What is playwright Arthur Miller best known for?
American playwright Arthur Miller is known for combining social awareness with a searching concern for his characters’ inner lives. He is best know...
What was Arthur Miller’s early life like?
American playwright Arthur Miller was born and raised in New York City, where his father owned a successful manufacturing business. The Great Depre...
When did Arthur Miller die?
American playwright Arthur Miller died on February 10, 2005, in Roxbury, Connecticut. He was 89 years old. He died of heart failure.
What is the death of a salesman about?
Arthur Miller once said that Death of a Salesman was a “tragedy of the common man.” Think about it: The main character, Willy Loman, is a regular, everyday guy—an aging, travelling salesman weighed down by his sample case. With each trip, he’s finding it increasingly difficult to cover his territory in search of the next big order. His mind is starting to slip away but he still believes that his charm and optimism will make him rich. But the realities of life haunt him. He’s ashamed that he can’t pay the bills. He’s been unfaithful to his wife. And as Willy turns to his memories and delusions to combat any feelings of failure, he begins to lose touch with reality. Willy is flawed and is brought to ruin by his own weaknesses. In Willy Loman, Miller created a tragic hero—twentieth-century style.
Why is Death of a Salesman considered a masterpiece?
Death of a Salesman is considered to be Miller’s masterpiece not only for its compelling story and characters but also because of its inventive, theatrical elements including:
What is the design of the Lomans house?
Set design. Miller’s description of the set is precise. The walls of the Lomans’ house are transparent; the house almost looks like the skeleton of a house. Characters either walk around or through the walls, depending on whether the scene they’re in happens in the present or the past. And the space around the Lomans’ house gets smaller as the play progresses. By the end of the play, the apartment buildings that surround the house are lit so that—as Miller specifies—they “rise into sharp focus.”
What plays did Arthur Miller write?
Miller wrote his most successful plays early in his career. Between 1947 and 1964, Broadway played host to All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , A View From the Bridge, and After the Fall. While their stories may be different, there are common threads among them, including morality, responsibility, compassion, and the fragility of human relationships—especially between fathers and sons. And there is one more thread—all are based on real-life events that were either personal or political or both.
How many slides are there in the Carousel?
Carousel with 1 active slide out of 15 total.
What is the Crucible about?
The Crucible, set during the Salem witch trials in the 1600s, is really about Joseph McCarthy’s congressional hearings (above), which were designed to find communist sympathizers in the United States.
What did Miller see in his life?
During his life, Miller saw that some people would never be able to realize that dream, no matter how hard they worked. He knew that not everyone had equal opportunities to succeed.
What is the climax of the play Biff and Willy?
In the play’s climax, Biff and Willy fight and a resolution is reached when Biff explains how his father’s ideal of the American Dream has failed them both.
What is Willy Loman called?
Fun Fact: Arthur Miller provided two alternate versions of a physical insult in the play: If Willy Loman is played by a small man (like Dustin Hoffman) he is called a "shrimp," but if the actor is large, Willy Loman is called a "walrus.”.
What is the American dream?
The American Dream. The American Dream is central in Death of a Salesman, and we see characters grapple with it from different perspectives: Willy Loman privileges being well liked over hard work, which makes him fall short of his own expectation; Biff rejects the traditional American career trajectory; Ben made his fortune by traveling far away.
How old is Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman?
Death of a Salesman, one of Arthur Miller ’s Pulitzer Prize-winning plays, narrates the last 24 hours in the life of 63-year-old Willy Loman, a failed salesman who had a distorted idea of the American Dream and work ethic. The play also explores his relationship with his wife, his sons, and his acquaintances.
What is the plot of Death of a Salesman?
Plot Summary. Death of a Salesman is, at first glance, about the last day in the life of salesman Willy Loman, who, at 63, has failed at his career. While at home, he dissociates from reality, entering in time switches that explain why he turned out the way he did through interactions with his brother Ben and his mistress.
What is the conflict between Willy and his son?
Family Relationships. The central conflict in the play is between Willy and his son Biff. As a father, he saw a lot of promise in the athletic and womanizing Biff. After he dropped out of high school, however, father and son had a fallout, and Biff explicitly rejects the notions of American dream imparted by his father.
How old is Willy Loman?
Willy Loman. The protagonist of the play, Willy is a 63-year-old salesman who had been demoted from salaried to a worker on commission. He failed at his American dream because he thought that being well liked and having good connections was a surefire way to success.
How did Joan Barthel influence Arthur Miller?
In the late 1970s, he joined other celebrities (including William Styron and Mike Nichols) who were brought together by the journalist Joan Barthel. Barthel's coverage of the highly publicized Barbara Gibbons murder case helped raise bail for Gibbons' son Peter Reilly, who had been convicted of his mother's murder based on what many felt was a coerced confession and little other evidence. Barthel documented the case in her book A Death in Canaan, which was made as a television film of the same name and broadcast in 1978. City Confidential, an A&E Network series, produced an episode about the murder, postulating that part of the reason Miller took such an active interest (including supporting Reilly's defense and using his own celebrity to bring attention to Reilly's plight) was because he had felt similarly persecuted in his run-ins with the HUAC. He sympathized with Reilly, whom he firmly believed to be innocent and to have been railroaded by the Connecticut State Police and the Attorney General who had initially prosecuted the case.
What major did Arthur Miller go to?
It was during this time that he wrote his first play, No Villain. Miller switched his major to English, and subsequently won the Avery Hopwood Award for No Villain. The award brought him his first recognition and led him to begin to consider that he could have a career as a playwright. Miller enrolled in a playwriting seminar taught by the influential Professor Kenneth Rowe, who instructed him in his early forays into playwriting; Rowe emphasized how a play is built in order to achieve its intended effect, or what Miller called "the dynamics of play construction". Rowe provided realistic feedback along with much-needed encouragement, and became a lifelong friend. Miller retained strong ties to his alma mater throughout the rest of his life, establishing the university's Arthur Miller Award in 1985 and Arthur Miller Award for Dramatic Writing in 1999, and lending his name to the Arthur Miller Theatre in 2000. In 1937, Miller wrote Honors at Dawn, which also received the Avery Hopwood Award. After his graduation in 1938, he joined the Federal Theatre Project, a New Deal agency established to provide jobs in the theater. He chose the theater project despite the more lucrative offer to work as a scriptwriter for 20th Century Fox. However, Congress, worried about possible Communist infiltration, closed the project in 1939. Miller began working in the Brooklyn Navy Yard while continuing to write radio plays, some of which were broadcast on CBS.
How many boxes are there in the Miller archive?
In January, 2018, the Ransom Center announced the acquisition of the remainder of the Miller archive totaling over 200 boxes. The full archive opened in November, 2019.
What award did Arthur Miller receive?
In 1980, Miller received the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates. He received the Praemium Imperiale prize in 2001, Prince of Asturias Award in 2002, and the Jerusalem Prize in 2003, as well as the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 1999.
Why was Arthur Miller banned from the Soviet Union?
In 1969, Miller's works were banned in the Soviet Union after he campaigned for the freedom of dissident writers. Throughout the 1970s, Miller spent much of his time experimenting with the theatre, producing one-act plays such as Fame and The Reason Why, and traveling with his wife, producing In the Country and Chinese Encounters with her. Both his 1972 comedy The Creation of the World and Other Business and its musical adaptation, Up from Paradise, were critical and commercial failures.
What years was Death of a Salesman in the public eye?
Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s.
When did Arthur Miller get his award?
Miller retained strong ties to his alma mater throughout the rest of his life, establishing the university's Arthur Miller Award in 1985 and Arthur Miller Award for Dramatic Writing in 1999, and lending his name to the Arthur Miller Theatre in 2000.
Plot Summary
Major Characters
- Willy Loman.The protagonist of the play, Willy is a 63-year-old salesman who had been demoted from salaried to a worker on commission. He failed at his American dream because he thought that being well liked and having good connections was a surefire way to success. Biff Loman.Willy’s eldest son—and formerly his favorite son—, Biff is a former football star who was …
Major Themes
- The American Dream. The American Dream is central in Death of a Salesman, and we see characters grapple with it from different perspectives: Willy Loman privileges being well liked over hard work, which makes him fall short of his own expectation; Biff rejects the traditional American career trajectory; Ben made his fortune by traveling far away. Politics—or Lack Thereof.Even tho…
Literary Style
- The language of Death of a Salesman, on a superficial read, is quite unmemorable, as it lacks "poetry" and "quotability." However, lines such as "He's liked, but he's not well liked," "Attention must be paid," and "Riding on a smile and a shoestring," have passed into the language as aphorisms. In order to explore Willy’s backstory, Miller resorts to a narrative device called time s…
About The Author
- Arthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman in 1947 and 1948 before its Broadway premiere in 1949. The play grew out of his life experiences, which included his father losing everything in the 1929 Stock Market crash. Death of a Salesmanhad its origins in a short story Miller wrote at the age of seventeen when he worked, briefly, for his father’s compa...