Act 1
Act 2
Requiem

Commentary on the work
Author's chronology

Arthur Miller, a master of modern drama, has published his masterpiece, Death of a Salesman, in Minumsa's World Literature Collection (volume 218).
When the play premiered on Broadway in 1949, it was immediately hailed as a landmark work, elevating Arthur Miller to the status of a leading modern writer.
Since then, it has remained one of the most widely performed and beloved American plays worldwide.
Death of a Salesman, with its innovative technique of moving between past and present and delving into the roots of human alienation and collapse, established a new benchmark for modern American drama.
After its premiere, it ran for two years and swept the three major theater awards, the Pulitzer Prize, the Tony Award, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and was also made into a movie, receiving favorable reviews.


“No one can blame this man.
“A salesman is a dreamer.”
The dreams and ideals of modern people who have been alienated and destroyed in a materialistic capitalist society

Willy Loman, now in his sixties, is a salesman who has worked for Wagner Corporation for over thirty years.
Before the Great Depression, he was the happiest man alive.
He had a flashy car, a new house, new furniture, a steadily building track record as a salesman, and two promising sons.
But the recession slowly encroaches on Willie's position, and his sons disappoint him.
Now old and tired, Willy escapes to the past when his two sons, Biff and Happy, fail to realize his ideals and become losers.
Willie's memories, which linger on the happiest times, travel back to his childhood, when he traveled with his family in a wagon, looking for a place to settle down, and depict a cross-section of American history.
As reality becomes harsher, Willy's escapism becomes more intense, and he is ultimately ruthlessly fired from the company he has dedicated himself to for over thirty years, sending him spiraling toward ruin.
Willy, who was preparing to commit suicide in the hope that his sons would start a new life with his insurance money, drives away in a frenzy, chasing the illusion of his brother Ben, who has discovered a diamond mine in Africa and made a fortune.
Contrary to Willy's expectations that many people he had known and dealt with during his lifetime would attend, Willy's funeral is held with only his wife Linda, his two sons, and his friend Charlie, who lives next door, and his son Bernard in attendance.


The protagonist, Willy Loman, is captured and kept returning to the past in 1928, the year when Al Smith, representing the North and urban areas, won the Democratic primary in 1929, and it was also the time when the United States was rising as the world's capitalist power after World War I, just before the Great Depression.
The socially active production of goods required salesmen to connect them with demand, and at the time, Willy was a successful salesman, earning over $170 a week in commissions, his sons kept his red Chevy shiny, his family at home waited on him so much that he never had to carry a bag, and best of all, his eldest son, Biff, was a promising football player who could have gone to any college he chose.
It was a time when something new and good was always waiting for Willy.
However, the Great Depression and the rapidly changing social system gradually diminish Willie's position, and he is eliminated without properly understanding the rules of success that capitalist society demands.
He continues to work despite his illness and exhaustion, struggling to pay his mortgage, monthly payments for furniture including a refrigerator, and insurance premiums on his meager income.
Willy's downfall is accelerated by Howard, who represents the capitalist business ethic. Willy pleads for a job, citing his friendship with his late father, Chairman Wagner, and his thirty-four years of service to the company, but these human relationships are not important to Howard.
From a capitalist perspective, Willy is no longer a worthwhile investment, so Howard fires him, saying, "Business is business."
Willy, enraged by the harsh reality where even humanity is judged only by material value, protests as follows, but his protest remains as an empty echo.


I've worked for this company for thirty-four years, and now I can't even afford to pay my insurance! Are you really going to eat the inside of an orange and throw away the peel?
People aren't just fruit-loving snails! Pay attention, please.

In this way, Miller denounces the cruelty of capitalism, which exploits labor and then discards it when it no longer has any value.
Furthermore, it criticizes the trend of prioritizing material success brought about by the capitalist economy and industrialization, and calls for the restoration of humanity in a society rife with materialism that reduces humans to mere cogs in a giant machine, making readers think about what the right way to live is.
At the same time, Miller embraces ordinary people with a humane and affectionate touch.
In the scene where Willy's wife Linda appeals to her two sons, the reader cannot help but respond deeply to this sympathetic yet powerful defense of one man.


I wouldn't say my father was a great man.
Willy Loman never made a ton of money.
My name has never been in the newspaper.
I don't have the greatest personality in the world.
But he is a human being.
And something scary is happening to him.
So you have to pay attention.
We must not roll into the grave like an old dog.
People like this need attention, they need attention.

The life and death of an ordinary citizen, elevated to a modern tragedy

Death of a Salesman, which premiered on Broadway in 1949, was immediately recognized as an event, ran for two years, and won the Pulitzer Prize, the Tony Award, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, three major theater awards, bringing international fame to author Arthur Miller.
While addressing the unique problems of capitalist American society in the mid-20th century, this work, which was successfully performed at the People's Theater in Beijing, China under the communist regime in 1983, is a universally moving drama that transcends time and space and is still widely performed and loved around the world today.

Death of a Salesman is particularly noteworthy for suggesting the possibility of modern tragedy.
By denying the common sense that an ordinary world and ordinary people cannot reach the level of tragedy and dealing with the issues of materialism, human alienation, and the dignity of life that arise from a highly developed industrial society through the death of a salesman, a typical example of a modern petit bourgeois, the film attempts to show that tragedy is possible even in modern times.


The question, “Is tragedy possible in modern times?” is one of the important debates raised by “Death of a Salesman.”
Traditionally, the protagonist of a tragedy is a person born with noble and great status, as defined by Aristotle's theory of tragedy, and his fate is identified with the fate of society or the nation.
He fights fiercely against fate and meets with destruction, but because of this, he gains insight into humanity and life, and thus triumphs over death.
However, Miller actively defended the tragedy inherent in his work in his essay “Ordinary People and Tragedy,” arguing that such typical characters are no longer acceptable in a modern society where distinctions between status and class have disappeared.
He emphasizes the importance of the insignificant, ordinary individual of modern times, saying that in modern times, it is not by birth status that an individual achieves a moment of dramatic expansion in his position or scale by tearing himself away from the established order of the universe.
Miller gives Willy that status in the story through the mouth of Willy's son, Biff.


You just saw the king walk out.
He is a great king who goes through hardships.
A king who worked hard but no one recognized him.
You know what I mean? He was a wonderful, trustworthy father.
Always thinking about your children.

In the essay mentioned above, Miller explains that the elements of tragedy, pity and fear, arise when the protagonist is forced to fight an impossible battle (a battle against a powerful force such as society or the nation) and is frustrated by his own ignorance or misjudgment, and in the process, experiences a tragic effect of emotional catharsis.
In Death of a Salesman, Miller actively heightens the work's powerful feeling with a noble sentiment comparable to that of ancient tragedy.
It proved that tragedy is not the exclusive domain of heroes of a bygone era, but is also possible for ordinary citizens living in the present.