Posted on 05/03/2026 3:36:41 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Death of a Salesman follows two days in the life of the Loman family, who live in Brooklyn and have, at long last, very nearly paid off their mortgage. But they have perhaps never felt more insecure. Bills are piling up. Willy’s job as a traveling salesman has stopped paying him a salary. In his 60s, he is beginning to feel his age, and as he works for scant commissions, he’s started to exhibit a faltering grasp on reality, and an increasingly vigorous drive toward self-destruction. His wife Linda — senses terrible possibilities just around the corner.
Meanwhile, adult sons Biff and Happy are in the midst of the sort of drawn-out coming-of-age crisis that each generation seems to invent anew. They don’t know who they are. They can’t see a way toward making enough money. They’re unwilling to commit to anything or anyone. They yearn for big American lives — cattle ranches, an endless stream of available women, the dream of finally pulling one over on the boss — and are only just beginning to question whether that yearning has anything to do with the big American emptiness they feel.
The pressure created by the family’s unfulfilled dreams — of financial security, a sense of purpose, a bit of rest — turns most explosive between Willy and Biff. Willy yearns for his eldest son, once a promising boy who idolized his father, to become the business bigshot he never quite managed to become himself.
But, at 34, Biff no longer seems able to stand anything about his father — up to and including the flashy American brilliance Willy sees himself as bequeathing. The tension between the father with a dream, and the son who refuses to fulfill it, comes to tragedy…
(Excerpt) Read more at forward.com ...
Then maybe she gave as good as she got.
Thanks for sharing the SCTV sketch. I love SCTV but I had never seen this one before. Hilarious. Great impressions all around.
“I see this kind of literature as the first wave of Soviet propaganda: “You feel empty! The American Dream is an illusion! Capitalism doesn’t work!””
Classic straw man. No economic system promises personal fulfillment and happiness as a result of the system.
Correction, socialism PROMISES it but no economic system can deliver it.
The best economics can do is a system that doesn’t starve too many people and allows an economically stable life for most. Given the scope of human history, any economic system that accomplishes that is a bloody miracle.
The best SCTV imitation, was Perry Como. “Still Alive”, with him singing lying down on couch, with all the dancers around him.
I was never impressed with it; it always came across as very nihilistic and depressing.
always felt that Arthur Miller was revealing his own inner emptiness and nihilistic despair.
He was a Commie, that’s why.
Yes it's so important not to buy into the fatalism, despite the merits of caution. A good contrast is Jimmy Stewart's character from It's a Wonderful Life - George Bailey. "No man is a failure who has friends." :)
You know, that is the perfect counterpoint: George Bailey! That’s the best message! I’ll take George Bailey and Pollyanna over Willy Loman and the pitiful Laura from “The Glass Menagerie” any day.
Gil Gundrson does it better.
Agreed !
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