Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman

by Harold Bloom

In the spring of 1948, Arthur Miller retreated to a log cabin in Connecticut with the first two lines of a new play already fixed in his mind. He emerged six weeks later with the final script of "Death of a Salesman" - a painful examination of American life and consumerism. Opening on Broadway the following year, Miller's extraordinary masterpiece changed the course of modern theatre. In creating Willy Loman, his destructively insecure anti-hero, Miller himself defined his aim as being 'to set forth what happens when a man does not have a grip on the forces of life.'

Genres: Classics, Plays, Drama, Fiction, Education, Literature, High School

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

Harold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world." After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is hard to rate, because I'm sure that, like most plays and poetry, it would hit harder with a live performance. It's also hard to rate because it's unfortunately still relevant in terms of portraying the American Dream as a sham, but simultaneously dated, at least for me, because the "American Dream" has chewed up and swallowed many different families in many different ways, not just white suburban ones.

[Lauren Edgell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was required reading in high school. I remember making a diorama to demonstrate the theme of isolation in the book. It is an ironic story that is actually somewhat depressing. It is still a literary classic that deserves to be read!

[Fred · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bloom has a collection critiques and analysis from various writers including himself. On page 11 in the first sentence of Neal Dolan of Harvard University's "Thematic and Structural Analysis" of the story, he says that a "great scholar of the western literary tradition" [whom he does not identify] "has defined realism as the 'serious' representation of the ordinary and of the life of the lower classes." This answers a lot of questions that I have carried most of my life about why so much modern literature is so depressing and uninspiring.

Bloom has a collection of critiques dating from 1949 to 1992. This book is copyrighted for 1996. Over time the critiques evolve from treating the characters of the play as self determined agents to treating the characters of victims of society. Interesting trend but not surprising given the news of the last 60 years. Even Bloom himself succumbs to this deterministic philosophy of morality saying that "Miller, ..., wants to give us a Willy Loman who is destroyed by social energies." What are social energies? Google clues me in that "Social energy comes from spending time in a stimulating environment with other people." Reference https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2007.... My impression is the Willy Loman finds himself in a very exciting and stimulating environment, full of personal and business challenges. Willy didn't experience his life this way.

The best line in this book is page 27, "Arthur Miller on the Genesis of Death of a Salesman [1957]." Arthur Miller says "... 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 and that the present is merely that which his past is capable of noticing and smelling and reacting to." This is an intriguing perspective on existence, echoing the ideas of multi-verse that is so popular in recent fiction (2022). What is missing is the idea of possibility.


This most interesting line from this book is

[Marbutator · Rating 4 out of 5]

felt like an analysis of myself (maybe dramatic, maybe very accurate)

[Sanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

ironisch, triestig en dramatisch

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taught this to my 5th year-IB English class. Wow! Very impressive. Seeing it in Dutch in March here in the NL...

[Brittney Bower · Rating 1 out of 5]

could of been made better

[Laura]

Es totalmente impresionante!