Death of A Salesman, written by Arthur Miller in 1949, follows an aged salesman, Willy Loman, as he struggles to accept the reality of his failing career and misguided life principles. In this essay, I will examine the structure of the play and how Miller has used time and space to reveal character, present Willy’s faulty ideals, and foreshadow.
The play is broken into two acts and a requiem: each segment takes place on a different day in the present day, within the world of the play. For the purpose of this essay, I will refer to ‘present day’ as the present time experienced by all the characters in the world of the play. The only person who experiences time differently in the play is Willy, whose mind straddles present time and his memories. …show more content…
He weaves flashbacks in between the present day events. These flashbacks provide the audience with a glimpse of the events that have influenced the character to develop into the person that they present themselves to be in present day. For example, in the first flashback of Act I, Willy and his two sons are in the Loman House when Bernard, the son of Willy’s friend, Charley, enters. Bernard warns Biff that he is about to flunk math and the he won’t be able to graduate if that happens. This angers Willy and he launches into a speech to his boys about how “the man who makes an appearance in the business world,...is the man who gets ahead”. Willy values appearance over any other tangible achievements (i.e. grades in school) and instills this belief in his sons. He praises their Adonis like bodies and assures them that in the future, they’d be five times ahead of Bernard, who only gets “the best marks in school”. His sons react in kind: Happy brags about losing weight, while Biff vocalizes his lack of concern of failing his studies. The audience can infer that the present day skewed perspective of success that the brothers have, stems from the warped ideals Willy has imbued in his …show more content…
In the scene before this, Willy has just been fired. He has pinned all his hope on Biff’s ability to convince Bill Oliver to take him on. Unfortunately, Biff has failed to achieve this and as he struggles to explain to Willy the reality of the situation, Willy starts to drift into his memories. He imagines himself arguing with young Biff and Bernard about Biff failing math. He also imagines Biff revealing to Linda that he has seen Willy with another woman in Boston. As Willy lapses into his memories, the audience is transported as well from present to past, and from the restaurant to the hotel room in Boston. Miller uses this flashback to explain Biff’s strange and sudden abandonment of his ‘star career’. Biff comes to Boston in search of his father, only to find Willy with another woman in his hotel room. This incident prompted the change in Biff and he refuses to take the summer school course, which leads to him failing math and being unable to
The play is broken into two acts and a requiem: each segment takes place on a different day in the present day, within the world of the play. For the purpose of this essay, I will refer to ‘present day’ as the present time experienced by all the characters in the world of the play. The only person who experiences time differently in the play is Willy, whose mind straddles present time and his memories. …show more content…
He weaves flashbacks in between the present day events. These flashbacks provide the audience with a glimpse of the events that have influenced the character to develop into the person that they present themselves to be in present day. For example, in the first flashback of Act I, Willy and his two sons are in the Loman House when Bernard, the son of Willy’s friend, Charley, enters. Bernard warns Biff that he is about to flunk math and the he won’t be able to graduate if that happens. This angers Willy and he launches into a speech to his boys about how “the man who makes an appearance in the business world,...is the man who gets ahead”. Willy values appearance over any other tangible achievements (i.e. grades in school) and instills this belief in his sons. He praises their Adonis like bodies and assures them that in the future, they’d be five times ahead of Bernard, who only gets “the best marks in school”. His sons react in kind: Happy brags about losing weight, while Biff vocalizes his lack of concern of failing his studies. The audience can infer that the present day skewed perspective of success that the brothers have, stems from the warped ideals Willy has imbued in his …show more content…
In the scene before this, Willy has just been fired. He has pinned all his hope on Biff’s ability to convince Bill Oliver to take him on. Unfortunately, Biff has failed to achieve this and as he struggles to explain to Willy the reality of the situation, Willy starts to drift into his memories. He imagines himself arguing with young Biff and Bernard about Biff failing math. He also imagines Biff revealing to Linda that he has seen Willy with another woman in Boston. As Willy lapses into his memories, the audience is transported as well from present to past, and from the restaurant to the hotel room in Boston. Miller uses this flashback to explain Biff’s strange and sudden abandonment of his ‘star career’. Biff comes to Boston in search of his father, only to find Willy with another woman in his hotel room. This incident prompted the change in Biff and he refuses to take the summer school course, which leads to him failing math and being unable to