Reflection of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Essay by pakshitHigh School, 12th gradeA+, January 2005

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"Before us is the salesman's house," is how this whole epic drama starts. In this mere description of the setting we can see so many ideas Arthur Miller is trying to tell us. Willy Loman's house is surrounded by huge and tall apartment buildings. Walls are all you will perceive looking out the windows of this house. Walls and buildings however, were not always casting their shadows on Willy's life and home. There was a time when he was on his way to fulfilling the American Dream with a "good" life. Willy would have been great had he not walled himself in and rejected progress as it rose beside him in the form of modern buildings. His views on the world were just too superficial.

Willy believed in being liked and creating personal interest as the key points for achieving success in the world. He had a job in which he believed from the start, was the greatest career a man could want.

He placed himself inside walls set to this mentality and line of thinking. He did not let anything get inside that little box house he had created for himself. He saw things in one way and that was his way. He wanted that American Dream so much but he insisted in doing it the way he planned from the start. Because of those walls, Willy stayed where he was as the whole world rose to new heights, shown in the buildings surrounding his house. The buildings represented progress and Willy's little house in the midst of it all showed stubbornness. The walls and the buildings represented the cause and effect of Willy's philosophies. In the end, everything eventually succumbs to change. If you refuse to accept it and build walls around yourself, those walls will...