Literature Analysis #3

1.   1.    Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller follows Willy, a salesman who wants his family to live and be the American Dream.  Willy strives for success and for everyone to like him, but is disheartened by his son Biff who doesn’t. Biff was really good at football in high school and could’ve played in college, but chose to not go to summer school and improve his grades.  Willy’s wife wants him to try and talk to his boss to allow him to not have to commute so far because she thinks it’s too hard on him, but when he tries to persuade his boss he fires him.  Now Willy is unemployed and thinks that his chance at success is over with and becomes suicidal, eventually killing himself in a car crash so that his money can get insurance money.

2.   2.    Don’t have unrealistic or impossible goals. Willy wants his life to be perfect, and in that perfect life wants others to change who they are to fit the mold that he has created in his mind. He see’s success as the only reason to do something, even though success has evaded him, and it is because of his unrealistic aspirations that he ends up killing himself.

3.     3.  The tone is a sad and serious one. The story revolves around a man’s downward spiral into taking his own life it’s understandable that the tone is what it is.

“After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than you are alive.” This is a sad quote from the story where Willy begins to think that his life insurance is worth more to his family than his life.

“Dad is never so happy as when he’s looking forward to something!” This quote shows how Willy doesn’t like the life he IS living, but instead only looks to what could be in the future.

“No man only needs a little salary.” This quote shows the greed in the play, and how Willy and some of the other characters are fueled but nothing but physical desires and social acceptance.

4.       4. Some literary techniques used in the play are metaphors, flashbacks, irony, symbolism and imagery. Frequently during the play the audience is sent back to events in the past, may it be Biff in high school or events in Willy’s life. It helps clarify why Willy wants what he wants and is so angry that is isn’t how he dreams it should be.

“You can’t eat the orange and throw away the peel – a man is not a piece of fruit.” Here is an example of a metaphor in the play. Here Willy talks about how you cannot use people and then leave them using an orange as a medium; it also shows the theme, because he feels as though he is being used, and is comparing himself to fruit.

“Nothing’s planted, I don’t have a thing in the ground.” Willy frequently talks about seeds and how he needs to plant some. The seeds seem to be symbolic of him thinking that he hasn’t provided his family with a future, he hasn’t provided for them; and failure is something that he loathes because it’s the opposite of what he wants.

Lastly is irony, and there are many examples of this is the play. But the most prevalent is Willy’s funeral. Willy talks about how he was successful and that in order to be successful everyone had to like you; but at his funeral hardly shows up. There is irony in a man who preaches that he is successful and that he is because people like him, having no one like him and therefore being unsuccessful.