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CHAPTER 2

Arthur Miller was born in New York City on Octomber 17, 1915 and has published

an account of his early years under the title ‘A Boy Grew in Brooklyn’.Miller graduated

from high school in 1932, but was unable to go on to college as “nobody in the house was

in possession of the fare.” The alternative was obivious, and he accordingly worked for

two years in an automobile – parts warehouse at $15 a week in order to pay his way to

college. Miller married Marilyn Monroe on June 29, 1956, at which time he was very

much in the public eye for reasons. Miller became an international traveller and

spokesman for human rights and artistic freedom. As the first international president of

PEN he opened. Arthur Miller led the life of a country squire on 400 acres of Connecticult

countryside in Roxbury where he gardened, mowed, planted evergreens, works as a

carpenter, and wrote four to six hours every morning, according to Helterman in the

Dictionary of Literary Biography. Miller was married to photojournalist Ingeborg Morath;

together they had produced several nonfiction books about their worldwide travels. Miller

had much to say about the art of playwriting over the years, both from a personal and a

judgemental standpoint. Reflecting on his own career, he told the NEW YORK Times;

“There’s an intensification of feeling when you create a play that doesn’t exist

anywhere else. It's a way of spiritually living. There’s a pleasure there that doesn’t exists

in real life. You get swept up in a free emotional life- and you can be all those other

people. That’s when you’re most alive. Miller died on the night of February 10, 2005 at his

home in Roxbury of heart failure. “A lot of my work goes to the center of where we

belong-if there is any root to life--because nowadays the family is broken up, and people

don’t live in the same pace for very long,” Miller said in a 1988 interview.
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The action take place in Willy Loman’s house and yard as well as in various places

he visits in his flashbacks in New York and Boston. When the play opens, Willy Loman,

the protagonist,feels trapped by all events of the past that have a bearing on his present

dilemma. The real time of the play is twenty-four hours in the life of the salesman, Willy

Loman, but, in reality, it encompasses a major part of his life on the road.

Willy Loman has been a travelling salesman for the Wagner Company for the last

thirty-four years. He likes to think of himself as Cong vital to the New England territory

(the Eastern States of the USA) once long ago, he had met a salesman, Dave Singleton,

who would go into a town, pick up a phone and would be able to place many orders

without ever leaving his hotel room. When Singleton died, people from the country came

to his funeral. As the play opens, Willy Loman (his last name is a pun on "low-man") has

just come back home after having left for New England that morning. He tells Linda, his

wife, that he just can't seem to keep his mind on driving any more. He asks about his son,

Biff, who has just come home after a visit after being away for a long time.

Willy thinks about Biff when Biff was a senior in high school some fourteen years

ago. Biff was playing in a great football game and people came from all over the country

to offer him scholarships. But then something happened and Biff has never found himself.

Later, we find that Biff had flunked math and had gone up to Boston to find his father and

explain his failure to him. When he reached Willy's hotel room in Boston, Biff found his

father having an affair with a strange woman. After this episode, Biff seemed to hold a

grudge against his father and could never again bring himself to trust Willy.

Now after some fourteen years, biff returns home. He and his younger brother

Happy try to think of some job that Biff could get and settle down in New York. They talk
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about a man that Biff used to work for, Bill Oliver. Biff says that he will ask Mr. Oliver for

a loan of ten thousand dollars to start a business of his own. They tell Willy about their

plans, and Willy thinks that, together, the two boys could absolutely conquer the world.

Willy explains that the important thing in life is to be well-liked and to have personal

attractiveness. He tells Biff that Mr. Oliver always thought highly of him, and he reminds

Biff of how much personal attractiveness Biff has.

The next day, Willy is to meet the boys for dinner in a restaurant. He is so pleased

to have his boys with him that he decides to ask young Howard Wagner, the present owner

of the firm for which he works, for a job in New York City. But Howard tells Willy that

there is no room for him in New York, and then explains to Willy that he cannot represent

the firm in New England anymore because he has been doing harm for the firm. Thus,

suddenly Willy's day has been reversed. He is now without a job and has to go to an old

friend and neighbor, Charley, to borrow enough money to pay his insurance premium.

We then learn that Willy has been borrowing fifty dollars a week from Charley for

quite some time, and then pretending that this amount is his salary. Even though Charley

offers Willy a good job in New York, Willy refuses because he says he can't work for

Charley. He then leaves to meet the boys in a restaurant. Biff and Happy meet in the

restaurant and Biff explains that he has been living an illusion. He tells Happy that he has

stolen himself out of every job that he has ever had, and he wants to make everyone,

especially his father Willy Loman, understand that he is no longer bringing home any

prizes. But when Willy arrives, he tells the boys that he has been fired and he refuses to

listen to Biff's story. Willy simply pretends that Biff has another appointment the next day.

Suddenly when Willy goes to the bathroom, Biff, out of frustration, leaves the restaurant.

Happy, who has picked up two girls, follows him, leaving Willy alone.
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Later that night, Biff comes home and finds Willy out in the backyard planting

seeds and talking to his brother Ben. But this is only in Willy's illusions because he has not

seen his brother for many years, and Ben has been dead for some nine months. Biff

explains to Willy that it would be best if they break with each other and never see one

another again. He tries, once again, to explain that he is no longer a leader of men and that

he is a common person with no outstanding qualities. Biff becomes frustrated because

Willy refuses to see the truth He finally breaks down and sobs to Willy to forget him.

Willy thinks that Biff is still a child who needs him. He then resolves on suicide because,

with twenty thousand dollars of his insurance money, Biff could set himself up in life and

could be such a magnificent person, Willy commits suicide. We find that Willy Loman

died a forgotten man because no one came to his funeral

Death of a Salesman presents many special problems because of its structure. The

story is told partly through the mind and memory of Willy Loman. The times of the play

thus fluctuate between a point in 1942 and another time in 1928, with a gap of about

fourteen years between the two times. But there is no monotonous lapse of time the shift

from one time to another must be flowing and convincing. The play is structured in such a

way as to show the pleasures of the past, the dreams or hopes of the past and how these

aspects of the past contribute to the agonies of the present In other words, we see in the

scenes of the past how Willy Loman has so built his life that he has now finally trapped

himself in an inescapable situation. The structure of the play emphasises the difference

between illusion and reality. One central problem of the play is Willy's inability to

distinguish between illusion and reality. Thus, the structure which involves a rapid

transition to the past shows Willy's being caught in his illusions, and also shows how he

brings these illusions over into his present life, especially as he calls upon his dead brother
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Ben to help him. Many of the significant aspects of the play are achieved through the use

of the stage setting. For example, when Willy Loman gradually fades into one of his

illusions, this is accomplished on stage by a gradual diminishing of the lights on the other

parts of the stage and with a stronger light coming in on Willy Loman. When the play is in

the real present, the characters go in and out of the doors of the farmhouse, but when the

action is in the past, the actors walk through walls and pay no attention to the stage setting.

Miller, as a dramatist, expects a lot from his reader. In the early part of the play, he

has included images, ideas or suggestions that have not apparent meaning at the moment.

But later, these images are remembered and reinforced; they become very important. In

this first episode, Willy Loman has come back from a trip even though he left episame

morning. Later, we come to know that he cannot stand to be separated from Biff, his elder

son who has just returned home. When Biff is home, Willy cannot function as he

ordinarily does. Further, as we, find out later, that Willy and Biff had their confrontation in

a Boston hotel and Willy feels guilty about travelling back to the same region. But this fact

doesn't become clear until much later in the play. In a short, but seemingly insignificant

statement, Willy says that he opened the windshield of his car and let the warm air into the

car. Then in the same episode, when Linda suggests a ride with the windshield open, Willy

remembers that he was thinking of his 1928 Chevvy. His thoughts always return to the

period around 1928: "Remember those days? The way Biff used to simonize that car? The

dealer refused to believe there was eighty thousand miles on it." This was the time when

Biff was a high school senior and was the captain and star of the football team: "My God!

Remember how they used to follow him around in high school! When he smiled at one of

them their faces lit up. When he walked down the street." This was the last happy time in

Willy's life and thus his thoughts always return to this particular scene.