Juan Sipion
Dr. Ney
ENG 203
3-19-2016
Death of A Salesman: Historical Analysis
During the 1950’s, there was uproar of American prosperity throughout the fifty states.
This was due to the recent victory in World War II, causing a surge of economic wealth. People
lived in suburban homes, and they had fancy cars; moreover, they had a vast amount of new
consumer products available to them. There seemed to be no way that America could go wrong,
and there was no way that anyone could be affected negatively. In other words, people were
living the American dream to its fullest extent. However, some people lived on that dream for too
long, so long in fact that it became problematic. During this time period, a play by the name
“Death of a Salesman,” by Arthur Miller, was written to express these exact thoughts.
In short Death of a Salesman is a tragedy about a man’s dreams and the reality of his life.
In the remnants of World War II, there was a big turn-up in wealth. Many people were in the
business of risk taking, because they felt that nothing could go wrong with the amount of
stability they had. Therefore, we saw many people trying to increase their wealth by starting their
own business or doing things like commission sales. They had ambition. Ambition is not
necessarily a bad thing, because it can motivate us to get out of bed in the morning and make us
follow our dreams. However, it is a double-edged sword, because it can keep us from realizing
that we, in fact, have limits. Moreover, it gets us to think that we have done more than what we
actually have by creating illusions to success not yet acquired. This is the case in “Death of a
Salesman.” The protagonist Willy Loman is this crazy old man who works as a salesman.
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Unfortunately, he is not a very good salesman. He believes that his life was a waste of time,
because he wasn’t exceedingly rich, like the rest of his friends and his brother, who made it big.
He keeps having delusions about how his life really is. Willy believes that one of his son’s,
whose name is Biff, was a football player and a great success. Also, Willy thinks that he and his
wife are very rich. The ambition he had has led to him being crazy. He has lost his mind by
trying to save and make better the life of his family members. Ambition is a good thing but not in
excess. During this period of time, because there were people making it big, there were also
those people so obsessed with fame and fortune that turned their lives in a complete circle that
ended with disappointment.
Another problem presented in this play was the idea of the competitive, materialistic
American society at that time. Willy Loman tries to hide the fact that he is just an average guy
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