CASIRJ Volume 5 Issue 4 [Year - 2014] ISSN 2319 – 9202

ARTHUR MILLER’S DEATH OF A SALESMAN AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAGEDY

Dr. Vandana V.
Abstract:

Arthur Miller, one of the prolific writers in America. He received the Pulitzer Prize for
the play Death of a Salesman in 1949. This play represents a successful attempt to blend the
themes of social, personal and psychological tragedy within the some dramatic framework. It is
also represents the theme of American tragedy. This play explores protagonist downfall and final
defeat illustrate not only the failure of man but also the failure of way of life. It gives the clear
picture of psychological tragedy of American lower middle class man. This article attempts focus
on the psychological tragedy of salesman.

Keywords:

Psychological tragedy, victim.

The entire action on the play Death of a Salesman takes place in one day and that is the last day
of the protagonist, Willy Loman’s, life, who is an American lower middle class man. But large
portion of his life is projected. This type of the play critics calls as “action in retrospect.” But
Miller describe this technique as “the form of a confession ….now speaking of what happened
yesterday, then suddenly following some connection to a time twenty years ago.”2 Miller uses
confession technique to unravel the inner reality of Willy Loman right from the begging to end.
In modern fiction this technique is called stream of consciousness.

Arthur Miller wrote “in this age few tragedies are written. It has often been held that lack
is due to a paucity hero among us----- for one reason or another, we are often held to be below
tragedy or tragedy above us.”3 He spells out his reasons for writing Death of a Salesman as what
he considers the traditional tragedy although his model seems to be a loose amalgam of Greek
and Renaissance antecedents. He declares himself to imbue his characters with experiences of
struggles, griefs, looses, along with small acts of heroism. His protagonist Willy Loman carries

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the weight of being of representative American man, a figure who toils and pushes onwards
unrecognised by the world; in presently such a figure Millar hope to invoke fears and empathy of
his audience- perhaps in the sense of unamuno and white head, to use Willy’s tragic suicide as a
“living agent” to elicit the tears which might move people to demand a better world by
renouncing the world Willy falls victim too.

Miller announces his focus on common American’s struggling for but failing a grasp a
communal sense of success. Millers work as a whole testifies to his concentrated attention on the
instabilities and flows of ordinary Americans as they responded to the de-provincialized urban
world, a world increasingly sick of itself. The determining social environment appears in Millers
work as a constant mockery of personal attempts to ground and sustain individual identity. It
defeats of the communal ideas of populism in the 1890’s left the American social environment to
the control of the impersonal forces of mechanization and standardization.

Miller says in his essay, the common man whose story, he believes: “I believe that the
Common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense of kings was. On the face of it
this ought to be obvious in the light of modern psychiatry, which bases its analysis on classical
formulations, such as the Oedipus and Orestes complexes, for instance, which were enacted by
royal beings but which apply to everyone in similar emotional situations.”4

Miller goes on to stress two essential criteria concerning this writing of Death of a
Salesman: first he wants to place his characters in a contemporary American setting, yet confront
the identical tragic situation forced by kings in tragedies of the classical and renaissance stage
and same crushing weight felt by his middle class American family. Millar focus on individuals.
However shift his gaze from the controlling operations of impersonal forces. He hereby sidesteps
the opportunity to become politically radical.

The play opens with Willy Loman himself. We find Willy Loman return home suddenly
as if something went wrong with him. It is hinted that Willy got back home as his mind failed. It
appears that Willy is unhappy as he is disturbed of failures in his business.

Miller notion of a common man parallels that of unamuno Willy can wholly embody a
tragic sense of life. Anonymity and loneliness is common feature of all social stations in the

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modern world. What Willy needs and what Miller does not seem to notice, is to learn to weep.
The issue is not one of recommending self pity; rather as Willy’s wife Linda, constantly
asserts, we must grieve for the past, acknowledged its value in our grieving and then put it away.

Lately Willy Loman had begun to talk to himself about things out of the past. That day he
had run off the road two or three times without knowing what he was doing and he had come
home in fear. Willy sixty three had given all his life to the company. He was tired of his work
and without rest, he work throughout his life. So his mind was not working at that time. It shows
the psychology of the protagonist.

Willy was worried about his son Biff because he was not working and not settled in his
life. He was thirty four now. He tells his wife about his education and about his unsuccessful his
career. He thinks he is lazy. Critics think Willy Loman has some false dreams for becoming a
rich man. This is shown in his children that he will take them to many cities and he knows many
big people for help. Willy Loman, at the same time worries of degeneration in American society.

He murmuring about the environment, because of mental stress he has become a bit mad,
this is a contradiction. “Willy is unhappy as his environment is being polluted. He says, the street
is linked with cars. There is not a breath of fresh air in the neighborhood. The glass did not grow
anymore; you can’t raise a carrot in the backyard. They should have a law against apartment
houses. Remember these two beautiful elm trees out there? When I and Biff hung the swing
between them? (52) Here Willy thinks there is a population explosion. The pollution is out of
control. The competition is maddening. Willy gets angry and Willy needs Linda’s consolation.
He hopes to invest money for Biff’s education in taxes. In this example shows, Willy’s mind is
out of control and at the same time his mind thinks about the past and the present and he mixes
all the memories with present situation. Because he was tired of his life and life becomes a
miserable. He became a psyche; this is a tragedy of Willy.

Later that night, Biff and Happy, the other son, are talking about their father's mental
decline. They also admit to being unhappy in their jobs. Both feel stuck. They talk about going
out West and starting a ranch together. Willy, who is reliving old memories, including a
time when his boys visited him in Boston. He also remembers a time when Charley, the
neighbor, warned Willy that Biff was failing in Mathematics, unlike Charley's son, Bernard. But
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Willy brushes this off, since Willy's boys are more attractive than Bernard, which he says will
help them succeed in life. 'Be liked and you will never want', (54)

We get a broad view of the Loman family through these memories, and it's definitely a
mix of good and bad. There is a memory of Linda catching Willy lying about how much
commission he's earned, and Willy has to admit he won't have enough to cover their expenses.
Willy then remembers a woman with whom he had an affair in Boston - that's Ms. Francis. Willy
then starts getting confused between the present and the memories, mixing up people and
situations. In the present, Charley comes over to play cards, but Willy remembers talking with
Ben, his brother. Ben went off and struck it rich, and Willy wishes he had gone with him.

Next day, and Willy goes to his boss, Howard, to ask about working locally and not
having to be on the road. Things go poorly, and Willy ends up getting fired. That's not good.
Meanwhile, Biff is off trying to get a new job, but he fails at that. Not only that, he steals a
fountain pen, too. Then he bumps into Bernard, the neighbor's son, who is totally successful. It's
not a good day for the Lomans. Biff and Happy are then at dinner together. Biff is upset at the
futility of his career. He says, 'I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been!' (56) Willy
joins them, and it comes out that when Biff visited his father in Boston, he discovered his father's
affair. Biff went from idolizing his father to losing all respect for him and losing his own focus.
But Willy hadn't remembered this earlier. Willy's memories are a bit of a jumble.

Back at home, Willy talks with his brother Ben about his plan to commit suicide by
crashing his car. He thinks that he can get his family the insurance money if he's dead.
Unfortunately, he's tried this before and the insurance company is probably on to him.

Biff shows up and argues with Willy, calling him out as ordinary. Not great. Not destined
for greatness. Just ordinary. Likewise, he just wants his father to be okay with who he is and not
keep expecting him to do something great. Biff says: '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! I'm one dollar an hour, Willy. I tried seven states and couldn't raise
it. A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning? I'm not bringing home any prizes any more, and
you're going to stop waiting for me to bring them home!'

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Willy decides this is the time to go kill himself, which he does. The play ends at his
grave. This is a total psychological tragedy of an American common man.

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is a great American tragedy. It is known as a

Psychological Tragedy. The play was instant success. It was staged in all the American critics
and in several countries outside. Because Death of a Salesman has some kind of universal
experience, values an arch type myth. Critics says “Death of a Salesman lays bare the private
individuals sensibility neutralized by those very myths.”5 This is a psychological tragedy of
American play, making weep and regret for men’s guilt and shame.

The Death of a Salesman is an attack on consumer capitalist society of America. In fact it

is an attack on society of all times. Willy Loman is a product of such a psychological tragedy,
showing Willy as victim of indifferent society. But the Arthur Miller calls it a psychological
tragedy. The tragedy is almost self made, the protagonist destroying himself. An Indian critic
N.S. Pradhan observes: “Death of a Salesman was a Miller’s success. It was hailed as a modern
classic and has put Miller among the foremost playwrights of this century. Miller is still
concerned with the theme of man being a victim of society. However the individual is humanized
in detail and depth. The ultimate feeling is that although in many respects man is a victim of
society, he himself may be a weak individual who is partially responsible for his fate.”6

WORK CITED:

 Miller Arthur. Death of a Salesman Newyork: Viking press Inc 1949.(all quotations from
this text)
 “Introduction to Arthur Millers’s Collected plays” describes
 Miller Arthur. The Tragedy of a common man, NewYork times: 27Feb 1949. p.3)
 Ibid p.3
 Mathew C. Rouane, Death of a Salesman, and the poetics of Arthur Miller “A Cambridge
Companion to Arthur Miller, E. by Christopher Bigsby, CUP, London, 1997, p.62
 N.S. Pradhan, Introduction, Death of a Salesman, Arnold Association, New Delhi, 1990,
p.11

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