Use of Symbolism in Death of a Salesman :: Death of a Salesman Essays

Arthur miller is recognise as an important and influential playwright, not to mention essayist and novelist. Although he has had plenty of luck in his writing career, his fame is the product of his ingenious major power to control what he wants his readers to picture or feel. As iodine of his critics states, Miller writes ingeniously, conveying the message that if the proper study of mankind is man, mans inescapable problem is himself (Broussard, 306). Miller accurately puts into words what every per countersign thinks, feels, or worries about, but often has trouble expressing. By the use of symbolism, Arthur Miller portrays Willys (along with the other Lowmans) problems with family life, the society, and himself in Death of a Salesman. Arthur Miller is an interesting author in the intelligence that many of his plays reflect or are a product of events in his life. He was born in 1915 in New York City and was the son of a successful businessman, up until the Great Depression w hen his father disjointed most of his wealth. This greatly impacts Millers life, and influences the themes for many of his future writings. To make ends meet at home, Miller worked as a truck driver, a warehouse clerk, and a cargo-mover consequently, these odd jobs bring him close to the working-class type people that give later be the basis of many characters in his plays. It is while he is involving himself in these jobs that Miller forms his love for literature he is greatly affect by Fyodor Dostoevskis The Brothers Karamazov because it questions the unspoken rules of society, a concept he often wondered about, oddly after the Great Depression. He believes that American society needed to be made over for this reason, many of his earlier plays show sympathetic portrayals and condole with characterizations of his characters. In 1956, Miller marries the eminent Marilyn Monroe. This event significantly affects his writing in that he focuses on female characters more than he had fo rmerly. He as well as looked back at his prefigured themes in past stories and expanded or reconsidered them (Martin, 1336-7). Clearly, the root of his works are the result of important events from his past experiences. Death of a Salesman is a play relating to the events leading to the downfall of Willy Loman, an aging salesman who is at one time prosperous, but is now approaching the end of his usefulness (Atkinson, 305).