Script Analysis Of Death Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller

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Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Script Analysis by Patrick D Quinn Death of a Salesman is a play about an aging salesman and family man who is slowly losing his mind. The play takes place in about the 1950’s in the suburbs of New England, mostly around Boston. The title character, Willy, is an aging husband and father of two who has worked for the same sales company for many years, but is starting to fall into financial trouble as a result of his slow loss of sanity. The author uses strange hallucination sequences to visualize the sad and weakening mental state of Willy as he deteriorates mentally throughout the play. The major conflict of this play is that Willy doesn’t realize he is losing his mind, but everyone around him does. Not wanting to embarrass Willy or make things any worse for him, his loved ones play along with him. Willy’s son, Biff, returns home from his failed life in the city to find out all this news from his mother. Your attention is gotten rather quickly when you realize, Willy, seemingly happy and content, is actually suicidal. In a somewhat sub-plot, Biff wants to try again at his city life and get a good job that will not only take care of his families’ financial problems, but will also make his father proud of him. Another sub-plot suggests that Willy once had an affair, this somewhat strained his relationship with his son. The overall inciting incident of the play is when the mother tells Biff about what’s really going on with his father. That they’ve been borrowing money to pay their bills, their father drives all over the country and doesn’t actually sell anything. She also tells her two sons about how their father is suicidal and she has found a piece of rubber tubing in the basement that he will use to kill himself. Because no one wants to tell Willy the truth about what is

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