10.4.2

The Eco-Critical Reading

Test yourself

The Countryside

Death of a Salesman can be viewed as a pastoral text in that the conflict between city and countryside is one of its key themes.

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Country vs city

  • As is traditional in a pastoral text, the countryside is represented more positively as a place where the play’s characters can find happiness and fulfilment (or find themselves).
  • In contrast, the city is seen as a harsh and unforgiving environment.
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Music

  • The city/country opposition is set up at the very beginning of the play with the sound of a flute telling of “grass and trees and the horizon” as the lights turn up to reveal the oppressive New York cityscape surrounding the Loman household.
  • The contrast between sound and image symbolises the internal battle inside Willy between his love and appreciation of the great outdoors and his need to make his way in the city.
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The flute

  • That the flute is described as being “small and fine” may suggest that the natural world it represents is fragile, but its recurrence throughout the play (the flute is indeed the last thing an audience will hear) suggests that the appeal of the countryside and wilderness will persist.
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Language

  • The countryside is described in lyrical/poetic terms throughout the play.
  • The Lomans see the countryside as a place offering beauty and peace, a sanctuary from modern city-life.
  • At the beginning of the play, Willy’s anxieties are briefly soothed as he tells of the scenery on the road to New England: “the trees are so thick, and the sun is warm”.
  • This is later echoed by Biff’s account of the Texas springtime and the new colts on the ranch: “There’s nothing more inspiring or – beautiful…”
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Biff's conflict

  • Willy and Biff are both conflicted by their desire to prove themselves in the city and their urge to live by the labour of their own hands in the countryside.
  • Biff sums up this conflict to Happy: “To suffer fifty weeks of the year for the sake of a two-week vacation, when all you really desire is to be outdoors with your shirt off”.
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Willy's conflict

  • Willy’s earliest memory is of sitting under a wagon in South Dakota and he is inspired by the example (or myth) of his father as a pioneer who fearlessly rode off into the American frontier.
  • But Willy has spent the last twenty-five years paying off a mortgage in the city and Biff cannot escape the feeling that, by “playing around with horses”, he is “wasting” his life.

The City

Death of a Salesman can be viewed as a pastoral text in that the conflict between city and countryside is one of its key themes.

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Bringing the city to stage

  • The city is represented as oppressive and suffocating.
  • Stage designer Jo Mielziner’s transparent wall-lines meant that the audience could see the “hard towers of the apartment buildings” through the Loman’s roof, as if their house was under physical threat from the relentless expansion of the city.
  • The “angry glow of orange” also helps to create an atmosphere of threat.
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New York

  • New York is represented as a competitive, cut-throat environment throughout the play.
  • Biff complains of the monotony and pressure of city life (“And always to have to get ahead of the next fella”) and describes the city as a “nuthouse”, a metaphor which captures how the pressures of urban life affect so many of its residents psychologically.
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Competition and corruption

  • In the play’s final scene, Happy declares, “I’m staying right in this city, and I’m gonna beat this racket!”, again associating the city with competition and corruption.

The Garden

Miller uses the Loman back yard and garden as a key symbol in the play.

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The garden

  • The city is represented as suffocating and stunting the natural environment around it, represented by the way “nothing’ll grow” in the Loman’s garden.
  • The Loman’s back yard used to contain “two beautiful elm trees” and “lilacs and wisteria…peonies… daffodils”.
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Apocalyptic destruction

  • But in Willy’s words, developers have “massacred” the neighbourhood and, because of the expansion of tall city-blocks, “Not enough sun gets there. Nothing’ll grow any more”.
  • The imagery here is beginning to turn apocalyptic, as is Willy’s anguished cry that “The woods are burning!... There's a big blaze going on all around”.
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Imagery

  • Willy is in a fevered state on the two occasions he utters this line and his words defy a straightforward logical explanation.
  • But the imagery brings to mind man-made environmental destruction, in particular, the clearing of woodland to make way for the expansion of towns and cities.
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Dystopian vision

  • For this brief moment, Miller perhaps offers a dystopian vision of the future, with the natural world at risk from the encroachment of mankind.
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Symbolism

  • The garden acts as symbol on another level.
  • Just as urban expansion means that the Lomans “can’t raise a carrot in the backyard”, so Willy is unable to raise or nurture his sons so that both can flourish.
  • This helps to explain Willy’s feverish (and surreal) urge to plant seeds (in the dark) in the last moments of his life.

Jump to other topics

1Introduction

2Act One

3Act Two

4Extended Passage Analysis

5Character Profiles

6Key Themes

7Writing Techniques

8Historical Context

9Literary Context

10Critical Debates

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