American Dream of family. Linda’s dream is for Willy to recognize his success in her and their sons, who do love their father. Biff wants to make his father proud by being a salesman also, but his heart truly lies in the West and working outdoors. He’s torn between these two pillars of his life. Happy lives only in the moment and tries to keep a peace between his family, yet doesn’t want to acknowledge their real family problems.

The majority of the play is concerned with Willy’s memories and flights of fancy. Willy’s consciousness streams in and out of reality as he holds conversations with characters both in his house and in his head at the same time. He remembers his sons as young with their whole lives ahead of them, he imagines his uncle Ben (who wandered into Africa and got rich on the Gold Coast) giving him empty advice, he recalls his failures as a father that led to the downfall of his promising sons.

This isn’t a failure of the American Dream so much as it is the failure of a man to understand when he’s won and that comparison to others is not a mark of success.

Lines I liked:

- “It’s a measly manner of existence. To get on that subway on the hot mornings in summer. Devote your whole life to keeping stock, or making phone calls, or selling or buying. To suffer fifty weeks of the year for the sake of a two-week vacation, when all you really desire to be outdoors, with your shirt off.”
- “Sometimes I sit in my apartment — alone. I think of the rent I’m paying. It's crazy. But then, it’s what I always wanted. My own apartment, a car, and plenty of men. And still, goddammit, I’m lonely.” ( )

4,1 stars

I first read this play in university as part of a lit class and analyzed it to smithereens. I remembered next to nothing about it now, on my second read, and enjoyed it much more for it.

This isn't a happy play and it managed to put me in a pretty depressive mood, but it does have a good point about living the life that makes you happy in stead of the life you think you should want in order to succeed.

And now, I need something much more uplifting to read. ( )

Tem momentos de partir o coração este drama onde se vê uma colisão entre as vendas à la "old-school" e a forma sempre reciclada de balelas que acompanha cada vendedor no mundo dos negócios. Por causa de sua natureza complexa, suas muitas morais, seus flashbacks não lineares e seus personagens exagerados, o famoso Death of a Salesman foi escrito por Arthur Miller mais para ser montado, e menos para ser lido. A peça icônica ganhou vários prêmios, foi apresentada na década de 1940 mais de setecentas vezes, resultando em quatro revivals na Broadway, e continuou a ser traduzida e apresentada em outros países além dos Estados Unidos, onde se originou. A história da família disfuncional de Willy Loman teve um sucesso sem precedentes. Como filmes, teve várias versões e contratempos. Mas Loman é um personagem tão marcante quanto p.ex. os Proctors de The witches of Salem ( )

Play read with my granddaughter. She didn't like it. I didn't mind it at all. ( )

A very distressing read, so well done. I look forward to seeing the play performed. ( )

There are any number of applicable descriptors like well written and controversial. I am comfortable reviewing the work because by playing a character in community theater, I read and saw it performed many times. Willy is likeable, obviously loves his son but at every test of virtue he chooses the wrong option leading him to a poor end. ( )

We had to read this my senior year of high school and I just remember wanting to kill myself rather than go to class. Most of us felt the same way. I don't think I am an Arthur Miller fan. We read All My Sons as well and I remember hating it also. I just didn't care about the characters, and found the plot boring and annoying. ( )

per teatre **

It's impossible for me to pick a number of stars for this one. I am in complete agreement with the consensus that Death of a Salesman is a powerful play, but it was so damn depressing that to say "I liked it" (3 stars) or "I really liked it" (4 stars) would be a lie. On the other hand, saying "it was okay" (2 stars) doesn't do it justice. It may indeed qualify as "amazing," (5 stars) but I think I have to see it performed before I decide. Of course, Long Days Journey Into Night is about as depressing as it gets, and I would say that play is amazing, so who knows? Willy Loman's illusions are of a more ordinary, everyday kind than the ones the characters battle in O'Neill's play, so maybe that's what makes them so uncomfortable to read about and it may also be why he's such an iconic character. Definitely deserves a second, and probably third, read, but I need to cheer up a bit first.

A sobering reflection on the meaning of life and the pursuit of dreams. ( )

"… what goes through a man's mind, driving seven hundred miles home without having earned a cent?" (pg. 45)

Though bleak and nihilistic, the most debilitating thing for a reader of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is its complexity. The play is essentially two scenes, each the length of an Act, in which multiple characters talk over one another (rarely being straight with each other), and in which flashbacks and delusions repeatedly bleed into the conversation. It is challenging, to say the least.

It is a play you're too busy trying to decipher to really appreciate; the sort that – in my case, at least – only becomes tolerably clear after extensive googling. It is essentially a dissection of the American Dream, and Miller does quite well at portraying the various chasers of that dream, from Willy, the titular salesman, who has been broken down by the pursuit, through to his son Biff, who wants to walk away from it altogether. Individual moments bring out the shabbiness of this increasingly sour dream, such as Willy's boss (the son of the last boss, natch) firing Willy despite decades of loyal service to the company, and doing so not without some condescension.

However, it was never clear to me (even after all that googling) quite what the play was trying to say. We are presumably meant to be critical of Willy, who has not realised in his long life that perseverance in a job he hates is not the road to success; maybe I'm weak, but I think a dues-paying sad-sack who works a job he hates in order to support his family deserves more respect than the play is willing to give him (for example, a casual affair is held against him as some unforgivable sin). Conversely, Biff is seen as the breakout hope, despite not knowing what he wants, only that he doesn't want to answer to anybody; this social ennui is understandable, but his uncannily modern attitude doesn't offer an alternative, or even seem to want to seek one.

This, perhaps, is why I struggle with Death of a Salesman; it rightly criticises the soulless grind of working, consumer-driven life, but it misaligns its targets. Whereas writers like, say, John Steinbeck would criticise the American Dream as something that had become corrupted and lost its way, Miller seems to attack it in its entirety, as though the Dream itself was wrong. To which, one response is: can you think of anything better? Miller seems to want us to discard Willy as a sucker, someone who worked hard at something useless and not hard enough at finding his true calling. Willy's worldview, that personality and connections carry the day, and hard work doesn't, is scoffed at; the neighbour's boy, Bernard, on the other hand, works hard and studies and becomes a successful lawyer.

This, to be frank, rings extremely hollow nowadays. Networking does indeed carry the day, hard work is at best contributory, and if you don't believe me, then ask the university-educated barista who brings you your coffee. As strange as it sounds, I couldn't help but look on with envy at Willy's life: a house, a regular job, a family… These would be rare treasures indeed for the current generation; we are all expected to be salesmen and side-hustlers today, without even those basic rewards and securities, sometimes without even enough to make rent. Biff is portrayed as an anomaly because he is thirty-four and hasn't made anything of himself; nowadays, it wouldn't seem remarkable at all, and rather than individuals like Willy failing to realise their calling, the system seems geared towards producing people who can be readily exploited and discarded. Death of a Salesman was a disappointment primarily because I was hoping it would have a more astute insight into the mechanisms behind this bewildering and sickening state of affairs. ( )

Halfway through the first act, I wasn't impressed. But my friend Onnyx advised me to see it through to the end. Well worth it. The family dynamic is what most moved me, though it would be easy to see this as a commentary on the American Dream. The emotional involvement of the characters and the way that involvement drives their choices -- that is at the very heart of the play. Lovely. ( )

Technically a play, but also a very thin book. Interesting tones about the American Dream, consumerism, and family. I recommend it simply because you can read this in an afternoon. (Or watch it, I assume there's some good versions of the Play around). ( )

I must have read this play 10 times during my school years. Probably seen it times.

It's OK. Highly recommended - hence being forced to read it 10 times - but it never really grabbed me. It's like some great statue on the American Literature landscape: huge, passingly interesting, and then on to something else.

( )

Even more powerful as a script ( )

Well, that was miserable...

Not my format, not my genre, not my cup of tea. Basically, I was doomed before I even started. ( )

I somehow never was assigned Death of a Salesman in high school or college. In fact, the only Arthur Miller I had experienced previously was The Crucible, which I absolutely love. I knew I would one day make it to this one, and now here we are.

What an amazingly touching story. And, the sad fact is, so many people could learn something from it if they just gave it a read. This is one of those pieces of art that, properly experienced, can alter perceptions of daily life. That's what Death of a Salesman is meant to do. There are so many Willy Lomans in the world, so many wide-eyed workers who think that everything will work out if that one big deal comes through.

Biff is the voice of reason. Biff is the only character in the Loman family willing to accept the truth of the situation. Everyone thinks he's the loser, the lazy one, but he's the only one who truly understands what is going on. I identify strongly with Biff from beginning to end.

I also love Willy's brother Ben, another voice of reason. He sees things as they truly are, and is working hard to change things for both himself and Willy, and Willy is too complacent, or too involved in the fantasy of his own reality to see what Ben is truly offering him, at least, that is, until the end of the play.

A truly heartbreaking look at the American working man, and a must-read for all. ( )

Oh wow. This short, sweet play hits you hard, like a quick punch to the gut you'll be feeling for a while.

Aren't we all Willy Loman? ( )

“You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit.”

Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman covers the last 24 hours of Willy Loman's life concluding with his suicide and subsequent funeral. The play looks at a man's inability to accept changes going on within himself and society. 15 years previously Willy had an affair which his eldest son, Biff, discovered. Miller uses this affair and its aftermath to show how one single event can define our lives. Biff had previously idolised Willy, believing him to be a model father and successful salesman, but after learning of the affair he loses his respect of Willy and his teachings.

Willy has built a legend of myth about himself with his family. He fails to acknowledge the fact that he is only a moderately successful salesman rather than a great one as he would have everyone believe. Willy blocks out the memory of the affair and cannot understand why his relationship with Biff has changed. Willy wants Biff's affection but instead they all they do is argue. Linda, Willy's wife, is aware of Willy's habit for exaggeration but prefers not to challenge him even at the expense of their own sons. Happy, the couples youngest son, has followed in Willy's footsteps in that he too has created a more glamorous reality for himself, making himself out to be a bigger shot than he really is. As Willy grows older, he prefers to reminisce on past successes rather than look at his present failings, slowly the ability to distinguish fact from fantasy.

Denial and betrayal are major themes throughout. Willy prefers to block out memories with his one lapse, the affair, rather than own up to it thus perpetuating the rift between himself and Biff. Willy prefers to fixate on the memory of Biff at college rather than see him as the man that he has grown in to. In doing so denying any responsibility for having any negative influence on his son's life choices. This denial leads into betrayal.

Biff’s inability to succeed in business further estranges him from his father. Willy takes this as a personal affront believing it to be a betrayal of his ambitions for boy. When Willy finally thinks that Biff is on the verge of going something great in business Biff brutally shatters his illusions reinforcing Willy's belief that Biff's lack of ambition is due to malice and the notion that he, the great 'salesman', has failed to 'sell' the American Dream to his son. When Willy is fired by the company that had employed him for 36 years he only feels further betrayal. In contrast Biff feels that his father's years of ego massaging lies of successes that he never rally had is a betrayal towards him as well as his mother.

This play still resonates with audiences and readers because it holds up a mirror to our own hopes and dreams in life. As we see Willy slowly degenerate as he struggles to cope with the changes going on around him so we are forced to question how decisions that we made many years previously can impact on our own hopes and ambitions of today. The ultimate message of this play should be to live for the moment and to appreciate what is right in front of us. First rate. ( )

I loved this book. It's so sad and tragic I couldn't but think that that's life.
( )