Modern Relevance of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman

Arthur Miller's classic play Death of a Salesman is standing the test of time. This is partly a credit to Miller's technical genius in storytelling ability and literary styling, but is due in larger part to his ingenuity and insight into certain unchanging, race and gender-gapping life situations that have kept his masterpiece relevant for multiple generations, and promise to keep it relevant for many to come. Some of these life situations include the adverse affect of marital unfaithfulness on the traditional family and the ever-present fear of job security and unemployment, both producing a disillusionment of the type that could have led Willy to face the untimely end that he did.

Miller displays vividly the adverse affects an extramarital affair can have, not only on those people directly involved, but also on those indirectly affected, such as the children of those who cheat. Miller shows this best toward the last half of the play, when Willy is talking to Bernard in the present in the waiting room of his father's office. Willy can't figure out why his son Biff, who had shown so much promise as a boy, could've turned out to be the lost and wandering soul that he wound up to be. Bernard asks Willy if Biff ever came to see him in Boston in the summer after his senior year in high school. The dialogue continues as follows:

WILLY: Yeah, he came to Boston. What about it?

BERNARD: Well, just that when he came back - I'll never forget this, it always mystifies me. Because I'd thought so well of Biff, even though he'd always taken advantage of me. I loved him, Willy, y'know? And he came back after that month and took his sneakers - remember those sneakers with "University of Virginia" printed on them? He was so proud of those, wore them every day. And he took them down in the cellar, and burned them up in the furnace. We had a fist fight. It lasted at least half an hour. Just the two of us, punching each other down the cellar, and crying right through it. I've often thought of how strange it was that I knew he'd given up his life. What happened in Boston, Willy?

We find out later in the play that what had happened in Boston was that Biff had come looking for Willy to get help regarding a problem he had concerning a math teacher, who had decided not to graduate him based on a lack of certain points in class. Unfortunately Biff had come at an awkward time, and he accidentally caught his father cheating on his mother with another woman in his hotel room. You can see the exact moment when Biff is shattered in this dialogue following the discovery, after the woman has left the room and he and his father are left alone:

BIFF: Never mind.

WILLY: Never mind! He's going to give you those points. I'll see to it.

BIFF: He wouldn't listen to you.

WILLY: He certainly will listen to me. You need those points for the U. of Virginia.

BIFF: I'm not going there.

In all of two minutes, Biff, his father's unfaithfulness exposed, loses his faith not only in his father but also in himself. The consequences of Willy's actions were costly in Miller's time, and continue to be costly today.

Another relevant issue Miller brings up concerns job security. This is an extremely appropriate topic for discussion now, at a time in this state where the unemployment rate is nearly the highest of all the states in our nation. Willy confronts the issue head on while being brushed off by his boss, the much younger Howard. He states, "There were promises made across this desk! You mustn't tell me you've got people to see - I put thirty-four years into this firm, Howard, and now I can't pay my insurance! You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit!" Still, despite his desperate attempts for some sort of empathy, all Howard has to offer is, "I don't want you to represent us. I've been meaning to tell you for a long time now." After thirty-four years, Willy is left with nothing but his bills. At a time where many of us are wondering not only if we'll have a job to retire from, but also if our current social security system will allow us to do so, Miller brings up a concern here that many, if not all of us, can relate to.

Issues such as a lack of security in both our personal lives, such as in marital unfaithfulness, and in our professional lives, as with job security, can cause anyone to become disillusioned with the present and worried about the future. They were more than Willy could handle in Miller's time, and continue to be as potent today. That is the relevance that has caused Miller's masterpiece to stand the test of time, and that is why it will do so for years to come.

Sources

"Death of a Salesman." Sparknotes. 1 April 2008 < http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/salesman/>.

Miller, Arthur. "Death of a Salesman." 1949. New York: Penguin, 1998.