Absurd Drama and Death of Salesman by Arthur Miller
Absurd Drama and Death of Salesman by Arthur Miller
Human beings have been seen as lonely creatures in a strange world
with no truth value or meaning. This is an aspect of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert
Camus existential philosophy.Absurd Drama and Death of Salesman by Arthur Miller
In the theatre, the existentialists set the people in abnormal
surroundings and put the dramatist in a new context, this is according to
Sartre’s works. For Camus, the absurd is the true state of existence (Marinaro,
2007: 2). Arthur Miller, (1915-2005) was one of the most famed writers of the
absurd, has a developed social mind comes as a result of his experience.
He expresses this experience in form of drama and other literary
fields. Miller is considered an author who is influenced by the context of
modern times. In his drama Death of Salesman, he rejected some of the old
traditions and changed them with modern concepts.
The hero is presented to be a lasting element, he suffers and the
audience learns from his suffering. Miller explores in his writing the
existential theme of isolation and alienation.
Willy Lowman, in Death of a salesman, is a man who is alienated
and lives in isolation and the isolation is what drove him to his suicide. He
is the perfect example of a man alienated by a society that is controlled by
money and power. Further, "he had the wrong dream. All, all wrong...He
never knew who he was"(Act II: 103). Willy Loman is a man trying to
realize the American Dream. However, his failure to achieve it lies in his
inability to waver from his belief in its promises (Dennehy, Higgins, 2005: 1).
The phrase ‘Absurd Drama’ was coined by Martin Esslin’s book ‘The
Theatre of Absurd’. The term is useful as “A device to make certain fundamental
traits which seem to be present in the works of several dramatists accessible
to the discussion by tracing the features they have in common.” By ‘Absurd’,
Camus meant a life lived solely in a universe that no longer made sense because
there was no God to resolve the contradictions. According to this philosophy
that Beckett created his famous play ‘Waiting for Godot’. Miller mentions in this
drama the belief in God who punishes man for his mistakes.
The characters in the absurd drama are distinguished by their
vagueness and presented as puppets to convey the theme. The absurd drama theme
touches the deep level of the audience's minds. It guides the audience to get a
sense of non-sense, to be aware of the events, and to get fun with absurdity
(Hussain, 2012:1). Eradam (1978:17) describes the Theatre of the Absurd as
representing the sense of the senselessness of the human life and inaccuracy of
the mental image for the concrete image as emerging poetic language from these
images.
The Theatre of the Absurd is a reaction to the lack of faith in
contemporary life and an attempt to emphasize beauty and purity by guiding man
to face the ultimate realities in his life. The Absurd Theatre leads the man to
new life by waking him up to avoid the existence that has become silly,
mechanical, and imperious.
The absurd drama aims to change the surrounded world further from
the limits of human abilities. It leads man far from static life to a new
innovative form of life (Tiwari, 2012: 2). According to Zhu (2013: 1466), the
absurd drama is a reflection of suffering, cruelty, and danger in real life.
This reflection forms an atmosphere of the devaluation of life in modern
society and losing an identity in it. The human being in modern society feels
lonely, frightened, and despairing. Therefore, emptiness becomes the true
essence of their daily lives, and their minds are full of Isolation and
absurdity.
Modern society produces the
Theater of the Absurd to reflect the people's ignorance of the real meaning and
destination of their lives. They feel lonely and helpless because they suffered
little care or concern. Theater of the Absurd is unique in its ability to express
the original and true features of this society. Existentialism is the
philosophy that comes up in Paris during the rise of the Theatre of the Absurd.
Therefore, they are associated with each other. This association
was represented by calling the Theatre of the Absurd Existentialist theatre by
Esslin. The Existentialist philosopher, Albert Camus, advocates the concept of
"absurdism". Absurdism is called Existentialist in Franz Kafka's work
which labels absurdism as Existentialist (Tiwari, 2012: 2).
The absurd drama is defined as: "Lyrical theatre which uses
abstract scenic effects, many of which have been taken over and modified from
the popular theatre arts: mime, ballet, acrobatics, conjuring, music-hall
clowning" (Tiwari, 2012: 5). Stone (2017: 3) also narrates that Willy
Loman is the protagonist of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman play. He is the
main unforgettable character who’s lost his popularity and sales.
A tragedy depicts the downfall of the protagonist in which a
tragic hero is a person of some status who falls from his or her noble position
throughout the events. However, the tragedy of Willy Loman is not represented
in his falling from any noble status because he is only an ordinary salesman,
Willy Loman is, an American modern man who fulfills the drama of America.
Arthur Miller chooses the salesman as a character for "the death of a
salesman" play to cover some aspects of American society.
The salesman in this society works for a brighter future. Willy
Loman considers a successful life as a matter of another opinion in him. His
being well-liked by people, his belief that he is in the right place in life
and his attractiveness makes him successful. However, these illusions are
destroyed by the pressure of reality.
Success in life comes from the person himself rather than seeking
it through others' opinions, the identity crisis is the tragedy of Willy Loman.
It is a social play, which focuses on the consequence of man's evaluate
himself, and an exploration of the betrayal of those values. It is a faith in
the supremacy of the material over the spirit. Flashback is the core of the
play, most of the events are not related to the current setting. Willy goes
back with his memories to the times that his two sons were younger. He
remembers them when Biff and Happy were in high school. However, they are in
their thirties at the time of the play.
Miller uses different literary devices to provide hints and clues
about what will occur in the future. Miller puts Willy Loman on the stage and
once carry him back to his memories and other time open his mind to the future.
Willy's wife Linda tells Biff and Happy about Willy's many automobile
accidents. These accidents give hints about Willy Loman's suicide because a
witness says that Willy intentionally drove towards the bridge.
We can say that the dominant, main theme is that Willy's distorted
idea of the American dream brings about his demise. Success can be realistic
with the American dream and determination. Loman believes that success is the
result of being social human, so he transfers this idea to his sons Charley and
Bernard, and there wear able to achieve success through determination. Willy
Loman was the hero that he did not come to understand himself or make the
correct decisions in the end.
He was willful about his deep beliefs, against the truth which was
in front of his face, and his competitive sense of arrogance and jealousy
prevented him from leading his life correctly. He did not at all achieve what
he wanted to, he attempted to live through his sons, but he was disappointed
again when they did achieve their aims, he did not accept that it was his. In
the end, Willy reached grief or depression, so committed suicide.
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