Сатушының өлімі

1949 play by Arthur Miller
the play

Death of a Salesman is a 1949 stage play written by the American playwright Arthur Miller. The play premiered on Broadway in February 1949, running for 742 performances. It is a two act tragedy set in late 1940s Brooklyn told through a montage of memories, dreams, and arguments of the protagonist Willy Loman, a travelling salesman who is despondent with his life and appears to be slipping into senility. The play addresses a variety of themes, such as the American Dream, the anatomy of truth, and infidelity. It won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play. It is considered by some critics to be one of the greatest plays of the 20th century. The play was selected as one of the best plays of 1948–1949, with an excerpted version published in The Burns Mantle Best Plays of 1948–1949. Since its premiere, the play has been revived on Broadway five times, winning three Tony Awards for Best Revival. It has been adapted for the cinema on ten occasions, including a 1951 version by screenwriter Stanley Roberts, starring Fredric March. In 1999, New Yorker drama critic John Lahr said that with 11 million copies sold, it was "probably the most successful modern play ever published."

The genesis of the play was a chance encounter between Miller and his uncle Manny Newman, a salesman, whom he met in 1947 in the lobby of a Boston theater that was playing All My Sons. Seeing him again in Boston, Manny seemed to the playwright to be "so absurd, so completely isolated from the ordinary laws of gravity, so elaborate in his fantastic inventions," yet so much in love with fame and fortune that "he possessed my imagination." Manny died by suicide soon after, located amidst a typical row of urban apartment buildings. Willy Loman suddenly returns home exhausted after a canceled business trip to Boston. Worried over Willy's state of mind and recent car accident, his wife Linda suggests that he ask his boss, Howard, to allow him to work in his home city so he will not have to travel. Willy complains to Linda about their son, Biff, who is 35 years old and has yet to do something with his life. Despite Biff having a promising football career in high school, he failed in mathematics and was therefore unable to enter a university. Biff and his younger brother, Happy, who is temporarily staying with Willy and Linda after Biff's unexpected return from the West, reminisce about their childhood together. They discuss their father's mental degeneration, which they have witnessed in the form of his constant indecisiveness and daydreaming about the boys' high school years. Eventually, Willy walks in, angry that the two boys have never amounted to anything. In an effort to pacify their father, Biff and Happy tell him that Biff plans to make an ambitious business proposition the next day. The next day, Willy goes to Howard’s office for a job in town while Biff goes to make a business proposition, but they both fail. Howard refuses to give Willy a New York job, despite Willy's desperate pleas. Willy then loses his temper and ends up getting fired when Howard tells him that he needs a long rest and is no longer allowed to represent the Wagner Company. On the other hand, Biff waits hours to see a former employer who does not remember him and turns him down. In response Biff, feeling crushed, impulsively steals a fountain pen. Willy then goes to the business office of his neighbor Charley, where he runs into Charley's son Bernard, who is now a successful lawyer about to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court. Bernard tells him that Biff originally wanted to go to summer school to make up for failing math, but something happened in Boston when Biff went to visit his father that changed his mind. Charley then offers Willy a stable do nothing job, but Willy vehemently refuses despite losing his job. Charley, who feels insulted, reluctantly gives the now unemployed Willy money to pay off his life insurance premium, and Willy shocks Charley by remarking that ultimately, a man is "worth more dead than alive." Happy, Biff, and Willy meet for dinner at a restaurant, but Willy refuses to hear the bad news from Biff. Happy tries to coax Biff to lie to their father. Biff tries to tell him what happened as Willy gets angry and slips into a flashback of what happened in Boston the day Biff came to see him: Biff had come to Boston to ask Willy to convince Biff's teacher to curve Biff's failing math grade, so he could graduate. However, Willy was in the middle of an extramarital affair with a receptionist when Biff arrived unexpectedly, and saw the half dressed woman with him. Biff did not accept his father's cover up story for her presence, and angrily dismissed him as a liar and a fake before storming out. From that moment, Biff's views of his father changed and set him adrift. Biff leaves the restaurant in frustration, followed by Happy and two girls whom Happy picked up, leaving a confused and upset Willy behind. When they later return home, Linda angrily confronts them for abandoning their father while Willy remains outside, talking to himself. Biff tries to reconcile with Willy, but the discussion quickly escalates into emotional conflict. Biff conveys plainly to his father that he is not meant for anything great, insisting that both of them are simply ordinary men meant to lead ordinary lives. The argument reaches an apparent climax as Biff hugs Willy and begins to cry as he tries to get Willy to let go of his unrealistic expectations. Rather than listen to what Biff actually says, Willy appears to believe his son has forgiven him and will follow in his footsteps, and after Linda goes upstairs to bed, lapses one final time into a hallucination, thinking he is talking to his long dead wealthy brother Ben. In Willy's mind, Ben "approves" of the scheme Willy has dreamed up to take his own life in order to give Biff his life insurance money to help him start a business. Willy exits the house, and Biff and Linda cry out in despair as the sound of Willy's car blares up and fades out. The car crashes and Willy dies. The final scene takes place at Willy's funeral, which is attended only by his family, Charley and Bernard (who is the only character to not speak during the final scene). The ambiguities of mixed and unaddressed emotions persist, particularly over whether Willy's choices or circumstances were obsolete. At the funeral, Biff upholds his belief that he does not want to become a businessman like his father. Happy, on the other hand, chooses to follow in his father's footsteps, while Linda laments her husband's decision just before her final payment on the house.

In several statements, Miller compared the play's characters to Greek tragedy. Miller wanted to show that the common man and those with status had much in common. Writing in The New York Times in 1999, journalist John Tierney argued that the play was not constructed like a classical tragedy. He observed that the mental illness suffered by Loman was a "biochemical abnormality" that was "not the sort of tragic flaw that makes a classic play." But he noted that "Willy's fate is supposed to be partly a result of his own moral failings, in particular the adulterous affair [ ], he is haunted by the memory of his infidelity and by the fear that it ruined his son's life." Eric Bentley saw the play as "a potential tragedy deflected from its true course by Marxist sympathies."

Arthur Miller directed the play himself in China, stating that it was easier for the Chinese public to understand the relationship between father and son because "One thing about the play that is very Chinese is the way Willy tries to make his sons successful." Many traditional Chinese fathers want their sons to be 'dragons.'

1951: American film adapted by Stanley Roberts and directed by László Benedek, who won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director. Nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Fredric March), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Kevin McCarthy), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Mildred Dunnock), Best Cinematography, Black and White, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. 1960: Soviet film, directed by Theodore Wolfovitch as You Can't Cross the Bridge. 1961: Swedish film En Handelsresandes död starring Kolbjörn Knudsen and directed by Hans Abramson (in Swedish). 1968: German film Der Tod eines Handlungsreisenden starring Heinz Rühmann and directed by Gerhard Klingenberg. 1966 (CBS): TV film starring Lee J. Cobb, Gene Wilder, Mildred Dunnock, James Farentino, Karen Steele, and George Segal and directed by Alex Segal. 1966 (BBC): TV film starring Rod Steiger, Betsy Blair, Tony Bill, Brian Davies, and Joss Ackland and directed by Alan Cooke. 1979: Swedish film En Handelsresandes död starring Carl Gustav Lindstedt and directed by Bo Widerberg (in Swedish). 1985: American film starring Dustin Hoffman, Kate Reid, John Malkovich, Stephen Lang, and Charles Durning and directed by Volker Schlöndorff. 1996: British TV film starring Warren Mitchell, Rosemary Harris, Iain Glen, and Owen Teale and directed by David Thacker. 2000: American TV film starring Brian Dennehy, Elizabeth Franz, Ron Eldard, Ted Koch, Howard Witt, and Richard Thompson and directed by Kirk Browning. 2008: Play within the American film Synecdoche, New York, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. 2015: Radio drama, starring David Suchet and Zoë Wanamaker, directed by Howard Davies, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. 2016: Play within the Iranian/French film The Salesman (Forushande), acting as counterpoint to the main plot. Starring Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti, Babak Karimi, and directed by Asghar Farhadi.

Year Award Category Nominee Result 1976 Tony Award Best Actor in a Play George C. Scott

Year Award Category Nominee Result2019Critics' Circle Theatre AwardBest ActressSharon D. ClarkeEvening Standard Theatre AwardBest ActorWendell PierceBest DirectorMarianne Elliott and Miranda Cromwell2020Laurence Olivier AwardBest Revival Best Actor Wendell Pierce Best Actress Sharon D. Clarke Best Actor in a Supporting Role Arinzé Kene Best Director Marianne Elliott and Miranda Cromwell

+ Year Award Category Nominee Result2023Tony AwardsBest Performance by a Leading Actor in a PlayWendell PierceBest Lighting Design of a PlayJen SchrieverDrama Desk AwardsOutstanding Revival of a PlayOutstanding Direction of a PlayMiranda CromwellOutstanding Lead Performance in a PlaySharon D. ClarkeWendell PierceDrama League AwardsDistinguished Performance AwardSharon D. ClarkeOuter Critics Circle AwardOutstanding Revival of a Play (Broadway or Off Broadway)Outstanding Featured Performer in a Broadway PlaySharon D. Clarke

Miller, Arthur Death of a Salesman (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1996) Edited with an introduction by Gerald Weales. Contains the full text and various critical essays.