Death of a Salesman - Analysis

Movie Analysis Assignment (Management and Organization)

Death of a Salesman

1. Introduction

I was very happy to watch “Death of a Salesman” a second time, since the play itself was compulsory reading in my secondary school and beside of reading the play written by Arthur Miller in 1949, our class also watched the movie adaptation made in 1985. (Imdb, n.d.)

The aim of this paper is to provide a brief summary of the movie, to analyze it from various perspectives regarding personal beliefs, perceptions, values, personality, self-management and motivation, among others and last but not least, to draw a conclusion at the end.

The story is centered around the person of an old business man, Willy Loman and his family: his wife, Linda, and their two sons, Biff and Happy. Willy returns home after an unsuccessful business trip and at this early stage of the movie, the audience is made aware of the severe conflict between Willy and his sons, especially Biff since – despite of being grown-up man – neither of the children could live up to the expectations of their parents, especially Willy. Later in the movie, Willy has several flashbacks where he is shown talking to people from his past, for example, his rich brother, Ben, who has died several years ago and who is still greatly admired by Willy. The main character’s state of mind seems to be deteriorating as he realizes that his cherished hopes and dreams seem to be left unfulfilled. We get to know that Willy places great emphasis on characteristics like charisma and personality instead of sales, for example, contradicting the beliefs of his successful neighbor, Charley and his successful son, Bernard, a married lawyer. When being fired by his boss, Willy is not willing to listen to the failure of Biff, as well, whose business proposition was also turned down. As the movie progresses to its tragic end, Biff tries to convince Willy that he always had unrealistic dreams and that Biff is not meant to do anything great, either and he wishes his father accepted him for who he is and tells him, he loves him. Thinking that Biff has forgiven to his father for cheating on Linda several years ago – and therefore turning away of anything that his father meant to him, including business – Willy thinks that his son has forgiven him and kills himself in a car crash in order to provide his son with the life insurance money to start his own business.

2. Analysis

The movie greatly represents the American Dream according to which the government should protect each person's equal opportunity to pursue their own idea of happiness and to foster a society with no or few barriers in order to provide a better life for everyone. (Amadeo, 2017)

The main character, Willy holds great dreams and hopes throughout