II- death of a Salesman (1949) by Arthur Miller
‘’ what you watch is yourself, struggling against the fate you made for yourself’’ (Kazan 198).
‘’…To me the tragedy of Willy Loman is that he gave his life, or sold it, in order to justify the waste of it’’ (miller 14).
Arthur Miller’s first version of Death of a Salesman was a short story which he wrote in his seventeen, Miller in his own words said that this story based on a real man who thrown himself under a train, after that Miller in his autobiography admit that he found the inspiration of Willy Loman character in his uncle Manny Newman, a travelling salesman who favoured pride over truth who has been called ‘’ the American King Lear’’, at the same time his son Buddy is the original version of Biff who is also a sports champion and flirt with girls just like Happy Loman, so he divided Buddy’s character into Loman’s son, so it’s all about Miller’s uncle who prefers his pride on the actual reality, therefore Miller work on mixing personal an thematic levels to produce such work ( Carson 23).
As for the title of Miller’s masterpiece, it has various meanings on different levels that could be seen by different point of views, so Death of a Salesman is a kind of plays in which the title is significant but not obviously so, firstly and the most obvious meaning that it refers to Willy, the salesman who commit his suicide by the end of the play so logically Death of a Salesman as a title is perfectly presented this man destiny.