Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is a play I read a little while ago for English class, and a play I thoroughly enjoyed! I have always wanted to read more 20th century American plays after reading a little bit of Eugene O’Neill, and I had not read any Arthur Miller before, so I did not know what to expect. Importantly, we read a very short article by Arthur Miller to accompany the play, explaining his intentions for writing a tragedy about a common, American man to subvert the genre of tragedy as a whole, which was typically perceived as being only about great noblemen or gods. With this lens in mind, Death of a Salesman was an amazing modernist play! 

The play follows Willy Loman, the titular salesman, who is really not a great guy. He is disappointed in his son Biff, negligent of his other son Happy, and mercurial to his wife. The play follows Willy as he relapses into memories of the past, memories that he is actively typing to make seem as good as possible while running away from the guilt of his previous actions and his failure as a family man. As one might expect from the title, the play has a fittingly tragic end for Willy Loman. 

I really appreciate Arthur Miller for subverting the typical notion of tragedy (especially Greek and Shakespearean tragedy) only concerning great, bepuffed figures. When I read Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, I was appalled by his criticism of Euripides, which even the translator Walter Kaufmann footnoted as nonsensical. Nietzsche’s major criticism with the Greek tragedian (among other things) seemed to be that his focus on giving minorities in Athenian society larger voices than most onstage led to the death of tragedy, because tragedy should only be about great and heroic figures. I am fairly certain that this outlook on tragedy was very common up to Miller’s time, and so I am thankful that he managed to change that idea of tragedy through Death of a Salesman, showing that everyday tragedies and tragedies befalling lower class people can be just as tragic as the usurping of kings, or punishment of gods. 

I think Death of a Salesman is a really great piece of American theater, one I am thankful exists, and one I think you should definitely read. And if you end up reading it, or have read it already, please tell me what you think in a comment below!