Death of a Salesman while "undeniably affecting, is without profound, tragic significance." Discuss.
There can be no doubt the truth of the first part of this statement. Death of a Salesman is unquestionably a deeply affecting play. It has been regarded as "one of the triumphs of the mundane American stage. It moves its audience tremendously; it comes close to their experience or observation, it awakens their consciousness; and it may even rouse them to self-criticism." In the words of another critic, "the mere showing and hearing of it-and the [This incident shows that at some of her consciousness Linda is aware of Willy's affair outside wedlock.] consequent assault and battery it will perpetrate upon your feelings make for an unforgettable experience." Another critic writes: "Death of a Salesman stirs us by its truth, the ineluctability of its evidence and judgment which permits no soft evasion." Yet another critic has this to say: "Written with relentless truth, Miller's play hits at the heart of the audience with the dull pain of a sledge-hammer."
There are several scenes and situations in this play which move the audience deeply. There is, for instance, the pathetic confession of Willy to his wife when, after having bragged about his achievements as a salesman, he says that people do not seem "to take to him", that they seem "to laugh at him", that they just "pass him by" without taking any notice of him, that he is "fat" and very "foolish" to look at. He tells Linda on this occasion that he has to work for ten to twelve hours a day in order to make just seventy to a hundred dollars a week. He says that he talks too much, and can't stop himself from talking. Contrasting himself with Charley, he says: "One thing about Charley. He's a man of few words, and they respect him." All this talk by Willy has, no doubt, a touch of comedy, but at the same time it certainly arouses our sympathy for Willy. He says that he often gets very lonely, especially when business is bad and there is nobody to talk to. He sometimes gets the feeling that he will never sell anything again, and that he will not be able to make a living for the family.
We have a very poignant scene when Linda talks to her two sons about Willy's pitiable condition. This is how she describes the crisis which Willy is facing: "But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a man." Linda points out to her sons the painful difference between Willy's past and present circumstances: "He drives seven hundred miles, and when he gets there no one knows him any more, no one welcomes him. And what goes through a man's mind, driving seven hundred miles home without having earned a cent ?"
Another situation that is even more touching is Willy's interview with Howard. Willy asks Howard to take him off his travelling duties and give him a job in the city. But Howard expresses his inability to do so. Howard is preoccupied with his new acquisition, a tape-recorder, and has hardly any time for Willy. Willy says that he just needs sixty-five dollars a week, but Howard is indifferent. Willy pleads with Howard in the name of his (Howard's) dead father and reminds him that it was he, Willy, who had been asked by Howard's father to suggest a Christian name for his infant and that Willy had suggested the name "Howard". But Howard does not relent, whereupon Willy lowers his price to fifty dollars a week. Willy also tells Howard that he could have made a lot of money if he had gone to Alaska but that he stuck to his salesman's job because he had known of Dave Singleman [ineluctable-that from which there is no escape.] who, even at the age of eighty-four, was able to make a living for himself by merely picking up a telephone and booking orders for his merchandise without any difficulty. He says: "In those days there was personality in it, Howard. There was respect and comradeship, and gratitude in it." But even this produces no effect on Howard. Willy then asks for only forty dollars a week, and Howard's reply is: "Kid, I can't take blood from a stone." Willy says that Howard should not treat him in this way after he has put thirty-four years of his life into the firm: "You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away a man is not a piece of fruit." But Howard tells Willy that, in actual fact, the firm does not require Willy's services at all, in any capacity. This means that Willy cannot even retain his travelling job. Howard's callousness and Willy's sad plight arouse our deepest sympathy for the luckless salesman.
Willy again stirs our sympathy when he is deserted by both his sons in the restaurant to which they had invited him. Happy feels more interested in the girls whom he has met there and who make themselves available to him. Happy even goes on the length of denying his father when he refers to Willy as just some "guy": "No, that's not my father. He's just a guy", says Happy to the two girls and walks out on his father, Biff having already gone away. Willy is left "babbling in a toilet". The pathos of this situation is heightened when we learn soon afterwards that, returning home after this incident, Willy felt "so humiliated he nearly limped when he came in."
But the pathos of the play reaches its climax towards the end of the play. After some plain-speaking and blunt language used by Biff, there is a sort of reconciliation between Biff and Willy. Willy is touched by the realisation that Biff likes him, and he expresses his feelings in such sentences as the following: "Isn't that isn't that remarkable? Biff-he likes me !". "Oh, Biff! He cried! Cried to me." "Loves me. Always loved me. Isn't that a remarkable thing? Ben, he'll worship me for it!" This discovery of Biff's love strengthens Willy's urge to do something that will really help Biff to build up his career. He has already been planning suicide, and now he feels that suicide will be much the best course for him. We feel overwhelmed by a sense of tragedy when we learn that Willy has sped away in his car in order to smash the vehicle and get killed. Pathos may thus be regarded as the key-note of this play. Most people in an audience will be moved to tears while witnessing the play on the stage.
The second part of the statement in the question is, however, a subject of controversy. Some critics consider the play to be a powerful tragedy which means a play having a profound, tragic significance. Others are of the opinion that we are dealing with what is a "social drama" and therefore a play which by its very nature cannot be expected to have a profound, tragic significance. One critic, for instance, says: "Certainly a play cannot be both tragic and social, for the two forms conflict in purpose. Social drama treats the little man as victim and arouses pity but no terror, for man is too little and passive to be the tragic figure." Says another critic; "His (Willy's) fate is not tragic. There is nothing of the superhuman or providential or destined in this play.
Everyone fails in a waste of misplaced energy. Miller presents the play in a spirit of puzzled, anguished analysis but does not suggest that a radical or revolutionary change in American society is necessary." But there are other critics who hold the view that Death of a Salesman attains a tragic quality and is not, therefore, devoid of tragic significance.
It has been said that Miller's aim was to re-create a man's entire life in terms of past and present, by means of his recollections at a particular point of self-evaluation late in life. Death of a Salesman is a drama of man's journey into himself. It is a man's emotional survey of the experiences that have shaped him and his values. It is a man's confession of the dreams to which Ire has been committed. It is also a man's attempt to confront the meaning of his life and the nature of his universe. Willy's heroism and stature derive not from an intellectual grandeur but from the fact that, in an emotional way, he confronts himself and his world. As Lear in madness comes to truth, so does Willy Loman. The road and Willy's car have, besides their social and psychological significance, a metaphysical meaning. Willy's soul can no longer travel the road; it has broken down because the road has lost meaning. The two bags which are his sales-goods are now too heavy. His sons will never carry them for him, and the values which they represent are now the overwhelming burden of his existence. The particulars concerning Willy's situation have a universal significance. Willy has lived passionately for values to which he is committed, and these values prove to be false and inadequate. He has loved his sons with a passion which wanted for them that which would destroy them. He has grown old and he has discovered really and vanity of all human endeavour, except perhaps love.
In general terms, Willy is the modern man who has accepted whole- heartedly the twentieth century version of the American dream. Willy has swallowed the myth or the unrealistic notion that if one is a clean-living and hard-working bank clerk, one will eventually marry the boss's daughter and will become chairman of the board of directors. Willy has applied himself to his duties; he has been hard-working and thrifty; he has admired the businessman's virtues; he has tried to be "well-liked". For this he should have been rewarded, but no reward comes. Willy is baffled by the failure of the American dream. The discrepancy between Willy's ideals and his life is, however, to be noted. While preaching to his sons clean living, friendliness, sportsmanship, and honesty, his life denies these qualities. He has a mistress on the road; his friendliness does not really sell merchandise; and it dimly occurs to him that people do not really regard his friendliness as friendliness. His son Biff, the champion athlete in high school, does not finally score over Bernard, the book-worm. Thus Willy's values do not lead to success and happiness. A basic tolerance for dishonesty permeates his actions, and this dishonesty is reflected in the lives of his sons. Nevertheless, in their broadest sense, Willy's hopes and goals were pure, and pity and sorrow arise from his agony when he does not attain them. Like Oedipus, Willy Loman made the wrong choice.
Willy is what happens to a man in an unjust competitive society in which people are victimized by false gods. He is a typical embodiment of the modern business morality. But he is also a more universal figure. "Like even the great tragic figures of Sophocles and Shakespeare, Miller's Willy is both an individual and a broadly relevant type. Perhaps Willy's universal quality proceeds, paradoxically, from his well-developed individuality. Certainly his broad meaningfulness is partly a consequence of the compassion with which he has been presented."
Death of a Salesman succeeds as a character drama and as an exceptionally good example of what is known as bourgeois or middle-class tragedy. It follows the fate and final reckoning of a commonplace man in a commonplace environment. It could have fallen short of tragedy and settled on the lower level of pathos, but that is not so. In this play Miller has managed to rise above the ordinary flat-lands of moralisation and thesis drama. It is a consummation of virtually everything attempted by that part of the American theatre which has specialised in awareness and criticism of social realities. But perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that this play is not genuine high tragedy.
