SOURCE: Hadomi, Leah. “Fantasy and Reality: Dramatic Rhythm in Death of a Salesman.” Modern Drama 31, no. 2 (June 1988): 157-74.

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.”

The subtitle of Death of a Salesman, “Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem,”¹ as well as the title originally considered by the playwright, The Inside of His Head, already point to the play's thematic essence and major formal characteristic. Thematically, Miller's drama deals with the tension between the private inner world of the protagonist and external reality. Its principal structural characteristic consists of the integration of dramatic realism and expressionism.²

The conflicting inner selves that make up Willy Loman's many-sided persona represent...