"How can I mention it to him? Every day I go down and take away that little rubber pipe. But when he comes home, I put it back where it was? How can I insult him that way?" (Miller 63)
I keep expecting you. Willy dear, I can't cry" (Miller 1054)
Gurov does not mean to fall in love with Anna and when he sees his reflection in a mirror, he realizes he "never once loved; it was anything as you please, but not love. And only now when his head was gray had he fallen in love, really, truly -- for the first time in his life" (Chekhov 209)
She tells him, "I must stand quite alone if I am to understand myself and everything about me. It is for that reason I cannot remain with you any longer" (Ibsen 196)
" So a reader sees that reality is not something Willy approaches with any skill at all. In Harold Bloom's "Summary and Analysis" (Bloom's Guides) it is pointed out that Willy is not even sure what car he drives, or whether he is good as a salesman
" So a reader sees that reality is not something Willy approaches with any skill at all. In Harold Bloom's "Summary and Analysis" (Bloom's Guides) it is pointed out that Willy is not even sure what car he drives, or whether he is good as a salesman
The example of Willy coming home from a business trip bragging, "I'm tellin' you, I was sellin' thousands and thousands, but I had to come home" is classic living in a fake world behavior. And Jacobson goes on to explain, poignantly, that Willy's "fabrications create so extreme a polarization with his incapacities that an acceptance of failure - his own or Biff's - becomes impossible" (Jacobson 252)
C. Phelps, writing in Explicator (Phelps, 1995), is quick in his essay to point out that both Happy and Linda are living in a fantasy world
Since the end of the First World War this too has changed. Instead of the ideals of hard work and courage, we have salesmanship" (Clurman 133)
Ultimately, the essay describes the play's intricate images of the American dream, a dream that may seem old-fashioned today, but was the heart of American optimism in the 1940s, when this play was written. Heyen writes, "The American dream is rural, not urban, and the perfect world is out there somewhere, and when we can't find it out there ahead of us, we go back to the elm-shaded past" (Heyen 54)
Another critic writes, "As Arthur Miller said in an interview, 'The trouble with Willy Loman is he has tremendously powerful ideas.' But he yearns toward them more than he lives by them" (Jacobson 44)
Biff, his son understands this, and says near the end of the play, "He had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong" (Miller 1054)
The fact that the audience never learns exactly what commodity Loman has spent his life selling is another exquisite touch by Miller, as the audience slowly comes to discover the tragic truth that Loman has been selling himself all the while. As a modern observer of Miller's work concluded within a dramatic review published by The New York Times in 1999 asks "the salesman's goods, whether his valise holds hardware or underwear, turns out to be cheap stuff, with sorry consequences for himself and the synthetic faith he epitomizes," and it is this lamentable conclusion that inevitably leaves readers and viewers of Death of a Salesman quietly pondering the same question: "Is Willy Loman a victim of the system or his own weak character?" (Goodman, E1)
Presented predominately from the perspective of aging salesman Willy Loman, this contribution to dramatic literature is at once absurd and tragic, with Miller employing several distinct authorial styles to tell the story of an increasingly senile Loman, who wavers between states of lucidity and fantasy throughout the narrative. Several members of Loman's family play central roles in Death of a Salesman, including Willy's loyal wife Linda, his failed sons Biff and Happy, and each character is an extension of the protagonist himself, representing the overall ordinary nature of his life despite delusions to the contrary (Koon 31)
A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory," (Miller 129)
William Covey the Author The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People explains that the twenty first century saw a social change in American culture which valued the individual. This social changed encouraged individuals to try to achieve their goals through the use of "human and public relation techniques and positive mental attitude" (Covey 19), this type of approach is known as personality ethics
As pointed out by Terry W. Thompson " Willey is an aging and mediocre salesman who refuses to grow up, he will instead remain an impulsive and mercurial boy, groping ineffectually for success in a world that pays him no heed" (Thompson246)
Though written at three completely different times in American history, the three works of fiction illustrate that sacrifice and a lack of self-identity are issues that can plague different races and different sexes for many different reasons. Arthur Miller once wrote, referring to his fictional character Willy Loman, "the tragic feeling is invoked whenever we are in the presence of a character, any character, who is ready to sacrifice his life, if need be, to secure one thing, his personal dignity" (Baym 2403)
Death of a Salesman, Beloved, and "Antebellum Sermon" are all works that deal with sacrifice, oppression and a loss of identity, though "Antebellum Sermon" is -- arguably -- a much more hopeful perspective on all three themes. Dunbar's preacherly poem worked to "master and manipulate the expectations of their various audiences" and give black people "a model of what it means to be free" (Blount 590-1)
I never have to wait in line to see a buyer. 'Willy Loman is here!' That's all they have to know, and I go right through (Miller 33)