critics

https://senecalearning.com/en-GB/revision-notes/a-level/english-literature/aqa/death-of-a-salesman/10-5-2-the-critics , https://quizlet.com/gb/118898129/death-of-a-salesman-critical-quotes-critics-flash-cards/

eric bentley

play is not a satisfactory tragedy due to:

• lack of terror (willy is too lowly and pathetic a figure to inspire terror) and lack of resolution (was willy’s downfall due to his own tragic flaw or was he brought down by socio-economic forces?)

• therefore the play falls between a tragedy and a socio-political play, which results in it being neither

harold bloom

play is a tragedy despite itself

• willy never achieves self-knowledge and society isn’t ‘cleansed’ by his death

• however his death leads to biff’s self-knowledge while also releasing biff from willy’s destructive dream

stephen barker

play is a nietzschean tragedy

• nietzsche argued ;

  • ‘god is dead’

  • tragedy was an art from allowing audiences to recognise the truth, rather than to offer closure

  • life is often unbearably cruel and painful and human beings essentially lie to each other in order to survive

• willy kills himself for no reason, evidenced linda in the requim asks ‘why did you do it?’

• willy has spend his life lying to himself about who he is and the requiem shows that happy will continue to follow willy’s delusions (he had a good dream)

dennis welland

willy’s repression of the past is a barrier to maturity and ego-development

sheila huffel

willy fell only from an imagined height

lee siegel

biff’s ide that he will correct his father’s wrong dreams by living the right life is, in itself, a grandiose dream

barclay bates

the play is about the triumph of the present over the past

guerin bliquez

to overlook the part she plays in her husband’s pathetic downfall is to miss one of the most profound levels in arthur miller’s subtle structuring of his tragedy

christopher bigsby

if personal meaning lies in success, then failure must threaten identity itself