Death of a Salesman (Penguin Plays)
by Arthur Miller
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Book Reviews of Death of a Salesman (Penguin Plays)
Book Review: Exceptional Play, Easy to Read as a Book
Summary: 5 Stars
Death of a Salesman is one of those rare plays that are equally riveting whether you see it in a theater or read the script in a book. The book tells the story of Willy Loman, a traveling salesman, and his wife and two children. The "present day" in the story is about Willy near the end of his career. He is getting too old to travel around and to hustle to sell products. He also appears to be not quite right in the head any more. His oldest son has returned from the West where he has been doing odd jobs but not making much out of his life. Everyone is worried about Willy, including his neighbor and his boss. Unfortunately, Willy's boss is more concerned with the profits of the company.The story flashes back to earlier times in several scenes. These stories mainly tell the story of more triumphant times for Willy. He is a good salesman and he's adored by his wife and children. One gets the sense that he is ready to hit it big. He rejects his brother's plan for a get rich quick scheme because he is doing so well in sales.
We are never quite sure how much of Willy's past is accurate. Like many good salesmen, Willy is used to promoting his products with little exaggerations. It seems that Willy's talent in sales bleeds over to his personal life, so that he is always doing a little worse than he says he is. It is unclear how much worse in these earlier days. However Willy is doing, it seems that his life has taken a turn for the worse. His oldest son is also doing much worse. He was the star quarterback in high school and is headed for great things with a scholarship to college. But he has lost his way at least as much as Willy.
The play answers some of these questions. Many of them are answered by the fact that life is hard sometimes and we make bad choices. Others seem to be answered by nothing besides fate. Also, as you can see by some of these reviews, the answers are different for different people. It is easy to pull some things out of this play when you are done, but it is almost impossible to figure out everything.
In any event, I strongly recommend you read this book and see the play live or on video. You will love them both.
Book Review: Questions for life's inventory
Summary: 5 Stars
Poor Willie; he's just as much a victim of capitalism as the people he's screwed in business all those years. Long before American business became the global conspiracy of recent years (Enron, Haliburton,), business rested on the efforts of the little guy who thought big. Willy Loman is just such a man: in fact, he's the poster boy for the dark side of the corporate psyche in America, from 1949 (when the play had its first production) right up to today. Loathed by his colleagues, avoided by his family (Biff and Happy, his sons, leave him hallucinating in a public toilet), and haunted by his life (which is portrayed in flashback episodes generated within his own troubled mind)--
willy finds himself asking, "Why?" Trying to answer this question leads him through psychosis to eventual suicide . Only Linda, his long-suffering wife, pays him homage: "Willy Loman was a Good Man...," she says over his grave near the end of the play. I can only imagine that universities across the country began developing classes in business ethics soon after this play hit Broadway. ( Ken Lay and Dennis Kozlowsi, for, example, must have missed the play altogether, and it's obvious they cut their ethics class). But, you DO get the feeling that Willy started out as Linda sees him, a good and honorable man. His slide through capitalism has left him critically wounded. When I first saw this play performed on television, Lee J. Cobb played Willy like a wounded bear; he reminded me of some of the business people I knew, both friends and family; so, when I read the play later, I was blown away by it again, amazed that Miller could get it so right. This play should be required reading in all ethics classes. Anyone who reads the play will never feel the same about American business again. It begs the big question: When it comes time to take our own life's inventory, as Willy has, will we look back with pride and a sense of accomplishment? Or will we find ourselves sidestepped and alone, lost to despair? Arthur Miller poses some of life's key questions in this wrenchingly powerful play. It's up to each of us to answer them for ourselves.
Book Review: review of "Death of a Salesman"
Summary: 5 Stars
Vache Manukyan Per 1 01/12/01The Death Of A Salesman
The book The Death Of A Salesmen by Arthur Miller is a very good book, because it explains what father and sons go through thought aging years. This book talks about real life situations of father and sons and what they go though after getting old. As people know kids become adults but in their parents eyes they all ways remain kids which the adults get sick of and start arguments. That's what happened in this story where Willy has two sons and he treats them like they were still his high school kids and he doesn't think of them as successful people but instead he thinks of them, as his young kids who were only successful in football. Willy was a very good salesman, which he wanted to get a better job in the city instead of going out of state but he didn't. The owner of the business didn't give him the job instead he fired him. Willy at that point felts like nothing and he was just an extra person in this world. At the same time his son Biff was going to get a loan from a long time friend, which he also didn't. The whole family was unsuccessful in the business field. This brought fight into the family and everything was going bad. Before all this his son Biff had no respect towards his father because he caught him cheating with another women. Willy, being caught by his son got very embarrassed and he didn't know what to do. After that incident the whole family changed. His other son Happy didn't say anything because he knew his dad was old and that he tried everything to make his family better. At the end Willy had a big argument with Biff and Biff cried and opened up about everything to his father, which he had never done before. That meant everything to Willy because he had never talk to his son that open. Willy wanted to give everything to his son and he gave his life for his son. He had twenty thousand dollars worth of insurance on his life and he killed himself so that his son could get that money and open a business. That was the story of the poor salesmen.
Book Review: Many meanings in a short piece of writing
Summary: 5 Stars
All I can say is wow. After reading the book twice and also and seeing the film version a few times, I realize this book is so intellectually brilliant. It says much more than what the characters say or do. Even though so much is confessed by them just speaking frankly, it is through their lies, deceptions and quirks to which the real enjoyment of the word is expressed. On the surface, the story is about a man (Willy Lowman) and his struggle to get through is life as a salesman. He is aging and losing his mind. In fact, we see that this wasn't even the line of work that he was meant for (with all the talk of him working with his hand). He must provide for his codependent wife and also have to face to sons. His life just keeps going down hill as he finds him self not needed in a world that now is run by machines. There are many interesting things on the surface such as families not communicating well and thus falling apart, but also some many ways to view every spoken word. Does Willy planting seeds some how symbolize the fact that Willy would rather go to a simpler time in life when Agriculture mattered over Industry? Does the problem Biff has with women stem more him witnessing his father's affair? Does always know what a bad father he is, or does it truly come to him later? Will Linda ever see what she really turned out like, spending all these years serving Willy's dreams out?
The really amazing thing about "Death" is the fact that it squashes the impossible dream of "being well-liked" (as opposed to just being liked the way Bernard was) but does it with some compassion for the poor soul Willy. He's not bad; he's just been brainwashed by some many images. This short play asks a lot of questions about human nature and answers them well. If it was Arthur Miller's intention for tragic hero Willy Loman to become an icon, he did a great job. The word masterpiece shouldn't be taken lightly here, as this piece of Americana should be able to stand ever test of time.
Book Review: Arthur Miller's Most Brilliant Play
Summary: 5 Stars
It is a difficult task to review one's favorite play. I have known and loved DEATH OF A SALESMAN since I was sixteen years old; I am now twenty-five. Let me just say that, whether or not one considers DEATH OF A SALESMAN a tragedy, it is unquestionably one of the greatest dramas of the twentieth century; it is also the late Arthur Miller's greatest play. Like his ALL MY SONS (written in 1947, two years before SALESMAN), and like his subsequent THE CRUCIBLE and A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE, DEATH OF A SALESMAN brings together the themes of familial responsibility, man's role in relation to his society, and the possibility -- or impossibility -- that an individual can lead a normal life after having committed a crime. Whereas in Joe Keller's (the protagonist of ALL MY SONS) case this is a crime against the "human family," Willy Loman, the titular salesman, betrays his own family. To the above-mentioned themes DEATH OF A SALESMAN adds one more: the dehumanizing effect of capitalism. Willy, having reached the retirement age without having achieved the success in his profession of which he always dreamed, has become a mere object to be discarded by the company for which he has worked for twenty-five years. ("You can't eat an orange and throw the peel away -- a man is not a piece of fruit!" Willy protests to his boss, Howard.) Where SALESMAN differs from ALL MY SONS is in its seamless integration of expressionist techniques, showing that Miller had learned from Tennessee Williams' 1947 play A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. Under stress from guilt over his past "crime" as well as from the knowledge that he will soon be "thrown away" by the selling firm, Willy's mind wanders increasingly back to a past, happier year (1928 -- significantly, the year before the Great Depression began). Thus in SALESMAN past and present exist onstage simultaneously, and the stage itself is a map of Willy's mind. This is the true brilliance of the play.