Product Description

The "Heinemann Plays" series offers contemporary drama and classic plays in durable classroom editions. Many have large casts and an equal mix of boy and girl parts. This modern tragedy concerns a salesman who, at the end of his life, is forced to face its futility and failure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2271 in Books
• Published on: 1994-03-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 117 pages

Review
The author of Focus, and last year's Critics Circle Award-All My Sons with a new play which is the smashing sensation of the season and the most distinguished event in the theatre of this decade. (Kirkus Reviews)

Synopsis
The "Heinemann Plays" series offers contemporary drama and classic plays in durable classroom editions. Many have large casts and an equal mix of boy and girl parts. This modern tragedy concerns a salesman who, at the end of his life, is forced to face its futility and failure.

Customer Reviews

A Parable of the Modern Age
I read this at GCSE, too many years ago, and failed to connect much, but revisiting it as an adult, it is a harrowing tale of consumerist society. The hero of the book buys entirely into the American dream of selling and credit, and boasting and spin, and is bewildered and unwilling to accept it when the game spits him out without a safety net.

As most of the dominant characters are filled with the dreams of self-determination, we see that those still in thrall cannot understand his plight, and seek around for blame for their own failures.

This is a tremendously powerful play, equally readable as viewable, and is a wonderful antidote to the 'Attitude is Altitude' poster on your office wall.

pretty okish.
A fulfilled life, including richness and wealth which the modern America offers -
Who doesn't want to live life that way? This isn't just the vision or idea of most Americans, but also a key aspect of the American Dream. Arthur Miller presents his point of view of it in the drama "Death of a Salesman".

Willy, an aged salesman, is the main character of the play and fits perfectly into the role of a typical dreamer of the American ideals such as acquiring material comforts by being "well-liked" or "personal-attractiveness" and not by working and studying hard. Oddly, he does never achieve his goals, nor do his both of sons, Biff and Happy. His faith in his version of the American Dream makes him unable to handle the problems of reality; therefore he always escapes into the past by day dreams and delusions. However, whenever he starts to realise his lack of achievements, he is falling apart into more and more pieces. This results in a dramatic ending.

By using this example of a common American family in the modern society, Miller manages it quite well to give the reader the possibility of identification that makes him think of the difficulty of the American Dream. I think everyone is able to find himself in one of the characters in Miller's play. They are kept very ordinary, but still have a strong personality yet, an important asset. Furthermore Arthur Miller's play implies other motifs such as the pioneer spirit and very original metaphors and symbols, which deep meaning increase the understanding of the novel. Anyway, I think that the usage of the metaphors as well as some stylistic devices complicates the reading and understanding of the story for the younger readership.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a closer look at the modern society, not only because of its plot, but also because of its realistic representation with its critical view towards the American Dream.

How to screw up you and everybody else's life
Have you ever thought about how it would feel if you were 63 years old and everything you reached in your life is, that you lost your job and the love of your oldest son? That is exactly what happens to Willy Loman, the main character in Arthur Miller's drama "Death of a Salesman".
This play is about Willy Loman's family, including his wife Linda and their two grown-up sons Biff and Happy and their process of realizing that their life is basically based on lies.
Willy is a salesman, who lately can't concentrate on working and drifts into the past very often, because the past was the time, when he and his son Biff were best friends and he was good at his job. In the present his life doesn't seem to be that great, because he got fired and he has to admit that he is not the strong man, he wanted everyone to think he was.
Throughout the whole play, Willy and Biff Loman are fighting about everything they could possibly fight about - but when Willy gets lost in his reminiscences Biff and he get along very well and he supports his son in everything Biff does. So the reader has to find out what happened to the great father-son-relationship. What he find out, is that Willy was unfaithful to Linda, and unfortunately he was objected by Biff, who can't forgive him. Another bad coincidence is, that because he realized what kind of man his father is, Biff didn't want to finish high-school and so he dropped-out with no graduation. One consequence of this is, that he was never able to find a proper job ore to finish anything he started with. Of course he blames Willy for it, who doesn't want to be responsible for his son's failure.
On the one hand, I suppose that "Death of a Salesman" will never be one of my favourite books, because even though it is a very sad and touching story, the reader gets easily lost in the weird imagination and reminiscences of Willy Loman. The story is not enough exciting to make the reader want to read it further that the fist pages. But on the other hand, I think that the play is very realistic, because everyone in the United States wants the American Dream to become true in their lives and only very few people got the luck to actually "live it" ....and Willy Loman is certainly none of them.

Biff: "I was in jail"
Willy (ironic): "I suppose that's my fault!"
Biff: "I stole myself out of every good job since high school"
Willy: And whose fault is that?"
Biff:" And I never go anywhere because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stnd taking orders from anybody. That's whose fault it is!"