61-62), but to Howard and the world he represents, the bottom line always comes first.
As he says to Howard, his boss, “a man is not a piece of fruit!” (pp. What brings Willy Loman to this point cannot be reduced to the malignant influence of the society in which he lives, although an economic system determined by abstract principles rather than human needs is in part responsible for Willy’s fate. But the extent of the play’s ambition can quickly obscure the fact that it is also a story about one family and its individual members, culminating in the father’s suicide. Death of a Salesman vividly portrays the destructive power of certain American tendencies, such as equating wealth with virtue and possessions with self-worth. This habit suggests a certainty about the play’s meaning that often forms around a widely acknowledged masterpiece despite its multitude of ambiguities. Willy serves as a point of reference in contexts outside of literature-invoked to describe anyone who is crushed by the immense forces of American capitalism. Willy Loman, the central figure in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, occupies a position to which few characters in literature ascend.
READERS GUIDE Questions and Topics for Discussion
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