Death of a Salesman (Analysis and Personal Reaction)

Death of Salesman is a a very deep play written by Arthur Miller about a salesman struggling to keep his grip on reality and his family. This play is a memory play, switching from present to past and vice versa whenever Willy, the salesman and father of the family, has a moment of insanity and returns to times gone by. Being memory, it allows for music to announce emotions and characters, and well as exaggerations and/or omissions. As Tom says in Tennessee William's The Glass Menagerie: "Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic. In memory everything seems to happen to music.", and although this describes The Glass Menagerie, it also applies to Death of Salesman. The fact that it's a memory play allows the story to be partial to the one recounting it, and Willy's flashbacks show us his memories the way he perceived them, giving the illusion of golden times gone by, though it may not have been such a care-free time after all. Along with memory, the play deals with several major themes, such as reality versus illusion, social critique, the power of money, the American dream, insanity, and perhaps even a bit responsibility, or lack thereof.
Illusions are all over the book, from beginning to the final unveiling at the end. As Biff says in the end: "We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house! (pg 1625)". Happy is a perfect example of a character living a lie, an illusion. He keeps bragging about being rich assistant buyer in his company, saying he's just waiting for the merchant manager to die to get promoted, when it is later revealed that he is only one of two assistants to the assistant buyer... basically nothing. He also gets girls by weaving illusions around them. For example, in the restaurant, when he acts like he owns a brand of Champaign, and then goes on to pretend Biff is the quarterback to the New York Giants, even pausing before his lie to ask if she knew about football before proceeding. And before he... [continues]

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