SOURCE: Babcock, Granger. “‘What's the Secret?’: Willy Loman as Desiring Machine.” American Drama 2, no. 1 (fall 1992): 59-83.

In the following essay, Babcock examines how Death of a Salesman presents Willy Loman as a product of capitalist society, noting that the “system of value that the play represents permits no true relationship between men; it permits only isolation through competition.”

Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949) conveys its critique of American capital in a more complex and subtle manner than critics have thus far recognized. Most criticism of the play, as Sheila Huftel points out, is “governed by the need … to know and understand Willy Loman” (103). Unfortunately, much of the energy expended to understand Willy has been too narrowly focused on analyzing the individuated character traits of the protagonist and the attendant issue of tragic stature. The play, in fact, suggests just the opposite—that Willy is not autonomous, self-generated...