Death of a salesman
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| Title: | Death of a salesman |
| Original title: | Death of a Salesman |
| Genus: | tragedy |
| Original language: | English |
| Author: | Arthur Miller |
| Premiere: | February 10, 1949 |
| Place of premiere: | Morosco Theater ( Broadway ) in New York City |
| Place and time of the action: | Willy's House, New York City and Barnaby River in the late 1940s |
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Death of a Salesman (original title: Death of a Salesman ) is the best known drama Arthur Miller in 1949, for which he with in the same year Pulitzer Prize was awarded for the theater. The premiere on Broadway was staged on February 10, 1949 by Elia Kazan . The main role of Willy Loman played in this production Lee J. Cobb .
Important persons
Willy Loman is an elderly traveling salesman who is no longer able to pay for his standard of living. He goes out of his mind and tries to kill himself by inhaling gas from the water heater or causing accidents with his car. He is obsessed with the post-war interpretation of the American Dream : make as much money and be as successful as possible. Since he cannot cope with his everyday life, he takes refuge in daydreams in which he dreams of a glorious past. In these daydreams his late brother also appears, whom Willy takes as a role model - he was very successful. Originally he planned to make a living doing manual work, but when he saw the success of others, he switched to the profession of sales representative.
Linda Loman , Willy's wife, takes great care of her husband and encourages him despite his desolate condition. It is Willy's "foundation and support". But like the rest of Willy's friends and family, she does not manage to contradict Willy's illusions, but reinforces them, which will result in his suicide.
Biff Loman , Willy's son, was a talented football player in high school but has lost faith in and trust in his father since catching Willy having an affair. Since Willy expects him to start a career and become a successful businessman, arguments often arise in the course of the play.
Ben , Willy's late brother, appears in Willy's daydreams. He became very wealthy from the diamond business. Along with Willy, Ben symbolizes Miller's criticism of the American dream: he got rich by accident (he happened to come to Africa, where the diamond business flourished) and apparently achieved his goal by dodgy means.
Happy Loman , Willy's second son, is a minor assistant who is 32 years old. He is and has never been successful and is mostly ignored by his parents. His job does not fulfill him, so he avenges himself on his superiors by sleeping with their wives. As a result of Willy's upbringing, he is just as unrealistic in terms of his situation as his brother and father.
action
The death of a traveling salesman describes the conflict between the 63-year-old William " Willy " Loman and his 34-year-old son Biff. Willy Loman is an internally torn person whose life takes place in a world in which for him the past and the present are mixed up (in several scenes he speaks with people who are only present in his imagination, or retrospectives are shown, sometimes mixed up also both). Biff has never forgiven his father for cheating on his mother with another woman while on a business trip, so he doesn't go to summer school, doesn't get his degree, can't study and gets through life with many different jobs.
Towards the end of the drama, the father-son conflict comes to a head, until Biff shows his father how much he loves him. He moves him to accept truth and reality and says goodbye to him for a likely long time. Willy Loman is determined to commit suicide so that his impoverished family, especially Biff, can get his life insurance paid out in a fake car accident . His dead brother Ben, whom he admired like a father and hardly knew and with whom he “converses” several times, reminds him of his plan.
The drama ends with Willy's funeral mass: only a few mourners - his family and his successful old friend Charley - come to the funeral. At the end there is a last monologue by Linda, Willy's widow, in which she describes the exemption from further bills and wonders why Willy took her own life.
Embassy
The drama exemplarily describes a salesperson who is successful at a young age and unsuccessful in old age ( curse of sales ) who tries to conceal the lack of success up to and including the loss of his job by the new young boss with a single lie according to the motto more appearance than reality. Willy is even too proud to take up the job offered by his successful old friend (Charley) and company boss. Instead, he borrows money from him and pretends that his family continues to go to work every day.
The criticism of the American Dream is also a central point of the drama. Willy Loman is too attached to the dreams of the first settlers and cannot understand that they can no longer be realized in his time. This problem is noticeable with Willy insofar as he no longer has a livelihood and therefore no longer an identity. The American dream is thus criticized that values are based solely on the assumption that the social significance of a person is only derived from his status and position in it. In short: "Everyone is the maker of his own happiness"; the unfortunate is himself to blame for his misery and is therefore no longer a full-fledged member of society to be respected. Willy pays for his belief in the “American Dream” with his life.
Trivia
The name Loman sounds like American low man , German low man and suggests that it is used to describe the social position or psychological situation of the main character. However, Miller got the name from Fritz Lang's film The Testament of Dr. Mabuse taken. In his autobiography Timebends: A Life he writes:
"What the name really meant to me was a terror-stricken man calling into the void for help that will never come."
"For me, the name actually referred to a man overwhelmed by horror who calls out into the void for help that will never come."
Film adaptations
The best-known film adaptations are that of Schlöndorff with Dustin Hoffman and Gerhard Klingenberg with Heinz Rühmann as well as that of László Benedek with Fredric March , which was nominated for five Oscars .
Selection:
- 1951: The death of a traveling salesman with Fredric March; Director: László Benedek
- 1961: En Handelsresandes död with Kolbjörn Knudsen; Director: Hans Abramson
- 1963: The death of the traveling salesman with Leopold Rudolf ; Director: Michael Kehlmann
- 1966: Death of a Salesman with Lee J. Cobb ; Director: Alex Segal
- 1966: Death of a Salesman with Rod Steiger ; Directed by Alan Cooke
- 1968: The death of the traveling salesman with Heinz Rühmann; Director: Gerhard Klingenberg
- 1979: En Handelsresandes död with Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt; Director: Bo Widerberg
- 1985: Death of a traveling salesman with Dustin Hoffman; Director: Volker Schlöndorff
- 2000: Death of a Salesman with Brian Dennehy ; Directed by Kirk Browning
Expenses (selection)
- Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman. Certain private conversations in two acts and a requiem. (Fischer 7095, theater). Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-596-27095-8 .
- Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman. Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem. ( Reclams Universal Library 9172, foreign language texts). Reclam-Verlag , Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-15-009172-1 .
- Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman. Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem. Klett-Verlag , Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-12-577633-3 .
Audio books
- Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman. (abridged edition) Naxos Audio Books, 2009, ISBN 978-962-634-997-7 .
Secondary literature
- Richard Albrecht : Death of a Salesman. In: Understanding Psychology! 6 (1997) 1, Papillon Verlag, pp. 9-19; shortened network version
- Rüdiger Bernhardt: Arthur Miller: Death of a salesman (Death of a Salesman). (King's Notes and Materials, Volume 142). C. Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2005, ISBN 3-8044-1720-5 .
- Paul Goetsch : Death of a Salesman. In: Paul Goetsch (Ed.): The American Drama . Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1974, ISBN 3-513-02218-2 , pp. 208-233.
- Rainer Lübbren: The death of the traveling salesman . In: Rainer Lübbren: Arthur Miller . (Friedrich's playwright of the world theater, Volume 19). 2nd Edition. Friedrich Verlag, Velber bei Hannover 1969, pp. 45–59.
- Brian W. Last: Death of a Salesman . York Notes / Longman Literature Guides. 14th edition. Longman York Press 1980/1992, ISBN 0-582-02260-6 . (English speaking)