Historical Criticism of Death of a Salesman

Historical Criticism

Death of a Salesman was written by Arthur Miller in 1949. During this time, the American Dream was highly emphasized by the American people. This is shown through the character Willy. The way Willy views himself as a family man and successful business man highlights the goal of the American Dream. For example, when he is reminiscing on times with his sons, he imagines them wanting to go with him on his business trips and he tells them, “You and Hap and I, and I’ll show you all the towns. America is full of beautiful towns and fine, upstanding people. And they know me, boys, they know me up and down New England. The finest people” (18). The way that Willy remembers things, not how they actually happened, shows how the people of this time created a myth around the capitalism that was going on in the postwar America. To continue, Willy bragged in the fact that he thought he “averaged a hundred seventy dollars a week in the year of 1928” (57). This statement also emphasizes the materialism that was going on in America at this time and how the goal was to be liked by everyone and to make money. Willy Loman portrays the classic American during the postwar era and the skewed American values.

            Biff Loman symbolizes the American during the Age of Conformity which was going on around this time by the way he grows into finding his own identity. First, when Biff confronts his father for the first time he says, “‘Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am! Why can’t I say that, Willy?’” (97). Biff contrasts what is going on in most of the American people at the time. He want to be free of the tension within his family to become a business man just as his father was, but this is not the classic American Dream. The people during this time period were facing the tensions of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, so they did everything they could to stay away from communism, and that took form in pushing capitalism and conforming to the American Dream. Biff does not do this while he searches for himself. He goes against the social conformity that was ideal and appealed to the Americans that wanted to go out and make their own name. Biff Loman represented the people that searched for their own identity during the Age of Conformity in America.

The conflicting traits in Biff and Willy Loman further the conflict within America at the time between those who favored conformity and those who wanted to find their own life. During this time period, there were many people taking jobs that were against the American Dream, such as writers and artists, which upset the norm of straining after material success. People did not approve of going against the norm, just as Willy does not approve of Biff being a farm hand when he says, “‘How can he find himself on a far? Is that a life? A farmhand?’” (6). Biff is out finding his own path that does not follow what his family is defined as, business men. This conflict within the family is the struggle that many families identified with during this time, which added to the confusion and chaos in America.