English 12AP Lit
Spring 2017
Time and Expressionism in Arthur Miller’s The Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller once said in an interview, "The form of Death of a Salesman was an attempt, as much as anything else, to convey the bending of time. There're two or three sorts of time in that play. One is social time; one is psychic time, the way we remember things; and the third one is the sense of time created by the play and shared by the audience." Indeed, anyone who saw or read the play will be at first be confused about those complicated switches of present and past, but then amazed at how skillfully and logically the "crossing time" is arranged to reveal the inner world of the main character. In fact, Miller's secret trick is the use of Expressionism. The wonderful combination of expressionistic devices make the time disordered but intensive; make Willy's inner world exaggerated and fantastic but full of emotional impact.
The most obvious and extraordinary example is in Characters. Arthur Miller allows his characters to split into younger versions of themselves to represent Willy's memories. The Woman and Ben are also great expressionistic creations. Miller himself acknowledged that he purposely refused to give Ben any character,“because for Willy he has no character which is, psychologically, expressionist because so many memories come back with a simple tag on them: somebody represents a threat to you, or a promise.”
In addition, we can find that actually in the play’s references to music, setting, and lighting, there're still elements of Expressionism. From the stage directions, different characters have their own music, for instance, Willy's music is small and fine, represents the grass, trees, and horizon--these are objects of Willy's longing that are absent from the environment he's in now. Through this music we're given our first sense of Willy's estrangement not only from nature itself but from his own deepest nature. The flute is related to Willy's father, who made and sold them during the family's early wanderings. The father's theme, a high, rollicking tune, is different from the small and fine melody of the natural world that Willy seeks, for the father is a salesman as well as an explorer: he is the one that builds the conflicting values that are destroying Willy's life.
As to the setting part, in order to let the audience see the inside of Willy's head, which is a mass of contradictions, Miller designed a transparent setting. The transparent lines of the Loman house allow the audience physically to sense the city pressures that are surrounding and destroying Willy. About lighting, at the end of act I, Biff comes downstage into a golden pool of light as Willy recalls the day when Biff is going to the city baseball championship. The pool of light establishes and suggests how Willy has exaggerated the past, given it a mythological value.
Through these various expressionistic devices, we get to know Willy Loman's world where social and personal values encounter and struggle for integration; the full flow of inner and outer forces that are sucking at him. He may be a tragic hero, who has a great dream (as we acknowledged, the American dream) but fails because of the limitation in self-realization, personality, or improper education (tragic flaws). However, we can also view this tragedy as a result of the very real, competitive, capitalistic society that Willy lives in and that continues to this day. The death of a salesman represents, among other things, the death of the pure, idealistic, American dream.
Information used:
1. “An Interview with Arthur Miller,” Matthew C. Roudane [1985] (incomplete source!)
ASSIGNMENT: Review the events of Act One: consider both what and why each event happens.
List all of the scenes (events) in Act One; determine whether they occur in the past or present, in “psychic” time (imagined) or “social” time (real). If the events are inventions of Willy’s mind, what triggers the leap into his memory? What do these lapses into “psychic time” indicate about Willy, his relationship to others, and his tenuous ties to society and to time?