The competition Willy encounters is too tough for his modest talents the path he has chosen denies his true being at every step. 'We had the wrong dream,' says Biff', Willy Loman's son, and what Miller is saying in terms few can miss is that this wrong dream is one the greater part of America still cherishes. It is not a realistic portrait, it is a demonstration both of the facts and of their import.
Willy Loman is everybody's father, brother, uncle or friend, his family are our cousins 'Death Of A Salesman' is a documented history of our lives. The play has tremendous impact because it makes its audience recognize itself.
It was not unusual to hear of this person in the thirties, but in the theatre of the forties he has once more become the forgotten man. Attention!' The man his wife refers to is Willy Loman, the central figure of Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman.' Perhaps the chief virtue of the play is the attention that Miller makes us pay to the man and his problem, for the man represents the lower middle class, the $50-a-weekplus-commission citizen, whose dream is to live to a ripe old age doing a great volume of business over the telephone.
