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Title: Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (Barron's Book Notes) by Arthur Miller, Liza McAlister Williams ISBN: 0-8120-3410-4 Publisher: Barron's Educational Series Pub. Date: 01 October, 1984 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $3.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.9 (139 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Exceptional Play, Easy to Read as a Book
Comment: Death of a Salesman is one of those rare plays that are equally riveting whether you see it in a theater or read the script in a book. The book tells the story of Willy Loman, a traveling salesman, and his wife and two children. The "present day" in the story is about Willy near the end of his career. He is getting too old to travel around and to hustle to sell products. He also appears to be not quite right in the head any more. His oldest son has returned from the West where he has been doing odd jobs but not making much out of his life. Everyone is worried about Willy, including his neighbor and his boss. Unfortunately, Willy's boss is more concerned with the profits of the company.
The story flashes back to earlier times in several scenes. These stories mainly tell the story of more triumphant times for Willy. He is a good salesman and he's adored by his wife and children. One gets the sense that he is ready to hit it big. He rejects his brother's plan for a get rich quick scheme because he is doing so well in sales.
We are never quite sure how much of Willy's past is accurate. Like many good salesmen, Willy is used to promoting his products with little exaggerations. It seems that Willy's talent in sales bleeds over to his personal life, so that he is always doing a little worse than he says he is. It is unclear how much worse in these earlier days. However Willy is doing, it seems that his life has taken a turn for the worse. His oldest son is also doing much worse. He was the star quarterback in high school and is headed for great things with a scholarship to college. But he has lost his way at least as much as Willy.
The play answers some of these questions. Many of them are answered by the fact that life is hard sometimes and we make bad choices. Others seem to be answered by nothing besides fate. Also, as you can see by some of these reviews, the answers are different for different people. It is easy to pull some things out of this play when you are done, but it is almost impossible to figure out everything.
In any event, I strongly recommend you read this book and see the play live or on video. You will love them both.
Rating: 4
Summary: Success
Comment: Death of a salesman is a play written by Arthur Miller (1915- ). The play focuses on how Willy Loman, the main character always thinks and talks about being successful. Being successful is Willy's great dream. Just like the American dream. Willy strives to bring happiness to himself and his family, but does not succeed. He is too prideful to accept the fact that his dream of being a successful salesman never will become true, and he is too prideful to accept where he fits in society. People like Willy are very common in today's society. They are caught up in the American dream; everybody wants to be successful, but only a few make it to the top. But is this really the most important values in life? Willy looks at himself as a failure, just because he didn't make it to the top in business life, well, that is how business is; not everybody can make it to the top. That doesn't necessarily mean that your whole life is over. That is what happened to Willy; when he felt like a failure because of his broken dream, he let it out on his wife, and his two sons, Biff and Happy. Then he killed himself. This shows that Willy's only values in life were to become wee-liked and successful and if he didn't, it wasn't worth living. I think the book was a bit difficult to read, because the play shifts between present and past, which makes it a bit confusing. All over, I liked the book, not because the story was so good, but because after finishing it, it made me think about how much people think about their career, and how often the career becomes a first priority, no matter what. Is it the career that makes a man successful?
Rating: 5
Summary: Beyond the term "Classic"
Comment: This play blew me away when I read it some ten years ago. And the same thing happend when I saw it on Broadway as a revival many years ago. One can only imagine the impact it had on audiences when it first came out. Truly, there has been nothing as harrowing, riveting, and emotional in the theatre since. The "idea" of the play is powerful enough, but couple this with the "American dream" theme and you've got explosive material. The intensity of this piece of theatre is hard to match. A few other great works come to mind ("Sophie's Choice by Styron or McCrae's "Bark of the Dogwood"--though those are books or movies) but even so, something about "Death" is beyond that. Why this isn't required reading in school is something I'll never understand. Arthur Miller is a national treasure and if he had written this play only, his reputation would have been confirmed forever.
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Title: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald ISBN: 0684801523 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 01 June, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Scarlet Letter by NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE ISBN: 0553210092 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 April, 1965 List Price(USD): $3.95 |
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Title: A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams ISBN: 0451167783 Publisher: Signet Book Pub. Date: 01 August, 1989 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams ISBN: 0811214044 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: 01 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger ISBN: 0316769487 Publisher: Little, Brown Pub. Date: 01 May, 1991 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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