Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman is rightly considered one of the greatest American tragedies ever dramatized. Arthur Miller dramatizes the lost dreams and ebbing hopes of the Loman family; Willy, his wife Linda, and their two sons Biff and Happy. Miller breaks the action into three acts. While Act I and Act II are titled as such, the third act is entitled Requiem. I find these division titles extremely appropriate for the play, as a "Requiem" is the first word of the Introit for the Latin Mass for the Dead. Death of a Salesman is a mass for the dead, but Willy Loman is not the only one who dies. As I watched Willy succumb to dying or long dead illusions, old age, disappointment, and loss of hope, I recognized something else dies along with him in this drama. What also dies in Death of a Salesman is a previous way of life, values, and culture that promised the "American dream" but more often delivered debt, disappointment and despair.

Death of a Salesman speaks to me because it speaks to most Americans who struggle to earn a living in a material world that devalues humanity in favor of profitability. When the measure of the man or woman is material, material failure equates to personal failure. At least this is how Willy Loman views the world. His eventual suicide is an attempt to provide his son Biff with insurance money to make a new beginning. Willy's guiding thought is that a man lik

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ition is one Willy cannot admit. He cannot admit his sons have not achieved greatness any more than he can accept his own failure and waning abilities. After Biff's emotional scene in which he explains to his father he is "nothing", we see Willy finally succumb to a life of illusions and mistakes. Willy thinks that Biff loves him because he does what he asks, but the indication is not so clear. It takes Linda and Happy to tell Willy that Biff loves him and always did. However, I am not sure that Biff really loves his father. This is where the significance of the "Requiem" ending comes into play. In this scene Biff is mainly silent with regard to his father, admitting only that "he had the wrong dreams" and "never knew what he was" (Miller, 1976, 138). In this, we see that Biff understands that the values and culture that reinforced material success as the measure of a man were not the values and culture that would have fulfilled his father. Willy never understands this and it is sad to watch, but it is also sad to know that there were more than likely thousands of Willy Lomans in the same kind of psychological and environmental trap of their own making. I believe that all of Willy's mistakes and "wrong dreams" were moti

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