Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Title: Death of a Salesman Author: Arthur Miller Print Length: 128 pages Publisher: Penguin

Genre: Play ASIN: B00AQ9NIPE

Plot Summary: Death of a Salesman is a tragic tale about ageing travelling salesman, Willy Loman who is haunted and driven by empty dreams of prosperity and success. The plot is further complicated by Willy’s tendency to thrust his dreams and aspirations on his two sons.

Death of a Salesman won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award, and has been described by some as the greatest play of the twentieth century, but I found this play more difficult to engage with, compared to The Crucible (see my review HERE). This is largely because of the sudden appearances and disappearances of a number of minor characters. There are also several flashback scenes, but these worked well, helped significantly by the style of the dialogue shifting from adult-style conversation to that more akin to the conversations an adult would have with children. This was very well done. I did however find some of the adult dialogue somewhat jarring and it seemed, on occasion, to flit about inconsistently.

I read this in the lead up to seeing the play on stage. The stage production was fantastic and the intense drama of the play was very dramatically presented. Maybe I should have read the book after seeing the play (as I did with The Crucible), as that may have given reading it more context.