Drama Review – Arthur Miller – Death Of A Salesman

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Spoiler alerts – 1941 Few plays resonate my own life experiences as much as Miller’s masterpiece and few characters seem like personifications of my own failings in life like its protagonist, Willy Loman. The play deals with a salesman totally committed to the American Dream, but doomed to fail to live up to its ideals. After decades of faithful service, Loman is forced first to face severe pay cuts and later dismissal from the firm he has committed his work to. Loman’s sons have failed to live the life he has envisaged for them, though he often deludes himself that all is well and better there too. Much of the family conflict comes from one of Loman’s sons knowing that Willy had an affair with a waitress during one of his sales trips, a secret both men keep from Willy’s wife. Ultimately, the conflict between his idealized life and harsh reality destroys Loman. I came to relate to the play more years after studying it from being pressed into sales roles both in call centres and door to door. I was never very good at it, but because of that being my most recent career activity on my resume, the welfare people insist I pursue other work in the same field, with success or failure irrelevant to them. Companies train sales staff to think selling is easy and only requires being nice and knowing the product and a sales script – sales work is actually soul destroying if sales don’t come and companies are pitiless and unforgiving if sellers are off target. I see lots of Willy Lomans in the making in such a business – I have much of him in me, though in the UK rather than living the American Dream. Sales work is not a dream, but a nightmare. Arthur Chappell