In the following essay, Otten addresses the critical debate surrounding the categorization of Death of a Salesman as a tragedy, commenting that “the play completes the tragic pattern of the past becoming the present, and it affirms the tragic dictum that there are inevitable consequences to choices.”

In the following essay, part of a special issue devoted to Arthur Miller, Kolin gathers reappraisals and interpretations of Death of a Salesman from several prestigious playwrights—including Edward Albee, Neil Simon, and Lanford Wilson, among others—on the occasion of the play's fiftieth anniversary.

In the following essay, Hadomi provides a stylistic analysis of Death of a Salesman through the examination of “the ways in which the rhythmic organization of the play is managed in respect of three structural elements in the play: characterization, symbolic clusters, and the plot.”

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.”

In the following essay, Shockley explores the similarities between Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman and the life of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan.

In the following essay, Witt investigates the emotional effect that the character of Willy Loman has on theatergoers of Death of a Salesman, noting that Loman's conflicting obscurity and fame make him appealing to a wide range of audiences.

In the following essay, Ardolino evaluates the role that repeated patterns of letters, names, and numbers play in Death of a Salesman, arguing that Miller uses these patterns to “create an expressionistic juxtaposition of the past and present and desire and guilt in Willy's disordered mind.”

In the following essay, Ardolino examines Miller's use of “demotic” language in Death of a Salesman and asserts that Miller heightens the tragic elements of the play “by exploiting the sounds and multiple meanings of simple verbal, visual, and numerical images.”

In the following essay, Murphy examines the cultural impact of Death of a Salesman, focusing on the effect the play has had on the public's perception of salesmen.

In the following essay, Centola characterizes Death of a Salesman as a modern tragedy, drawing focus to how Willy Loman's core values of family and self exert an indelible force on his relationship with his son Biff.

In the following essay, Martin explores the elements of classical tragedy in Death of a Salesman, arguing that Willy Loman becomes a tragic figure through “his desire and willingness ‘to secure one thing—his sense of personal dignity.’”

In the following essay, Murphy argues that Death of a Salesman constructs “a history of the career of the traveling salesman in America.”

In the following essay, Ribkoff considers the roles of guilt, empathy, shame, and self-identity in Death of a Salesman.

Sooner or later most discussions of the merits of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman turn to the question of the possibility of modern tragedy. Given the conditions of the modern world, the question runs, is it possible to write true tragedy in our time? Of course the very asking of the question sounds the negative. But there are likely to be answerers around who will invoke the names of certain moderns—Ibsen, or Strindberg, or O'Neill, or [Sean] O'Casey, or even Arthur Miller&#...

Willy Loman, the salesman who sacrifices himself upon the altar of the American dream, has become as much of an American culture hero as Huck Finn. Like [Mark] Twain's boy, Willy has met with enormous public success and is capable of moving the middlebrow audience as well as the intellectual sophisticate. The latter, however, has belabored Death of a Salesman to no end with two questions: Is the play primarily a socio-political criticism of American culture, or, does Willy Loman fall far enough to be...

Some have interpreted [Death of a Salesman] as an attack upon the "American dream"—which I take to mean the idea that ours is a land of unlimited opportunity in which any ragamuffin can attain riches and any mother's son become President. Others have chosen to regard it as a contemporary King Lear—the tragedy of the common old man of today, as opposed to that of the extraordinary old man of Shakespeare's time. The symbolic significance of the hero's name (low...

The questions of whether or not Death of a Salesman is a great dramatic structure, or whether or not its writing is splendid or only roughly adequate, can hold but secondary importance in any discussion of the play. Above them one fact shines: Willy Loman, egotistical, greedy, affectionate, lonely, has risen up as a modern Everyman. But the very way in which Willy speaks so immediately to so many people has brought his problems into sharp and varied scrutiny…. [The play] speaks not only to, and for t...

In the accents of ordinary speech, in the idiom of the mundane, the conventional, the everyday, Arthur Miller has pitted his not inconsequential talents as a playwright against the difficult, if not absolutely impossible, problem of fashioning a tragic hero out of the common clay of contemporary man. With Death of A Salesman many thought he had achieved that self-set goal and largely as a result of that play, having never really found a true success since, Miller attained something close to first rank statu...

[Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman'] is not quite the masterpiece of dramatic literature that the enthusiasts would have us believe. It is well written but is not sustained by incandescent or memorable language except in two or three short passages. Moreover, its hero, the desperate salesman Willy Loman, is too much the loud-mouthed dolt and emotional babe-in-the-woods to wear all the trappings of high tragedy with which he has been invested. It is, indeed, a feature of the play�...

[That the theme of the search for self-identity] is crucial to a proper understanding of [Death of a Salesman] and that Miller is in no small degree preoccupied with it, is supported by the frequency of its overt statement in the dialogue of the characters. 'The man', says Biff, referring to his father, 'didn't know who he was', and 'I know who I am …' Thus, the theme can be traced not only in the case of Willy but also in that of Biff. By showing that...

In the following essay, Thompson explores the comparisons between Willy Loman's sons and the mythological figure of Adonis in Death of a Salesman.

In the following essay, Phelps examines the uncertainty regarding Biff's love for his father in Death of a Salesman, faulting critics for easily accepting Biff's affection as the impetus for Willy's suicide.

In the following essay, Rosinger discusses the allusions to classical drama and mythology in Death of a Salesman.

Death of a Salesman contains the idea for a great play, and I would maintain that its immense international success comes from the force of that idea prevailing over the defects in execution. The force takes hold with the very title, which is highly evocative, and is amplified by the opening sight of Willy Loman coming in the door. That sight is a superb theater image of our time, as unforgettable an icon as Mother Courage and her wagon (another traveling salesman!): the salesman home, "tired to the ...

[The] consideration of Death of a Salesman [has been cluttered] with false analogies. The contradictory rules of capitalism were represented as the modern, humanistic equivalent to the conflicting laws of the ancient gods; while the gradual stripping-off of layers of illusion, the 'facing of facts about oneself', was compared to Oedipus's journey from Thebes to Colonus. There is certainly a formal debt to the Greeks in Death of a Salesman, in the way in which the play is laid out; and t...