Revenge
English Lit: AQA A Level Death of a Salesman, topic 9.2.6
Revenge
Revenge may not immediately seem relevant to Death of a Salesman but it does influence the motivations of some characters, Willy's sons especially.
Revenge Tragedy
- Revenge as a motivation for a character aiming to right a wrong has been an integral part of many tragedies since the early days of Greek drama.
- But Revenge Tragedy is a relatively modern term, used by 20th Century critics to refer to Elizabethan and Jacobean drama at the turn of the 16th century.
Christian societies
- Revenge tragedies explored the dilemma of characters driven to revenge in Christian societies which forbade it and how destructive the impulse to revenge could be.
Hidden motivations
- On first reading, the concept of revenge may not seem relevant to Death of a Salesman: Willy is not consumed by the need to destroy another.
- But it may be instructive to consider the motivations of his sons in the play.
Happy
- Happy’s compulsive womanising with the girlfriends and fiancées of the executives in his workplace is, in part, a form of revenge.
- Happy tells Biff, “I gotta show some of those pompous, self-important executives over there that Hap Loman can make the grade”, revealing his bitterness and his need to ‘win one over’ his superiors at work.
Biff
- Willy also fears that Biff’s lack of success has been a deliberate act of “spite” in order to pay him back for his affair in Boston: “you cut down your life for spite!”
- While the truth of this is never made clear, Willy’s accusation reveals his guilt, and perhaps his deepest fear.
Test yourself on Revenge
What does Willy fear has been a deliberate act of “spite”?