The Analysis of Death of Salesman

The Analysis of Death of Salesman

1.      The Plot Analysis in Death of Salesman

This story use the plot from Gustav Freytag, it has five parts, such as exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and the resolution.

a.       Exposition

This story told about the beginning of drama. First, it explained about the Setting of the story. After that, Willy as the main character has arrived to his home. Linda, as his wife, welcomed him with ask many question. Then, she said that he have to take a rest well, because his work’s place is too far from his house and he is too old to work hard. Linda told about their sons but suddenly Willy said that he hate Biff (his first son) because he is so lazy. He just spent his life in his farm. While they talked each other, Their sons (Biff and Happy) listened their conversation. Biff said to Happy why is he always hate me so much? But Happy said that he want to advice him to search the better work. He said that he being enjoyed with his carrer as a farmman now. He feel free.

b.      Rising Action

It’s beginning when Happy make a plan to buy a ranch and buy an animal like cattle (young horse) or something like that. Then, Biff remember about his friend, Oliver that can help him if he wanted something. So, he decided to lend much money to him. Willy, heard that planning from Linda. He was so excited for their brilliant ideas. Then, they discussed again about what goods that they have to sell. And the sporting goods is good choice.  They planned it for the future time and they very detailed to plan it. 

The next day, Willy want to meet with Howard for give the spot for their bussines.

c.       Climax

The Climax arrived when Willy has refused with Howard to give him the spot. Because, he thinks that he didn’t have the spot for him and ask for take a rest well. Willy didn’t want to take a rest then finally he has fired for his work.

Then, Biff has a same condition with his father. Oliver was forget him. he didn’t remember him again. beside it, he has waited him so long time. When Oliver went out from his room, he just recked of him. he was be angry and stole Oliver’s fountain pen. His father angry with him. but when Happy and Biff talked to the womans in their table (Mrs. Forsythe and Letta), Willy became so weird, so Biff and Happy leaved him alone.

d.      Falling Action

When They have arrived in home, Linda has being angry with him because they leave him alone. He is very happy to wait this dinner, but they was disappointed him. Linda asked them to leave that house. When Willy came to his house, he planted the seeds with Ben. Then, he was day dreaming when he was in Boston. He and Mrs. Francis in a same room in hotel. His son, Biff came to that room. He knocked it for a while. Then, he shocked when he saw there is a woman and picked his mother’s stocking. It’s the reason why Biff hate him so much.

e.       Resolution

Biff wanted to say a good bye with him. Before that,he wanted  to  tell his feeling about him. Biff became a lazy man because he was so push down his carrer or something that he didn’t like it. Willy wanted him to be a salesman but he didn’t want it. and after he told about his truth in his deeper feeling, he was cried and love him so much. Willy was so happy to hear that and he was talked with himself. But, there is ben in his side. Because he was too happy and he didn’t realize that there is a car who crashed him and he have passed away. Linda was so sad and in the funeral, she is still sad and didn’t separate with him.

2.      Setting

Death of a Salesman  offers a critical portrait of American society. The play is centered around the salesman’s house, with some passages set in various other locations of Boston or New York. The playwright uses setting to subtly convey thematic meaning about the Lomans’ superficial value system, their lack of true human contact, and the destructive effect society’s  norms  have on them.

The places in which the play is set are not mere backgrounds for the Lomans’ actions, but serve as literary devices that underscore the importance of appearances in their value system. The Loman house appears on stage as a very stylized construction. The kitchen contains

“no other fixtures” but a“table”, “three chairs” and a “refrigerator”, while the bedroom is “furnished only with a [...] bed-stead and a […] chair” .

These appearances are sufficient to convey to the audience the concept of ahouse, but what we are seeing is clearly not a real home. This focus on appearances rather than reality reflects the family’s lifestyle at large: the Lomans relentlessly attempt to maintain their thinveneer of  wealth, respectability and family cohesion. The “transparen[cy]” of the walls makes them without substance, and reinforces the impression of thinness and artificiality that emerges from house, which becomes a symbol for the superficiality of the Lomans’ value system.

In addition, the arrival of Biff and Happy at the beginning of the play is accompanied by the smell of “shaving lotion” which fills the “whole house”, according to Linda. Shaving is connected to appearances one wishes togive, and it is metaphorically this desire to entertain an image which is impregnating the house. Byassociation, it is suggested that the maintenance of physical and social appearances is central to the Lomans’ conduct.

Setting is further used as a literary means to underscore the Lomans’ lack of genuine human contact.The house and the New York – New Haven public train are locations which one would expect to haveantithetical connotations. The former reminds us of intimacy and familiarity, whereas the lattersuggests the ephemeral world of transience. To the Lomans, however, and especially Willy, these associations are reversed. For Biff, who Willy complains has not

“f[ound] [him]self at the age of thirty-four”,  returning to his parents’ house and sleeping in his childhood bed is a defeat; and Willy comes home down trodden in the first scene because he could not complete his last business trip.With these negative associations, the house fails to become a welcoming family harbor.

Conversely, the train, where Dave Singleman dies in his “slippers”, garments usually worn inside houses, is ironically associated to a sort of homeliness, and Willy does not perceive its lack of intimacy. These paradoxical associations allude to Willy’s skewed understanding of human contact, and suggest heat tributes little value to true intimacy. It is thus appropriate that a restaurant, a public place where the characters are forced to lower their voices, should serve as the setting for one of the  play’s  climactic moments of emotional revelation, the Boston scene. 

Finally, the setting of the Loman house conveys thematic meaning about the destructiveness of social pressures. From the onset of the play, a flute melody that is said to suggest a rural setting is placed incontrast with the visual image of a house “surrounded” by “towering” edifices. A thematic clash is thus established between the pastoral life “out in the open” that Biff dreams of and the oppressivereality of this anonymous urban setting. Though surrounded by these representations of a faceless society, the house still receives some  “blue light”  from the “sky”, and becomes an enclaved patch ofnature among the apartment buildings, whose “angry glow” makes plain the menace they representfor the inhabitants of this small oasis. The house is “fragile” against the pernicious pressures of arestrictive society and we know it will prove insufficient to protect the family from its destructive effects.

The “beautiful elm trees” that Willy longingly reminisces about have already been suppressed in favor of “a street lined with cars”. Society is further established as a destructive forcewhen Willy, in a final attempt to bring about a tangible and perennial product of his efforts, wants toplant seeds in his backyard but cannot do so because the whole neighborhood is “boxed in”. It is assuch a confining box that society hinders Willy from pursuing his inclination for manual work, andultimately renders the soil of opportunity unyielding.

The Loman family’s obsession with appearances, as well as their larger problem with genuineintimacy are themes that setting suggestively underscores in Death of a Salesman. Society also emerges as a damaging force, but ultimately remains an environment that only reveals deeper flaws in the Lomans’ attitude towards life.

3.      Analysis of Realist Drama (Focusing on Plot and Setting)

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller was first performed in 1949. The play is belong  to a realist drama, that emerge when realism risen. As we know that Realism is the reaction of romanticism. They are different in structure and style using. The realism is an artistic movement that began in 19th century France. Realist drama is more acceptable in minds, furthermore it is still applied until this modern  age. Here are some characteristic of realist drama, and how the Death of salesman analysis.

a.       The realist drama portray everyday characters, situations, and dilemmas.

Death of salesman as a realist drama, tells about the life of a salesman and his family’s matter, the play focus on their condition to achieve a success, and the salesman is dead in the end. Though the play seems having complex plot, but actually the plot and the themes of the play is simple. It is so familiar with our surroundings directly. Willy’s life is explained simply, started from his job fired as salesman, how his hope to his sons, Biff and Happy, commit suicide, and finally he passed away. The play’s conflicts and themes appear not to be uniquely American. The main problem of the play is their economic. follow some citations below of the play that shows characters, situation and their problem.

How can he find himself on a farm? Is that a life? A farmhand? In the beginning, when he was young, I thought, well, a young man, it’s good for him to tramp around, take a lot of different jobs. But it’s more than ten years now and he has yet to make thirty-five dollars a week!

 The citation above show how willy had worried to His son’s future. It is general thing to be happen.

No, I’m mixed up very bad. Maybe I oughta get married. Maybe I oughta get stuck into something. Maybe that’s my trouble. I’m like a boy. I’m not married, I’m not in business, I just — I’m like a boy. Are you content, Hap? You’re a success, aren’t you? Are you content? (page 13)

Biff statements above consider the dilemmas in his life, how he tried to be proudly. Though suffering is always being dilemmatic.

LINDA: Then make Charley your father, Biff. You can’t do that, can you? I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person. You called him crazy...

BIFF: I didn’t mean...

LINDA: No, a lot of people think he’s lost his — balance. But you don’t have to be very smart to know what his trouble is. The man is exhausted.

LINDA: A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man. He works for a company thirty-six years this March, opens up unheard- of territories to their trademark, and now in his old age they take his salary away.

The citations above is one of the essential conflics in the play. Hw their suffer and willy’s problem are explained clearly. The conflics are focussed on the character individually, which is seen frm their behavior.

In the same way the characters of the play were not coming from a high position like in Hamlet. They are an ordinary people with an ordinary profession as such. The play is focusing on middle-class anxieties.

 “I don’t know what the hell I’m working for. Sometimes I sit in my apartment – all alone. And I think of the rent I’m paying. And it’s crazy. But then, it’s always what I wanted. An apartment, a car, and plenty of women. And still, goddammit, I’m lonely.” (Happy said)

 Happy feels terrible regarding his life, hope of his life is naturally posessed by the people wherever.

WILLY: Not finding yourself at the age of thirty-four is a disgrace!

LINDA: Shh!

WILLY: The trouble is he’s lazy, goddammit!

LINDA: Willy, please!

WILLY: Biff is a lazy bum! (page 8)

The dialogue above shows the Biffs character, it also prove how the worrying willy to his sns future, he totally obsess a success for them.

b.      Realist drama was a careful observation of human characteristics and the language attempted to be as close as possible to natural conversation. Some of them, slang also is often used.

The use of language in Death of a Salesman is entirely Realistic. Miller’s dialogue is carefully constructed to follow the exact speech patterns of ordinary New Yorkers. It is very dense and fast, with repetitions,hesitations, and contradictions. The characters often use slang and clichés such as:

“Biff is a lazy bum”

 “You make mountains out of molehills“

 “I’m a dime a dozen“

 “You’re a pal”

“He’s gonna flunk you”

“I’m takin’ one play for Pop”

      But this impression of realism is created through careful constructio

        Along with the character and situations that been appeared, the conversation of the play almost of all doing in simple way, they talk each other comprehendible , and usual to use in daily life commonly.

c.       Contemporary costuming and three–dimensional sets were used so as to create a ‘lifelike’ stage picture.

At the first, the setting of place explained as well as real as possible. The Willy’s house

d.      The plays were usually critiques of social problems. If we compared it with the previous play, surely they are different in any cases, the structure of death salesman writing is more easier to understand rather than the former play, Hamlet and Pygmalion.

WILLY: What do we owe?

LINDA: Well, on the first there’s sixteen dollars on the refrigerator

WILLY: Why sixteen?

LINDA: Well, the fan belt broke, so it was a dollar eighty.

WILLY: But it’s brand new.

LINDA: Well, the man said that’s the way it is. Till they work themselves in, y’know.

The dialogue above represented what actually happen in general society, the poverty is one of common problem in the world. It becomes a characteristic of realist drama that much talk abut real facts

There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining this country! Population is getting out of control. The competition is maddening! Smell the stink from that apartment house! And another one on the other side... How can they whip cheese? ( page 9)

 The facts that people in this age are uncontrolled is also dealing with the play.  The materialistic world controlled human life,. The play become the paradox of being alive in technological society. Like what happen in the play by Arthur. Willy shows the distance between illusion and reality, between his hope and reality that should be faced.     

4.      American Dream In the Death of a Salesman

What is American Dream? The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, the set of ideals (Democracy, Rights, Liberty, Opportunity, and Equality) in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility for the family and children, achieved through hard work in a society with few barriers. The definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" regardless of social class or circumstances of birth. Some people believes that this concept of idea rooted from the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that “all men are created equal”.

The concept of American Dream is used by the authors, since in late 19th century and the early of 20th century. One of the literature work that talks over this concept of idea is the Death of Salesman, a play by Arthur Miller.  On this play, Miller created a character Willy Loman, a poor salesman who tries to reach his dream to be a success. Miller use Loman as a representative of “Everyone”, in the concepts of American Dream the possibility of every man is equal, that everyone could reach their success with hard work and ambitions. Willy believe that personality, not hard work, ambitions, and innovation, is the key to success. Then he make a lot of relatives with a lot of person.  What Miller point out on his play is that not everyone could reach their own success with ambition and hard work. Willy don’t reach his success and finished himself, and at his funeral only Willy’s family, Charley, and Bernard who attended his funeral. So, the Death of a Salesman could be a harsh criticism to the American Dream.