Write a short note on Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman".

Arthur Miller was an American playwright, essayist and a very crucial figure of the 20th century American literature. He has written many plays which have a great effect on the readers. Among them, "Death of a Salesman" is one of the best of his writings. It was written in 1949 and it won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and also won the Tony award for best play. It is popularly considered as one of the greatest plays of the then time.

This play is a modern tragedy which successfully creates an effect on the other. The subject of this play is the waning days of a falling salesman. If we talk about its setting, then we have to remember that it took place in late 1940s. And if we consider its place of happening, then it is Willy Loman's house in New York and Barnaby River of Boston.

The important characters of this play are- William 'willy' Loman, the protagonist and the most tragic character of the play; Linda Loman, Willy's wife; Biff Loman, Willy's elder son; Harold 'Happy' Loman, Willy's younger son; Charley, Willy's kind-hearted neighbour; Bernard, Charley's son; Uncle Ben, Willy's elder brother; The Woman etc. Willy calls the Woman "Miss Francis'' with whom he had a secret affair. And from all these characters, Willy's elder brother, Uncle Ben represents Willy's idea of American Dream.

John Gassner wrote about the drama that, "the ecstatic reception accorded "Death of a Salesman" has been reverberating for sometime wherever there is an ear for theatre, and it is undoubtedly the best American play since "A Streetcar Named Desire".  Eric Keown said that, "Death of a Salesman"  is a "potential tragedy deflected from it's true course by Marxist sympathies."