Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Argumentative Essay

Introduction, personal failure, cultural failure.

Although he appears visionary and hardworking, Willy Loman fails to teach his sons the lessons of becoming successful in life because of his beliefs. Willy survives with a misconstrued ambition of becoming wealthy and inculcates this idea into his sons, Happy and Biff, even though he did not know how to achieve it. He trained his sons on his approach to life and hoped they would follow and achieve his dream of success.

He has no plan for his life and concentrates on his past failures, and his children seem perched to being successful, primed on his world hypotheses. Salesmanship has given Willy a feeling of greatness and merit. He believes that the present world has dishonored them by taking away the personality of salesmen.

Willy has taught this notion to his sons, who are very receptive and obedient to their father. However, these believes have caused him disappointment as they end up turning down his principles and goals. Willy Loman fails to guide his sons to greatness in their lives because of his personal and cultural beliefs.

Willy has an insensitive personality. He does not realize that his capabilities and aspirations are different from those of his sons. While Biff wanted an outdoors job, his father wanted a white collar job for him. Willy does not admit failure nor consider the opinion of his sons. This has led to rebellion from his sons, when they discover what is right for them.

For example, Biff disliked the business life recommended by his father and opted a life on the farms after realizing that success means an enjoyable life and not money. Willy believed that Biff would be successful in business because of his attractiveness, and his past splendor in high school soccer. However, this notion was wrong as Biff failed to graduate from high school and join college because of his arrogance.

He later recognizes his true personality and decides to work on a farm, where he would enjoy and feel comfortable. Willy is very upset in him and is discontented in all that he does. Contrary to his believe that popularity and fame lead to success; Willy never earned handsome wealth despite his claim for fame, and many years of experience.

This is made unsound when his boss demotes him, and he merely earns a commission before he finally gets fired, despite his friendship with Wagner’s father. His claim for connections fails him again. Willy’s idea of connecting Biff with important people at Penn State would be futile as football does not seem to be the best career for him. To Biff, having the right connections does not always help.

The expectations of Willy that his requiem would be fully packed due to his well connection and popularity failed to turn out as he thought since only the family members were present. Willy had inculcated a sense of superiority in Biff Loman that made him arrogant. This made him unsuccessful in graduating from high school and advance to college.

Willy’s melancholy originates from the misconceptions he had about the American dream and his incapability to connect how the world works with how he thinks it should work. The American dream stated that: through the established qualities of determination, creativity, hard work, and resilience, one may get contentment through riches and that a good-looking and loved man will no doubt attain the comforts of modern life.

This dream can be divided into two significances; the traditional dream and the business achievement dream. When one owns a house, has a good paying job, and lives a secure life, then h/she has accomplished the traditional dream. Willy Loman has accomplished this vision as he has an occupation, a vehicle, a residence, and a family, but he did not appreciate it.

He was so preoccupied with the business dream that he dismantles his family in the end. This dream made him sacrifice going to Alaska in search of his father where he came across the successful salesman, Dave. He decides to follow the same career path as Dave and hopes to get the same success as Dave. It is not until thirty five years of his career when he realizes he had not achieved the prosperity he had hoped to achieve.

What Willy fails to know is that even Dave Singleman, who is his epitome of prosperity, has not fulfilled the American dream. This is because at the age of eighty-four, Dave has not retired, lives in a hotel room, and has no family. His illusion about life and his mental disarray about the real American dream make him fail his sons as he does not know what is really needed of them to succeed.

Willy’s life was a disappointment as he had the wrong ambitions and failed to teach his sons the lessons for victory in life. He deluded himself that he could be a wealthy salesman, when he knew that he would be excellent at operating with hands. If Willy had faced his capabilities in a rational and sincere way, his life would not have ended this way.

It is evident that the top secret to success is a fortune in possessing ordinary talents and aptitude, and readiness to take chances in the corporate world, in addition to being industrious, devoid of taking shortcuts with friends. Cultural believes, such as the American dream, should help to instill values in individuals to put efforts in everything that they do.

  • Chicago (A-D)
  • Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, November 1). Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. https://ivypanda.com/essays/death-of-a-salesman-by-arthur-miller/

"Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller." IvyPanda , 1 Nov. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/death-of-a-salesman-by-arthur-miller/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller'. 1 November.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller." November 1, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/death-of-a-salesman-by-arthur-miller/.

1. IvyPanda . "Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller." November 1, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/death-of-a-salesman-by-arthur-miller/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller." November 1, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/death-of-a-salesman-by-arthur-miller/.

  • Willy Loman, a Poor Role Model to His Two Sons Biff and Happy
  • "Death of a Salesman" a Book by Arthur Miller
  • Arthur Miller: Relationships in the "Death of a Salesman"
  • Willy Loman as a Tragic Hero: Character Analysis Essay
  • The Play "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller
  • Symbolism in Death of a Salesman
  • “Death of a Salesman” by Steven Erickson
  • Denial and Illusion in the "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller
  • Willy Loman and Oedipus as Tragic Heroes
  • Willy Loman and the American Dream
  • All Are Equal in Death
  • Imagery Use in “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe
  • The Symbolic Significance of the Red Convertible in Louise Erich’s Story
  • Lessons of Wisdom From Seniors to Youth
  • Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
  • Death of a Salesman

Arthur Miller

  • Literature Notes
  • Major Themes in Death of a Salesman
  • Play Summary
  • About Death of a Salesman
  • Character List
  • Summary and Analysis
  • Act I: Scene 1
  • Act I: Scene 2
  • Act I: Scene 3
  • Act I: Scene 4
  • Act I: Scene 5
  • Act I: Scene 6
  • Act I: Scene 7
  • Act I: Scene 8
  • Act I: Scene 9
  • Act I: Scene 10
  • Act I: Scene 11
  • Act I: Scene 12
  • Act II: Scene 1
  • Act II: Scene 2
  • Act II: Scene 3
  • Act II: Scene 4
  • Act II: Scene 5
  • Act II: Scene 6
  • Act II: Scene 7
  • Act II: Scene 8
  • Act II: Scene 9
  • Act II: Scene 10
  • Act II: Scene 11
  • Act II: Scene 12
  • Act II: Scene 13
  • Act II: Scene 14
  • Act II: Requiem
  • Character Analysis
  • Willy Loman
  • Linda Loman
  • Happy Loman
  • Character Map
  • Arthur Miller Biography
  • Critical Essays
  • Miller's Manipulation of Time and Space
  • Full Glossary for Death of a Salesman
  • Essay Questions
  • Practice Projects
  • Cite this Literature Note

Critical Essays Major Themes in Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman addresses loss of identity and a man's inability to accept change within himself and society. The play is a montage of memories, dreams, confrontations, and arguments, all of which make up the last 24 hours of Willy Loman's life. The three major themes within the play are denial, contradiction, and order versus disorder.

Each member of the Loman family is living in denial or perpetuating a cycle of denial for others. Willy Loman is incapable of accepting the fact that he is a mediocre salesman. Instead Willy strives for his version of the American dream — success and notoriety — even if he is forced to deny reality in order to achieve it. Instead of acknowledging that he is not a well-known success, Willy retreats into the past and chooses to relive past memories and events in which he is perceived as successful.

For example, Willy's favorite memory is of Biff's last football game because Biff vows to make a touchdown just for him. In this scene in the past, Willy can hardly wait to tell the story to his buyers. He considers himself famous as a result of his son's pride in him. Willy's sons, Biff and Happy, adopt Willy's habit of denying or manipulating reality and practice it all of their lives, much to their detriment. It is only at the end of the play that Biff admits he has been a "phony" too, just like Willy. Linda is the only character that recognizes the Loman family lives in denial; however, she goes along with Willy's fantasies in order to preserve his fragile mental state.

The second major theme of the play is contradiction. Throughout the play, Willy's behavior is riddled with inconsistencies. In fact, the only thing consistent about Willy is his inconsistency. From the very beginning of Act I, Scene 1, Willy reveals this tendency. He labels Biff a "lazy bum" but then contradicts himself two lines later when he states, "And such a hard worker. There's one thing about Biff — he's not lazy." Willy's contradictions often confuse audiences at the beginning of the play; however, they soon become a trademark of his character. Willy's inconsistent behavior is the result of his inability to accept reality and his tendency to manipulate or re-create the past in an attempt to escape the present. For example, Willy cannot resign himself to the fact that Biff no longer respects him because of Willy's affair. Rather than admit that their relationship is irreconcilable, Willy retreats to a previous time when Biff admired and respected him. As the play continues, Willy disassociates himself more and more from the present as his problems become too numerous to deal with.

The third major theme of the play, which is order versus disorder, results from Willy's retreats into the past. Each time Willy loses himself in the past, he does so in order to deny the present, especially if the present is too difficult to accept. As the play progresses, Willy spends more and more time in the past as a means of reestablishing order in his life. The more fragmented and disastrous reality becomes, the more necessary it is for Willy to create an alternative reality, even if it requires him to live solely in the past. This is demonstrated immediately after Willy is fired. Ben appears, and Willy confides "nothing's working out. I don't know what to do." Ben quickly shifts the conversation to Alaska and offers Willy a job. Linda appears and convinces Willy that he should stay in sales, just like Dave Singleman. Willy's confidence quickly resurfaces, and he is confident that he has made the right decision by turning down Ben's offer; he is certain he will be a success like Singleman. Thus, Willy's memory has distracted him from the reality of losing his job.

Denial, contradiction, and the quest for order versus disorder comprise the three major themes of Death of a Salesman . All three themes work together to create a dreamlike atmosphere in which the audience watches a man's identity and mental stability slip away. The play continues to affect audiences because it allows them to hold a mirror up to themselves. Willy's self-deprecation, sense of failure, and overwhelming regret are emotions that an audience can relate to because everyone has experienced them at one time or another. Individuals continue to react to Death of a Salesman because Willy's situation is not unique: He made a mistake — a mistake that irrevocably changed his relationship with the people he loves most — and when all of his attempts to eradicate his mistake fail, he makes one grand attempt to correct the mistake. Willy vehemently denies Biff's claim that they are both common, ordinary people, but ironically, it is the universality of the play which makes it so enduring. Biff's statement, "I'm a dime a dozen, and so are you" is true after all.

Previous Miller's Manipulation of Time and Space

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Drama Criticism › Analysis of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

Analysis of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 30, 2020 • ( 0 )

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is, perhaps, to this time, the most mature example of a myth of Contemporary life. The chief value of this drama is its attempt to reveal those ultimate meanings which are resident in modern experience. Perhaps the most significant comment on this play is not its literary achievement, as such, but is, rather, the impact which it has had on spectators, both in America and abroad. The influence of this drama, first performed in 1949, continues to grow in World Theatre. For it articulates, in language which can be appreciated by popular audiences, certain new dimensions of the human dilemma.

—Esther Merle Jackson, “ Death of a Salesman : Tragic Myth in the Modern Theatre”

It can be argued that the Great American Novel—that always elusive imaginative summation of the American experience—became the Great American Drama in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman . Along with Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night , Miller’s masterpiece forms the defining myth of the American family and the American dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is the play’s only rival in American literature in expressing the tragic side of the American myth of success and the ill-fated American dreamers. A landmark and cornerstone 20th-century drama, Death of a Salesman is crucial in the history of American theater in presenting on stage an archetypal family drama that is simultaneously intimate and representative, social and psychological, realistic and expressionistic. Critic Lois Gordon has called it “the major American drama of the 1940s” that “remains unequalled in its brilliant and original fusion of realistic and poetic techniques, its richness of visual and verbal texture, and its wide range of emotional impact.” Miller’s play, perhaps more than any other, established American drama as the decisive arena for addressing the key questions of American identity and social and moral values, while pioneering methods of expression that liberated American theater. The drama about the life and death of salesman Willy Loman is both thoroughly local in capturing a particular time and place and universal, one of the most popular and adapted American plays worldwide. Willy Loman has become the contemporary Everyman, prompting widespread identification and sympathy. By centering his tragedy on a lower middle-class protagonist—insisting, as he argued in “Tragedy and the Common Man,” that “the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were”—Miller completed the democratization of drama that had begun in the 19th century while setting the terms for a key debate over dramatic genres that has persisted since Death of a Salesman opened in 1949.

Death of a Salesman Guide

Miller’s subjects, themes, and dramatic mission reflect his life experiences, informed by the Great Depression, which he regarded as a “moral catastrophe,” rivaled, in his view, only by the Civil War in its profound impact on American life. Miller was born in 1915, in New York City. His father, who had emigrated from Austria at the age of six, was a successful coat manufacturer, prosperous enough to afford a chauffeur and a large apartment over-looking Central Park. For Miller’s family, an embodiment of the American dream that hard work and drive are rewarded, the stock market crash of 1929 changed everything. The business was lost, and the family was forced to move to considerably reduced circumstances in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn in a small frame house that served as the model for the Lomans’ residence. Miller’s father never fully recovered from his business failure, and his mother was often depressed and embittered by the family’s poverty, though both continued to live in hope of an economic recovery to come. For Miller the depression exposed the hollowness and fragility of the American dream of material success and the social injustice inherent in an economic system that created so many blameless casualties. The paradoxes of American success—its stimulation of both dreams and guilt when lost or unrealized, as well as the conflict it created between self-interest and social responsibility—would become dominant themes in Miller’s work. As a high school student Miller was more interested in sports than studies. “Until the age of seventeen I can safely say that I never read a book weightier than Tom Swift , and Rover Boys, ” Miller recalled, “and only verged on literature with some of Dickens. . . . I passed through the public school system unscathed.” After graduating from high school in 1932 Miller went to work in an auto parts warehouse in Manhattan. It was during his subway commute to and from his job that Miller began reading, discovering both the power of serious literature to change the way one sees the world and his vocation: “A book that changed my life was The Brothers Karamazov which I picked up, I don’t know how or why, and all at once believed I was born to be a writer.”

In 1934 Miller was accepted as a journalism student at the University of Michigan. There he found a campus engaged by the social issues of the day: “The place was full of speeches, meetings and leaflets. It was jumping with Issues. . . . It was, in short, the testing ground for all my prejudices, my beliefs and my ignorance, and it helped to lay out the boundaries of my life.” At Michigan Miller wrote his first play, despite having seen only two plays years before, to compete for prize money he needed for tuition. Failing in his first attempt he would eventually twice win the Avery Hopwood Award. Winning “made me confident I could go ahead from there. It left me with the belief that the ability to write plays is born into one, and that it is a kind of sport of the mind.” Miller became convinced that “with the exception of a doctor saving a life, writing a worthy play was the most important thing a human could do.” He would embrace the role of the playwright as social conscience and reformer who could help change America, by, as he put it “grabbing people and shaking them by the back of the neck.” Two years after graduating in 1938, having moved back to Brooklyn and married his college sweetheart, Miller had completed six plays, all but one of them rejected by producers. The Man Who Had All the Luck, a play examining the ambiguities of success and the money ethic, managed a run of only four performances on Broadway in 1944. Miller went to work at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, tried his hand at radio scripts, and attempted one more play. “I laid myself a wager,” he wrote in his autobiography. “I would hold back this play until I was as sure as I could be that every page was integral to the whole and would work; then, if my judgment of it proved wrong, I would leave the theater behind and write in other forms.” The play was All My Sons, about a successful manufacturer who sells defective aircraft parts and is made to face the consequences of his crime and his responsibilities. It is Miller’s version of a Henrik Ibsen problem play, linking a family drama to wider social issues. Named one of the top-10 plays of 1947, All My Sons won the Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award over Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh. The play’s success allowed Miller to buy property in rural Connecticut where he built a small studio and began work on Death of a Salesman .

This play, subtitled “Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem,” about the last 24 hours of an aging and failing traveling salesman misguided by the American dream, began, as the playwright recounts in his introduction to his Collected Plays , with an initial image

of an enormous face the height of the proscenium arch which would appear and then open up, and we would see the inside of a man’s head. In fact, The Inside of His Head was the first title. . . . The image was in direct opposition to the method of All My Sons —a method one might call linear or eventual in that one fact or incident creates the necessity for the next. The Salesman image was from the beginning absorbed with the concept that nothing in life comes “next” but that everything exists together and at the same time within us; that there is no past to be “brought forward” in a human being, but that he is his past at every moment. . . . I wished to create a form which, in itself as a form, would literally be the process of Willy Loman’s way of mind.

The play took shape by staging the past in the present, not through flashbacks of Willy’s life but by what the playwright called “mobile concurrency of past and present.” Miller recalled beginning

with only one firm piece of knowledge and this was that Loman was to destroy himself. How it would wander before it got to that point I did not know and resolved not to care. I was convinced only that if I could make him remember enough he would kill himself, and the structure of the play was determined by what was needed to draw up his memories like a mass of tangled roots without ends or beginning.

At once realistic in its documentation of American family life and expressionistic in its embodiment of consciousness on stage, Death of a Salesman opens with the 63-year-old Willy Loman’s return to his Brooklyn home, revealing to his worried wife, Linda, that he kept losing control of his car on a selling trip to Boston. Increasingly at the mercy of his memories Willy, in Miller’s analysis, “is literally at that terrible moment when the voice of the past is no longer distant but quite as loud as the voice of the present.” Reflecting its protagonist, “The way of telling the tale . . . is as mad as Willy and as abrupt and as suddenly lyrical.” The family’s present—Willy’s increasing mental instability, his failure to earn the commissions he needs to survive, and his disappointment that his sons, Biff and Happy, have failed to live up to expectations—intersects with scenes from the past in which both their dreams and the basis for their disillusionment are exposed. In the present Biff, the onetime star high school athlete with seeming unlimited prospects in his doting father’s estimation, is 34, having returned home from another failed job out west and harboring an unidentified resentment of his father. As Biff confesses, “everytime I come back here I know that all I’ve done is to waste my life.” His brother, Happy, is a deceitful womanizer trapped in a dead-end job who confesses that despite having his own apartment, “a car, and plenty of women . . . still, goddammit, I’m lonely.” The present frustrations of father and sons collide with Willy’s memory when all was youthful promise and family harmony. In a scene in which Biff with the prospect of a college scholarship seems on the brink of attaining all Willy has expected of him, both boys hang on their father’s every word as he exults in his triumphs as a successful salesman:

America is full of beautiful towns and fine, upstanding people. And they know me, boys, they know me up and down New England. The finest people. And when I bring you fellas up, there’ll be open sesame for all of us, ’cause one thing, boys: I have friends. I can park my car in any street in New England, and the cops protect it like their own.

Triumphantly, Willy passes on his secret of success: “Be liked and you will never want.” His advice exposes the fatal fl aw in his life view that defines success by exterior rather than interior values, by appearance and possessions rather than core morals. Even in his confident memory, however, evidence of the undermining of his self-confidence and aspirations occurs as Biff plays with a football he has stolen and father and son ignore the warning of the grind Bernard (who “is liked, but he’s not well liked”) that Biff risks graduating by not studying. Willy’s popularity and prowess as a salesman are undermined by Linda’s calculation of her husband’s declining commissions, prompting Willy to confess that “people don’t seem to take to me.” Invading Willy’s memory is the realization that he is far from the respected and resourceful salesman he has boasted being to his sons as he struggles to meet the payments on the modern appliances that equip the American dream of success. Moreover, to boost his sagging spirits on the road he has been unfaithful to his loving and supportive wife. To protect himself from these hurtful memories Willy is plunged back into the present for a card game with Bernard’s father, Charley. Again the past intrudes in the form of a memory of a rare visit by Willy’s older brother, Ben, who has become rich and whose secrets for success elude Willy. Back in the present Willy is hopeful at Biff’s plan to go see an old employer, Bill Oliver, for the money to start up a Loman Brothers sporting goods line. The act ends with Willy’s memory of Biff’s greatest moment—the high school football championship:

Like a young god. Hercules—something like that. And the sun, the sun all around him. Remember how he waved to me? Right up from the field, with the representatives of three colleges standing by? And the buyers I brought, and the cheers when he came out—Loman, Loman, Loman! God Almighty, he’ll be great yet. A star like that, magnificent, can never really fade away!

The second act shatters all prospects, revealing the full truth that Willy has long evaded about himself and his family in a series of crushing blows. Expecting to trade on his 34 years of loyal service to his employer for a nontraveling, salaried position in New York, Willy is forced to beg for a smaller and smaller salary before he is fired outright, prompting one of the great lines of the play: “You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away—a man is not a piece of fruit.” Rejecting out of pride a job offer from Charley, Willy meets his son for dinner where Biff reveals that his get-rich scheme has collapsed. Bill Oliver did not remember who he was, kept him waiting for hours, and resentfully Biff has stolen his fountain pen from his desk. Biff now insists that Willy face the truth—that Biff was only a shipping clerk and that Oliver owes him nothing—but Willy refuses to listen, with his need to believe in his son and the future forcing Biff to manufacture a happier version of his meeting and its outcome. Biff’s anger and resentment over the old family lies about his prospects, however, cause Willy to relive the impetus of Biff’s loss of faith in him in one of the tour de force scenes in modern drama. Biff and Happy’s attempt to pick up two women at the restaurant interconnects with Willy’s memory of Biff’s arrival at Willy’s Boston hotel unannounced. There he discovers a partially dressed woman in his father’s room. Having failed his math class and jeopardized his scholarship, Biff has come to his father for help. Willy’s betrayal of Linda, however, exposes the hollowness of Willy’s moral authority and the disjunction between the dreams Willy sells and its reality:

Willy: She’s nothing to me, Biff. I was lonely, I was terribly lonely.

Biff: You—you gave her Mama’s stockings!

Willy: I gave you an order!

Biff: Don’t touch me, you—liar!

Willy: Apologize for that!

Biff: You fake! You phony little fake! You fake!

Willy’s guilt over the collapse of his son’s belief in him leads him to a final redemptive dream. Returning home, symbolically outside planting seeds, he discusses with Ben his scheme to kill himself for the insurance money as a legacy to his family and a final proof of his worth as a provider of his sons’ success. Before realizing this dream Willy must endure a final assault of truth from Biff who confesses to being nothing more than a thief and a bum, incapable of holding down a job—someone who is, like Willy, a “dime a dozen,” no better than any other hopeless striver: “I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can like all the rest of them!” Biff’s fury explodes into a tearful embrace of his father. After Biff departs upstairs the significance of his words and actions are both realized and lost by the chronic dreamer:

Willy, after a long pause, astonished, elevated Isn’t that—isn’t that remarkable? Biff—he likes me!

Linda: He loves you, Willy!

Happy ,deeply moved Always did, Pop.

Willy: Oh. Biff! Staring wildly: He cried! Cried to me. He is choking with his love, and now cries out his promise: That boy—that boy is going to be magnificent!

Analysis of Arthur Miller’s Plays

Doggedly holding onto the dream of his son’s prospects, sustained by his son’s love, Willy finally sets out in his car to carry out his plan, while the scene shifts to his funeral in which Linda tries to understand her husband’s death, and Charley provides the eulogy:

Nobody dast blame this man. You don’t understand: Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. And then you get a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.

Linda delivers the final, heartbreaking lines over her husband’s grave: “Willy. I made the last payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there’ll be nobody home. We’re free and clear. We’re free. We’re free . . . We’re free. . . .”

363cbd5295c1bea99768f79d1b8365f7

The power and persistence of Death of a Salesman derives from its remarkably intimate view of the dynamic of a family driven by their collective dreams. Critical debate over whether Willy lacks the stature or self-knowledge to qualify as a tragic hero seems beside the point in performance. Few other modern dramas have so powerfully elicited pity and terror in their audiences. Whether Willy is a tragic hero or Death of a Salesman is a modern tragedy in any Aristotelian sense, he and his story have become core American myths. Few critics worry over whether Jay Gatsby is a tragic hero, but Gatsby shares with Willy Loman the essential American capacity to dream and to be destroyed by what he dreams. The concluding lines of The Great Gatsby equally serve as a requiem for both men:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eludes us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . . And one fine morning—

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Share this:

Categories: Drama Criticism , Literature

Tags: American Dream in Death of a Salesman , American Literature , Analysis of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Arthur Miller , Bibliography of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Character Study of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Criticism of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Death of a Salesman , Death of a Salesman American Dream , Death of a Salesman Analysis , Death of a Salesman Criticism , Death of a Salesman Essay , Death of a Salesman Guide , Death of a Salesman Lecture , Death of a Salesman PDF , Death of a Salesman Summary , Death of a Salesman Themes , Drama Criticism , Essays of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Literary Criticism , Notes of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Plot of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Simple Analysis of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Study Guides of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Summary of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Synopsis of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , Themes of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman

Related Articles

death of a salesman argumentative essay

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Death of a Salesman — Death Of A Salesman Conflict Analysis

test_template

Death of a Salesman Conflict Analysis

  • Categories: Death of a Salesman

About this sample

close

Words: 906 |

Published: Mar 14, 2024

Words: 906 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Image of Dr. Charlotte Jacobson

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

  • 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
  • Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

author

Dr. Karlyna PhD

Verified writer

  • Expert in: Literature

writer

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

1 pages / 695 words

7 pages / 3216 words

3.5 pages / 1580 words

2.5 pages / 1106 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Death of a Salesman

Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" is a timeless tale of an aging salesman, Willy Loman, who clings to an optimistic philosophy of the American Dream and its associated values while struggling to provide for his family. In [...]

The American Dream is a prominent theme in Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman. The concept of the American Dream originated in the early twentieth century, as many immigrants came to America in search of economic [...]

Every person in the world has a split persona, their public persona can be way different from their private persona. Willy Loman in the tragedy play Death of a Salesman, written by an American Playwright, Arthur Miller, [...]

One of the most common, but misdiagnosed mental illness conditions in the world is the bipolar disorder. Many people in the world suffer every day from the lack of accurate diagnosis of their condition, which leads to those [...]

America has long been known as the land of opportunity and the idea of the American Dream is rather appealing to most. Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman, addresses the ongoing conflicts within one family. However, he also [...]

In both F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, "The Great Gatsby," and Arthur Miller's play, "Death of a Salesman," the authors employ the concept of the American Dream as it relates to the characters' living spaces, primarily their [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

  • Instructions Followed To The Letter
  • Deadlines Met At Every Stage
  • Unique And Plagiarism Free

death of a salesman argumentative essay

We use cookies to enhance our website for you. Proceed if you agree to this policy or learn more about it.

  • Essay Database >
  • Essay Examples >
  • Essays Topics >
  • Essay on Women

Free Argumentative Essay On The Death Of A Salesman

Type of paper: Argumentative Essay

Topic: Women , Character , Dreams , Perception , Parents , Home , Family , Father

Words: 1400

Published: 02/28/2020

ORDER PAPER LIKE THIS

Introduction

Loman family is composed of four members, mother –Linda, father – Willy and two sons – Biff and Happy, each of them being the representative of social constructions. As such, Linda is the caregiver, being dedicated to the domestic sphere, loving and caring for her husband and their two sons. She sees and understands the challenges that all of them face and she behaves as the leant between all the members of the family, determined to maintain a peaceful home. Willy, on the other hand, is the family head, the one who has the responsibility of taking care of the family needs from a financial point of view. For fulfilling this social and familial objective, he travels daily by car to his work. Arthur Miller’s playwright “The Death of a Salesman” describes the psychological difficulties that Willy faces in accomplishing is role as the head of the family. As such, he expresses signs of dementia by talking to himself, or deliberately crushing his car on the way to work, to make it look like accidents caused by his tiresome. While Linda naturally and remorseless plays her role as a peacekeeper, her husband Willy finds difficulties in adjusting to what society wants from him: being the family provider. Nevertheless, their characters prove family dynamics of trying to cope with these socially designed gendered roles.

Linda knows her place in the family and she developed a specific motherly attitude for exerting her peacekeeper traits. Each time the members of Loman family face a problem or an internal quarrel, she is the one that seeks for reaching a compromise, in order to settle any dispute. Similarly, she tries to find solutions so that each Loman family member to be pleased with their life. “Willy, dear. Talk to them again. There’s no reason why you can’t work in New York” (Miller 9). This is how Linda encourages her husband after understanding that he faces serious problems because of his tiresome and that he is experiencing psychotic episodes also. Worried about how his mental and physical health might evolve while he is away from home, she pleads for his comfort, suggesting that he should not leave the domestic space, and to work from home, instead of traveling to work. She is clam, conciliatory, possessing all the features of a good wife and mother. As Bloom (19) notes, Linda’s character is perceived either as an “admirable and selfless” women, dedicated to her family, either as “pathetic and marginalized”, a shadowed presence for the men in the play. Translating her true character based on her actions and attitudes, Yasinski (38) states that Linda is “the most rational person” in Loman family, considering the fact that she can juggle assertiveness with managing the household’s finances, taking care of Willy and their sons. Although critics perceive her as unaware of what is happening around her, like a person who gave up her own dreams and ideals for the sake of her family, she is, in fact, highly grounded, as Miller himself suggests in the play: “Most often jovial, she has developed an iron repression of her exceptions to Willy’s behavior” (Miller 8). In other words, Linda is very much aware of her husband’s character, but she chooses to tolerate it and not argue it, although, as the playwright indicates, she would have solid reasons to argue Willy’s behavior. Instead, she adopts a stress resilient attitude, being the comfort that her adultery husband needs, taking care of him with a deep affection. This is an indication that she considers her husband’s behavior (his affairs and apparent dementia) as flaws or as signs of an illness. Although she knows that these signs of illness will never disappear, she continues to comfort her husband whenever he feels down. This attitude reflects the fact that she is a peacemaker, aiming to protect her man by the external vicissitudes. In relation with her sons, Linda is also a peacemaker. As such, she gets involved in the disputes between Biff and Happy or between any of her sons and their father, Willy. When her son Biff cannot admit that he loves her father just as he loves her, Linda tells him: “Biff, dear, if you don’t have any feeling for him, then you can’t have any feeling for me.” (Miller 43). Again, Linda uses a calm, soft tone, for educating her son on the paternal love, and for conciliating Biff, making him aware of his love for his father. Like this, she aims to erase the misunderstanding between Biff and his father, serving her peacemaking role. Sterling (12) perceives Linda as the “embodiment of society’s perception of women” and criticizes Miller for describing her as an object and not as a subject. Nevertheless, she is the strongest character in Miller’s “Death of a Salesman”, because she is the only one who knows what she wants and has a strong reasoning for setting the peace in her home through wise speeches and an assertive personality. Although Willy is the one, who, according to the social perception on men, should exert power, authoritative presence and firmness into the household, his role only resumes to being the household provider. His character is weak, as he does not have sufficient strength for accomplishing his dreams. Unlike his wife Linda, who is rational and pragmatic, he is an idealist, having bold dreams for him and for his sons, which he cannot accomplish. This is what makes him sad, and his day to day sadness gradually accentuated in madness. Bloom (18) remarks that “the name ‘Willy Loman’ has become almost synonymous with the American Dream – both the high hopes and the hopes dashed and all the energy associated with this attainment”. Willy’s vision of himself as the breadwinner, the provider of his family, is fulfilled by his aspirations of achieving professional greatness, the others’ respect admiration and the self-actualization, according on the individual’s hierarchy of needs (Maslow 64). Only that Willy never attained self-actualization, or his peers’ respect. In his own perception, he failed his role of provider when he realized that he is not able to reach higher on the hierarchy of needs, and this pushed him to commit suicide. Not only does Willy have dreams for himself, but for his older son Biff also, whom he considers the inheritor of his dreams and ideals. He aims to persuade Biff to reach higher, for attaining the greatness that he could not reach. Living in an illusion until his last breath, Willy Loman invests in his own ideal of greatness when he commits suicide, so that his son Biff can inherit his insurance money and invest in his own business. Hence, as much as he could, Willy was the provider of his family. An idealist provider, a husband dependent on being cared, protected and comforted by his wife, he nevertheless found ways to provide for his family.

The socially created standard that makes the women dedicated to their household, accomplishing the role of the peacemaker is very well outlined in “The Death of a Salesman”, through the character of Linda. Likewise, Miller portrays the masculine perception according to which men are the providers, through his character Willy. Despite the simple apparently roles that they fulfill in the family dynamics (Linda as the peacekeeper and Willy as the provider), Miller’s characters are more complex than they seem. While Linda is more independent and more rational that it seems and Willy is more dependent on Linda and too idealist, they nevertheless manage to accomplish their duties, playing after the family dynamics, according to which the wife (and mother) is the peacekeeper and the husband (and father) is the provider.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. Death of a Salesman. New York: Infobase Publishing. 2004. Print. Maslow, Abraham, M. A Theory of Human Motivation. United States: Martino Fine Books. 2013. Print. Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. With an Introduction, Annotations and Critical Essays. New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley. 2008. Print. Sterling, Eric, J. Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. New York: Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam. 2008. Print. Yasinski, Nick, A. Death of a Salesman. New Jersey: MAXnotes. 2001. Print.

double-banner

Cite this page

Share with friends using:

Removal Request

Removal Request

Finished papers: 1797

This paper is created by writer with

ID 270930807

If you want your paper to be:

Well-researched, fact-checked, and accurate

Original, fresh, based on current data

Eloquently written and immaculately formatted

275 words = 1 page double-spaced

submit your paper

Get your papers done by pros!

Other Pages

Learning book reviews, body language book reviews, punishment book reviews, picture literature reviews, music and soundscapes course work, algebra in the real world and everyday life course work, course work on organization structure, child life internship essay, argumentative essay on needs, course work on polynomials, bernie madoff report, negative aspects of project management essay, course work on algebraic exponents and polynomials used in real world applications, resources critical thinking, recruitment methodologies an overview thesis, opportunity cost essay, essay on when idea and reality collide, the result would be better than if she plays along or leak the truth to the blogs critical thinking samples, free essay on weekly journal 2, sigmund freuds defense mechanism critical thinking example, good argumentative essay on higher learning, good essay on critique of a journal article looking toward cyberspace beyond grounded sociology, critical evaluation leramie project critical thinking example, leading styles oprah winfrey and antonio simoes essay examples, calatrava essays, south side essays, crowding essays, tillman essays, speech pattern essays, penta essays, narcissus essays, eschewing essays, disquieting essays, scarlett johansson essays, percussion essays, parabola essays, droning essays, deborah kerr essays, paas essays, capital expenditure essays, eventuality essays, noonan essays, preschool teacher essays.

Password recovery email has been sent to [email protected]

Use your new password to log in

You are not register!

By clicking Register, you agree to our Terms of Service and that you have read our Privacy Policy .

Now you can download documents directly to your device!

Check your email! An email with your password has already been sent to you! Now you can download documents directly to your device.

or Use the QR code to Save this Paper to Your Phone

The sample is NOT original!

Short on a deadline?

Don't waste time. Get help with 11% off using code - GETWOWED

No, thanks! I'm fine with missing my deadline

Death of a Salesman Essay Topics & Samples

As a Pulitzer Prize winner, Death of a Salesman deserves some attention, which is most likely the reason why you were asked to write an essay about it. Even though Arthur Miller wrote it in the middle of the twentieth century, the play is still relevant.

Our specialists will write a custom essay specially for you!

This Custom-Writing.org article aims to help you if you have questions or are looking for a decent Death of a Salesman essay topic or have to choose between many variants.

  • The first section of it contains a list of ideas that might help you write a great essay.
  • The second one contains Death of a Salesman essay samples that you are welcome to use for inspiration.
  • 💡 Essay Topics
  • ✒️ Essay Samples

💡 Death of a Salesman: Essay Topics

Miller addresses various themes, such as the American dream and betrayal, incorporated into family life. To write a killer essay on Death of a Salesman , you should first study all aspects of the play. So you don’t forget to read through our analysis of the main characters and themes !

Now you are all set up to pick a topic from the list below.

  • Analyze the main symbols of the play. There are multiple hidden symbols that Miller uses to represent one idea or another. The interpretation depends on you. There are no wrong answers. However, to set a direction, we recommend looking at such a symbol as the stockings. It is quite an obvious hint on the theme of betrayal.
  • How is Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman as a father? Willy Loman, the main character in Death of a Salesman , is far from being the employee of the month. But as a father, he is also supposed to be a role model to his two sons. However, we can see that Biff and Happy have developed their personalities according to their dad’s behavior.
  • Can Willy Loman be considered a hero? Loman tries to solve the problems which are too big for him. He cannot possibly overcome capitalism and becomes its victim. Analyze Willy’s last act and see whether it can be genuinely regarded as a good deed or it is a desperate attempt to get rid of a problem.
  • Discuss the theme of the American Dream in Death of a Salesman . Is it Willy’s fault that he failed his family? Think about how our ambitions shape the course of our lives and write an essay reflecting on it in relation to the play. Discuss the fate of the salesman as the embodiment of the American dream.
  • How reasonable was Willy’s despair in the final scenes? Look through all the details you can find about the Loman family and analyze their social and financial state. Try to write an objective opinion on whether Willy’s suicide was the only option for them. What might have caused him to exaggerate the problems they were having?
  • Discuss the statement “Be liked, and you will never want” from Death of a Salesman . This prompt is related to Willy’s life philosophy, which he passes on to his sons. Are there any reasons to claim that it doesn’t work? Why? Maybe reflect on the same idea circulating in modern society.
  • What is the meaning of Arthur Miller’s play? We suggest you answer the question, “What is the main message of Death of a Salesman ?” Rereading our analysis of the main themes and characters should give you some ideas! However, remember to focus on ONE idea and present persuasive arguments.
  • Analyze Willy Loman’s career choice. What do you think about Willy’s decision to go into the sales business? Was it the right choice? Find the evidence in the play? Think about how different his life and life of his family could be if he had chosen a different occupation, which fits his natural abilities.
  • Illusions and realistic dreams as Willy Loman’s coping mechanism. Look at Death of a Salesman as a tragedy and the story about the main character’s inner fight. Write about how he retreats into the memories to escape real-life problems. Does it have anything to do with his failure to understand his ambitions?
  • Discuss the reason for Willy’s rejection of Charley’s job offer . Loman keeps turning down his friend’s job offer, and it seems to be annoying him more and more every time. But what is the reason? He might have been more well-off if he accepted it. Is it about his pride or social values?

✒️ Death of a Salesman: Essay Samples

Below you’ll find a collection of Death of a Salesman essay examples. You are welcome to use them for inspiration!

  • “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller
  • Share to Facebook
  • Share to Twitter
  • Share to LinkedIn
  • Share to email

Death of a Salesman Study Guide

Is the American dream attainable? What makes someone a successful person? How does your image of yourself shape your life? Arthur Miller’s play is a tragic but true-to-life illustration of these philosophical questions without definitive answers. This Death of a Salesman Study Guide will help you understand the author’s intention...

Death of a Salesman: Summary

Looking for a summary of Death of a Salesman? This article by Custom-Writing.org experts contains everything you might need for your studies or essay: Death of a Salesman’s synopsis, a plot infographic, Death of a Salesman’s short summary, and detailed descriptions of the events in the play act by act....

Death of a Salesman: Characters

This Custom-Writing.org article contains all the information about Death of a Salesman characters: Willy Loman, Biff, Happy, Linda Loman, Ben Loman, Charley, Bernard, the Woman, and others. Additionally, in the first section, you’ll find a detailed Death of a Salesman character map. 🗺️ Death of a Salesman Character Map Below...

Death of a Salesman: Themes

This Custom-Writing.org article explains the key themes in Death of a Salesman. The American dream, family, betrayal and abandonment are the core issues represented in the play by Arthur Miller. 🗽 Death of a Salesman: American Dream One of the main themes in Death of a Salesman is the American...

Death of a Salesman: Analysis

Like any other literary work, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman contains various stylistic devices to discuss, symbols to interpret, and motifs to find. That is what this article written by Custom-Writing.org experts is about! This analysis can answer any question you might have about the play, including: What do...

The Metamorphosis Study Guide

Welcome to The Metamorphosis study guide! Here, we’ll explore the genre in which the novella is written. You will also learn about Kafka’s influences and the historical background of the novella. Find out some useful information about The Metamorphosis setting, the plot, the main themes, and symbols. The Metamorphosis Key...

Othello Study Guide

Othello by William Shakespeare is an outstanding piece of literature. Written in the 17th century, it still attracts readers from all around the globe. Othello, the Moor of Venice is performed in the theaters even today. This tragic story touches the viewers of different ages and nationalities. Othello is a...

The Odyssey Study Guide

Homer’s Odyssey is an iconic piece of Ancient Greek literature. This epic poem remains famous for centuries. But what is The Odyssey about? Well, the book tells a fascinating story about Gods and people, their relationships, and the power of persistence and true love. In our The Odyssey study guide...

Hamlet Study Guide

Shakespeare’s play is a tale of tragedy and revenge, and this Hamlet study guide will focus on this. In the present articles, we will discuss the literary piece, its plot, themes, and symbols. Additionally, you will get to know more about Shakespeare’s writing style and Hamlet’s genre. Hamlet Key Facts...

The Great Gatsby: Essay Topics & Samples

No novel is written for the sake of writing. You can be immersed in the plot and feel sympathy toward the protagonists, but there is something more about every great book. A good The Great Gatsby essay should question the narrative to determine what the text’s broader purpose is. Are...

Symbols in The Great Gatsby

This article by Custom-Writing.org experts explains the symbols in The Great Gatsby. In the first section, you’ll find the information on the color symbolism of The Great Gatsby: the green light, as well as the meanings of yellow and white colors in the novel will be explained. Then follows the...

The Great Gatsby: Themes

This article by Custom-Writing.org experts provides an explanation of The Great Gatsby themes. The core issues represented in the novel by Fitzgerald are: the American dream, money, social class, love, morality, and time. Keep reading to learn more about the themes of The Great Gatsby! ✉️ What Is the Main...

  • Galileo Galilei: sample essay
  • Kids and violence: sample essay
  • Sample essay about Muhammad Ali
  • Learning for adults: essay sample
  • Breast cancer: sample essay
  • Ulysses S. Grant: essay sample
  • Sample essay about muckrakers
  • Teen pragnency: essay sample
  • Sample essay aabout a soul
  • Paper sample about happiness
  • Schizophrenia: essay sample
  • Essay example about death penalty
  • Sample paper about corruption
  • Gender on business: sample essay
  • Mozart: essay sample
  • An essay sample on Illicit traffic in drugs
  • Analyzing the generation gap
  • Pit bulls and fighting
  • Reasons for a belief in God
  • Italian dessert Tiramisu
  • Terrorism in Pakistan
  • Lives on the boundary
  • History of fingerprints
  • If I were Lyndon Johnson
  • The Western expansion
  • Workplace violence
  • Compare & contrast paper ideas
  • College cause and effect essay topics
  • Good descriptive paper topics
  • GED paper topics
  • Catchy essay paper topics
  • Capital punishment essay topics
  • Ideas for your descriptive paper
  • Choosing topics for a law paper
  • Death of a Salesman essay ideas
  • Huckleberry Finn: argument paper topics
  • College persuasive essay topic ideas
  • Unique illustration essay topic prompts
  • Topics for an essay on Nicholas Sparks
  • Business cause and effect essay topics
  • Informative essay topic ideas
  • Choosing topics for a profile essay
  • Argumentative essay topics on politics
  • Selecting paper topics about the military
  • Process analysis essay topics
  • College essay topics in accounting
  • Ideas about violent video games
  • Argumentative paper topic suggestions
  • Offbeat topic ideas on Macbeth
  • Essay prompts on Streetcar Named Desire
  • Selection of topics about Dorian Gray
  • Argumentative essay ideas on bullying
  • 23 topics on a Midsummer Night’s Dream
  • Essay ideas on yourself in 10 years
  • Choosing topics about global warming
  • Environmental science essay prompts
  • Argumentative essay ideas on psychology
  • Picking topics about religion & belief
  • Best essay ideas on euthanasia
  • Writing service
  • Essay on a book
  • Writing companies

writing rogue

20 interesting argumentative essay topics on death of a salesman.

The very essence of an argumentative essay means that you are supposed to speak about your point of view regarding certain objects or situations, having quite reliable arguments. That is, if you choose a work of literature as a source of your essay topics, you need to remember that you are supposed to speak quite a lot about it.

If you need a good essay topic dedicated to a work of literature, search on the Web, at special resources. They can provide you with excellent topics and many interesting ideas as well as literature reviews that are also available on the Web.

For example, a list of good topics dedicated to the famous Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller can look the following way:

  • The fate of Willy Loman as embodiment of the “American dream”.
  • Reasonability of Willy’s faith in inevitability of luck in the society of equal opportunities.
  • Willy Loman’s destiny as an example of living in the world of illusions.
  • Willy Loman as a character of a universal meaning.
  • Was Willy the one to blame for problems he had with his family and sons?
  • Did Willy have any other way except committing suicide for the sake of his family?
  • The play Death of a Salesman as a sample of social criticism of a bourgeois lifestyle.
  • The play Death of a Salesman as a sample of deeply philosophical and psychological view at a person’s life.
  • The play Death of a Salesman as a sample of discovery of wrongful illusions that ruin people’s lives.
  • Falseness of Willy’s dual perception of his life at his age, his abilities and reality.
  • Collapse of Biff’s world after the collapse of his father’s image in his eyes.
  • Willy’s illusions as a reflection of his hidden need of support.
  • Did Willy’s despair in the end of the play really have ground?
  • Was Biff’s leaving reasonable and necessary?
  • Your idea of further development of the situation after Willy’s death.
  • Does Willy’s philosophy “Be liked and you will never want” work?
  • Willy’s contribution to his son’s habits: stealing, obsession with women.
  • Your understanding of Linda’s statement “life is casting off”.
  • Is Biff’s life a failure, just like he feels, or is he too critical towards himself?
  • The meaning of Miller’s choice of means of narration for the play. The role of illusions and memories of the main characters.

Writing Ideas

  • Personal statement writing guide
  • Boosting geography essay writing skills
  • Literary essay about Animal Farm
  • Document based question essay
  • How to settle down with a good service
  • Writing about Tommy Hilfiger
  • Paper writing help: disadvantages
  • Looking for a cheap custom essay
  • Writing a literary essay conclusion
  • Informative explanatory essay
  • Essay about school environment

Writing help

Popular essay writing service for generation Z - Zessay.com - very quality service and nice website.

Hints for beginners

  • Ways to improve your grades
  • Pay someone to write my paper
  • Free pesuasive paper
  • Life without technology paper
  • Finding trusted paper writing help
  • Long essay about summer vacation
  • Finding a paper sample about market
  • Pros and cons of writing services
  • Where to buy cheap papers?
  • How to complete an IB literary essay

Paper topics

  • Persuasive essay topics for 5th grade
  • High school paper ideas
  • Choosing definition essay topics
  • Informative essay topics on caffeine
  • Medical argumentative essay topics
  • Picking topics related to entertainment
  • Essay topics on Scottish independence
  • Good ideas about Internet privacy

Mar 27, 2024 © WritingRogue.com. | Developing Strong Writing Habits For Students

IMAGES

  1. Death of a Salesmen Literary Analysis (600 Words)

    death of a salesman argumentative essay

  2. Death Of A Salesmanquestions Argumentative Essay Example

    death of a salesman argumentative essay

  3. Symbolism of the American Dream and Time in the Death of a Salesman

    death of a salesman argumentative essay

  4. American Dream In Death Of A Salesman

    death of a salesman argumentative essay

  5. (PDF) American Dream in the Play Death of a Salesman

    death of a salesman argumentative essay

  6. Classic American Play Death of a Salesman Free Essay Example

    death of a salesman argumentative essay

VIDEO

  1. DEATH OF A SALESMAN (Biff)

  2. Death of a Salesman Rehearsal Trailer

  3. argumentative speech about death penalty

  4. Death of a Salesman

  5. Death of a Salesman| Arthur Miller

COMMENTS

  1. Death of a Salesman: Sample A+ Essay: Willy Loman's Constant

    Read a sample prompt and A+ essay response on Death of a Salesman. Search all of SparkNotes Search. Suggestions. Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select. 1984 ... The Death of a Salesman interweaves past and present action. Willy Loman, the play's protagonist, repeatedly revisits old memories, sometimes even conflating them with ...

  2. Analysis of "Death of a Salesman": [Essay Example], 847 words

    Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" is a timeless tale of an aging salesman, Willy Loman, who clings to an optimistic philosophy of the American Dream and its associated values while struggling to provide for his family. In this essay, I will argue that the play critiques these values and sheds light on the dark side of the American Dream ...

  3. Essays on Death of a Salesman

    2 pages / 871 words. Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, is a tragic play focusing on the common man during the late 1940's. Much of the story is told by flashbacks of Willy Loman's past, including him cheating on Linda, his wife. His older son, Biff, witnessed the... Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller Tragic Hero.

  4. 105 Death of a Salesman Essay Topics & Samples

    Updated: Dec 6th, 2023. 12 min. Death of a Salesman is Arthur Miller's multiple award-winning stage play that explores such ideas as American Dream and family. Our writers have prepared a list of topics and tips on writing the Death of a Salesman thesis statement, essay, or literary analysis.

  5. Essay On The Death Of A Salesman

    Willy Loman is the protagonist in the play, "Death of a salesman". As the author presents it, the protagonist has the desire to attain the American dream. However, it is ridiculous that he wants to achieve the dream through charisma. The greatest belief that Willy Loman possesses about his attainment of the American dream is personality and ...

  6. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Argumentative Essay

    Cultural believes, such as the American dream, should help to instill values in individuals to put efforts in everything that they do. Remember! This is just a sample. This argumentative essay, "Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller" is published exclusively on IvyPanda's free essay examples database.

  7. Death of a Salesman Critical Essays

    Analysis. Death of a Salesman raises many issues, not only of artistic form but also of thematic content. Dramatically speaking, the play represents Arthur Miller's desire to modernize the ...

  8. Death of a Salesman: Full Play Analysis

    Arthur Miller's 1949 play, Death of a Salesman, explores the promises and perils of the American Dream. As the Loman family struggles with what it means to be successful and happy in post-war America, its members serve as symbolic representations of the struggle to define that dream. The play ends with the death of one salesman's Sisyphean ...

  9. Death of a Salesman Sample Essay Outlines

    Topic #1. Death of a Salesman encompasses two different moments in time, approximately seventeen years apart. The scenes of the earlier period occur as flashbacks and may even be considered Willy ...

  10. Major Themes in Death of a Salesman

    Death of a Salesman addresses loss of identity and a man's inability to accept change within himself and society. The play is a montage of memories, dreams, confrontations, and arguments, all of which make up the last 24 hours of Willy Loman's life. The three major themes within the play are denial, contradiction, and order versus disorder.

  11. Analysis of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman

    Analysis of Georg Büchner's Woyzeck ›. Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is, perhaps, to this time, the most mature example of a myth of Contemporary life. The chief value of this drama is its attempt to reveal those ultimate meanings which are resident in modern experience. Perhaps the most significant comment on this play is not its ...

  12. Argumentative Essays On Death Of A Salesman

    Arthur Miller's death of a salesman tries to depict how most people are hungry for success. This play gives a highlight on the American dream and how many people will strive to live the dream. Amongst the people trying to live the American dream, some of them will perish while trying to achieve the dream. This is elaborated in the play ...

  13. Death of a Salesman Conflict Analysis

    Published: Mar 14, 2024. In Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman," the central conflict revolves around the protagonist, Willy Loman, and his struggle to achieve the American Dream. The play delves into the complexities of familial relationships, societal expectations, and the harsh realities of the capitalist system.

  14. Death Of A Salesman Argumentative Essay

    Death Of A Salesman Argumentative Essay. Decent Essays. 453 Words; 2 Pages; Open Document. In so many news stories, articles, and movies, the people are always coming to America in order to live out the "American Dream". Of course everything always works out perfectly for movies, but we rarely get to see a follow up of the people who are ...

  15. 10 Death of a Salesman Essay Topics for an Interesting Analysis

    Topic #10: The definition of self in Death of a Salesman. Throughout the play, Willy Loman defines himself as a failure as a salesman, as a father, and as a husband. It is this attitude and definition of self that shapes his character and his decisions. Explain how Willy Loman's definition of himself shapes his character and his fate.

  16. Death Of A Salesman Argumentative Essay

    Argumentative Essay Isaiah LaTurner Killing people isn't good, but people fight wars and kill people to sustain a way of life, continue to survive and protect their family. In the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, there is a future where people are dragged down by technology and are like mindless sheep shuffling through life.

  17. Persuasive Essay on Death Of A Salesman

    Persuasive Essay on Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller's play The Death of a Salesman examines the lives of Willy Loman, a salesman, and his family, including his wife and teenage sons. The devoted author Arthur Miller shows his concern for the general wellness of American society in the play. One of the main

  18. Free Argumentative Essay On The Death Of A Salesman

    Willy, on the other hand, is the family head, the one who has the responsibility of taking care of the family needs from a financial point of view. For fulfilling this social and familial objective, he travels daily by car to his work. Arthur Miller's playwright "The Death of a Salesman" describes the psychological difficulties that Willy ...

  19. Death of a Salesman Essay Topics & Samples

    Death of a Salesman Essay Topics & Samples. As a Pulitzer Prize winner, Death of a Salesman deserves some attention, which is most likely the reason why you were asked to write an essay about it. Even though Arthur Miller wrote it in the middle of the twentieth century, the play is still relevant. Our specialists will write a custom essay ...

  20. Catchy Argumentative Essay Topics On Death Of A Salesman

    For example, a list of good topics dedicated to the famous Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller can look the following way: The fate of Willy Loman as embodiment of the "American dream". Reasonability of Willy's faith in inevitability of luck in the society of equal opportunities. Willy Loman's destiny as an example of living in the ...

  21. Death of a Salesman Argumentative Essay

    Death of a Salesman Argumentative Essay. Death of a Salesman: Not an American Tragedy In broad terms, a "tragedy" is a work in which the main character, who is highly renowned and prosperous, is brought to ruin as a consequence of a predominating weakness or tragic flaw. According to Aristotle, the fall of the protagonist creates pity and ...

  22. Argumentative Essay Outline: The Death Of A Salesman

    Essay Outline: The Death of a Salesman. Thesis: Through a strict image of success, the creation of a metaphorical planned obsolesce is inevitable within a family. a) When a father's family is bounded by his own definition of success it creates a larger chance of derailment in the future.