Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (Barron's Book Notes) [Paperback]

Liza McAlister Williams (Author), Arthur Miller (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0812034104 | ISBN-13: 978-0812034103 | Publication Date: October 1984

A guide to reading "Death of a Salesman" with a critical and appreciative mind encouraging analysis of plot, style, form, and structure. Also includes background on the author's life and times, sample tests, term paper suggestions, and a reading list.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Arthur Miller's 1949 Death of a Salesman has sold 11 million copies, and Willy Loman didn't make all those sales on a smile and a shoeshine. This play is the genuine article--it's got the goods on the human condition, all packed into a day in the life of one self-deluded, self-promoting, self-defeating soul. It's a sturdy bridge between kitchen-sink realism and spectral abstraction, the facts of particular hard times and universal themes. As Christopher Bigsby's mildly interesting afterword in this 50th-anniversary edition points out (as does Miller in his memoir, Timebends), Willy is closely based on the playwright's sad, absurd salesman uncle, Manny. But of course Miller made Manny into Everyman, and gave him the name of the crime commissioner Lohmann in Fritz Lang's angst-ridden 1932 Nazi parable, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.

The tragedy of Loman the all-American dreamer and loser works eternally, on the page as on the stage. A lot of plays made history around 1949, but none have stepped out of history into the classic canon as Salesman has. Great as it was, Tennessee Williams's work can't be revived as vividly as this play still is, all over the world. (This edition has edifying pictures of Lee J. Cobb's 1949 and Brian Dennehy's 1999 performances.) It connects Aristotle, The Great Gatsby, On the Waterfront, David Mamet, and the archetypal American movie antihero. It even transcends its author's tragic flaw of pious preachiness (which undoes his snoozy The Crucible, unfortunately his most-produced play).

No doubt you've seen Willy Loman's story at least once. It's still worth reading. --Tim Appelo --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This 50th-anniversary edition of Miller's masterpiece, which certainly is a contender for the finest American drama of the 20th century, includes the full text of the play, a chronology of its productions, photos from various stagings including the current Broadway revival, and a new preface by Miller himself, all in a quality hardcover for a reasonable price. Bravo, Penguin.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 99 pages
• Publisher: Barron's Educational Series (October 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812034104
• ISBN-13: 978-0812034103
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,345,702 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The book was depressing, but vividly so., November 8, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (Barron's Book Notes) (Paperback)

An old, decaying traveling salesman, Willy Loman, has warped reality so incredibly in his mind that his family must present him with nothing but lies to keep him from utter insanity and suicide. He has two sons, Happy and Biff, who have of course been seriously deprived of reality themselves. Both of them know that their lives are not as they should be, and that they are living a lie, but Happy goes along with it. Biff wants to escape from his family, but Willy's need for control opposes Biff's desire for truth. Willy's wife Linda has a concept of reality, but represses it to keep Willy from killing himself. A book about misery should have some kind of hope within it, just as a dark cloud must have a silver lining. Death of a Salesman was great in relating human suffering and the nightmare that can arise from far too much lying, but it exaggerated the negative side of life, and for that reason it did not satisfy me as much as it could have.

5.0 out of 5 stars A book that makes you feel connected to the characters, February 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (Barron's Book Notes) (Paperback)

I thought that I wasn't going to like reading a story in play form. I have always stayed away from it, but I'm glad I took the chance with a play and with Death of a Salesman. This book was so emotional and really made me feel like I was in the story. My heart felt for Biff when he discovered his father's secret. It was a wonderful story of secrets and forgiveness. Willy just wanted to start new, the garden symbolizing this in the story. It was beautifully written and I enjoyed it very much.

5.0 out of 5 stars Land of the free and the disillusioned, April 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (Barron's Book Notes) (Paperback)

Arthur Miller's _Death of a Salesman_ is classic Americana. It should be read by anyone wanting insight into the citizen-soul. This has always been the raw material of Arthur Miller's art. And it's more than that. _Death of a Salesman_ is an angle on the American Dream from a vantage of mistaken values. Willy Lohman, it seems, was a natural salesman. He could take a piece of truth and spin it into illusion. He could craft a dream with skill and genius and then cement the whole with stern conviction. To the salesman truth does not matter much anyway, it is all an illusion. Willy knows that people WANT to believe. So he tells them. But it rings hollowly within his own family after time. And that's the tragedy of Willy's life. He took the salesman home. You see, Willy knew the truth about himself, but kept it concealed. It only occassionally bared itself to his wife, Linda. This drama of Miller's is not about the death of Willy Lohman, but about the death of that "salesman" within him, that mirage of courage and conceit which sought to camouflage the real man even to his own sons. And that death should have occurred some years earlier when young Biff showed up at Willy's Boston hotel room and shattered his boyhood illusion of the father-hero. Willy, the dreamer of great things, was defeated by his own life. He sought the rainbow's end. It was the one delusion of his own existence, idealized by the chimera of his dead brother Ben who "walked into the jungle at 17 and came out at 21--rich." The secret which eluded Willy was not to be found in that sad disillusionment, nor in the loss of his eldest son's pride, nor even in the final undeniable failure of his own acomplishment. It lay in the simple fact, unbeknownst to Willy, that he was a man loved for who he was, not for who he wanted to be.