The Critics
English Lit: AQA A Level Death of a Salesman, topic 10.5.2
Eric Bentley
For Eric Bentley, the play is not a satisfactory tragedy.
Lack of terror
- Bentley argues that, although audiences may feel “pity”, Willy is too lowly and pathetic a figure to inspire “terror”.
Lack of resolution
- Bentley also argued that the play never resolves the question of who is responsible for Willy’s death: is Willy the victim of his own tragic flaw or is he brought down by external (e.g. socio-economic) forces?
No man's land
- For Bentley, Miller’s play falls between two stools – the tragedy and the socio-political play – and, as a result, ends up being neither.
Harold Bloom
For Harold Bloom, the play is a tragedy “despite itself”.
Not a tragedy
- The play does not work as a tragedy in that Willy never achieves self-knowledge and the society of the play is not “cleansed” by Willy’s death.
A tragedy
- But Willy’s death leads to Biff’s path to self-knowledge, while also “releasing” Biff from following Willy’s destructive dream.
Stephen Barker
Stephen Barker sees the play as a Nietzschean tragedy.
Nietzsche
- The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) argued that human life was essentially meaningless and that “God is dead”.
- Nietzsche saw tragedy as an art-form allowing audiences to recognise this truth.
Lack of closure
- For Nietzsche, tragedy does not offer closure or understanding and Barker argues that Death of a Salesman conforms to this.
- Willy kills himself for nothing and that Linda is the key figure in the play’s closing Requiem in that she does not understand Willy’s final act: “Why did you do it?”
Lies
- Barker also sees the play as a Nietzschean tragedy in that it conforms to Nietzsche’s views that, as life was often unbearably cruel and painful, human beings essentially lie to each other in order to survive.
- For Barker, Willy has spent his life lying to himself about who he really is and the Requiem shows that Happy will continue to follow Willy’s delusions (“he had a good dream”).
Test yourself on The Critics
What question does Bentley say the play never answers?
Why does Harold Bloom say Death of a Salesman does NOT work as a tragedy?
According to Harold Bloom, who gains self-knowledge as a result of Willy's death?
How does Willy's death benefit Biff (according to Harold Bloom)?
Which of these are true of Friedrich Nietzsche?