Death of a Sales Man by Arthur Miller is one of Those prominent plays That won a Pulitzer Prize.The drama depicts the Life Span of an American Middle Class Family in pursuit of the Fantastic American Dream. Here I want to test the drama from several schools of literary thought.
Existentialism
The protagonist Willy Lowman is contrasted to Albert Camus' Myth of this Sisyphus at which the Gods torture Sisyphus by making him roll a boulder all the way uphill to discover it rolls again. Willy Lowman is made to perform a menial job to get a selling firm. The tragic hero of this play is a individual in pursuit of the excellent American dream but neglects to reach and succumbs to suicide. Looking at him out of Sartre's existential perspective, we find him that a bearer of existential angst. Billy's character shows an overarching narcissism.
Marxian Perspective
Taking a look at the drama in the Marxian perspective we discover that the drama is littered with oppressive indicators of a leviathan, revealing that the perils of a capitalist society. The proletariats are fighting workaholics. We locate a society that's inhuman and dehumanizing.
Psychoanalysis
I'd love to present the Lacanian idea of the mirror point. The mirror point in psychoanalysis is a point where the kid enters the kingdom of speech and becomes itself, a topic. The mirror stage is a stadium where Billy's psyche conflicts with all the dreams and intentions set with him. The mirror becomes an absurd theatre of life. I would also like to make a contrast of Billy Lowman using Cervantes' Don Quixote. The follies of Don Quixote at a time period were denigrated as an idiot's conquest for utopia. Don Quixote at psychoanalysis could be regarded as a narcissistic enthusiast who generates the fantasy of existential anarchic living.Billy Lowman is a dreadful, stoic hero who becomes a king of neurotic behaviour.
Feminism
Billy's wife Linda Lowman is a character of the sacred female. She could be compared to your mother Goddess who attempts to equilibrium with all the realities of existence and that tries to cope up with Billy's dementia. She's an archetype of a traditional American middleclass girl who attempts to cope up with all the realities of existence.
Postmodernism and Post structuralism
Postmodern viewpoints examine the way binary divide is made in speech. Particular structures are privileged signifiers as well as many others are marginalized. At Death of a Salesman we locate the bourgeoisie to become jobless signifiers in which as Billy Lowman and the proletariats are marginalized. Capitalism as well as the bourgeoisie become structures which may be read as examples of interpretative deconstruction.