Arthur Miller said that his first title for “Death of a salesman” was “The inside of his head”. Why do you think Miller considered using this as a title and how can a production of the play convey to an audience that it is about Willy

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The Perse school for girls                                                                    English Literature          
Centre number: 22135                                                            Twentieth Century Drama                  

Michelle Cheung
November 2001                                                                

 

Arthur Miller said that his first title for “Death of a salesman” was “The inside of his head”. Why do you think Miller considered using this as a title and how can a production of the play convey to an audience that it is about Willy Loman’s way of mind.

“The image was of an enormous face the height of the proscenium arch which would appear and then open up, and we would see the inside of a man's head . . . it was conceived half in laughter, for the inside of his head was a mass of contradictions."
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 Arthur Miller

Miller of course, did not use this ‘arch’ in any way in his play, but he did use a number of things to show what was going on inside Willy Loman’s head. He not only showed the audience reality the way Willy Loman did, but at the same time show what was real. There are three levels of understanding: Willy’s perception of reality, Willy’s memories of his past, and the audience’s perception of reality in the present.

        Past and present are used to show the audience what Willy Loman’s past was like and how the present is linked to it. It can get quite confusing for the audience, especially those who had not read the play beforehand, as the present frequently switches into the past and vice versa. The present is shown as a realistic view of what is happening to Willy and his family. But the past is mainly shown as how Willy remembered it. He may have remembered it in a slightly different way to what it was like in reality, as he felt his past was all he had to cherish, the past was all the hope he had left, to him, everything else had seemed to whither away.

Onstage, unreality is shown using lighting, golden light is used on Willy’s figures of respect, such as Ben. The majority of the time Ben is onstage, Willy is just imagining it. It wasn’t even one of his memories from the past. Such as in Act two, towards the end of the play, Willy speaks to Ben about suicide. This never happened in the past.
         Willy’s disillusioned dreams of Biff and his success cause him mental traumas when he realises he has never achieved his dreams, his colleagues were no longer working and Willy Loman was no longer very well known in society at all. His salary is taken away, even after all the years he had been working for his company. He is no longer successful. This is first explained to the audience in Act one with Linda, Biff and Happy:
Linda:
He drives seven hundred miles, and when he gets there no one knows him anymore, no one welcomes him. And what goes through a man’s mind, driving seven hundred miles home without having earned a cent? 
Willy is getting old, and to him, life has already ended. All he has is his hopeful past to and his memories to hold dear. Willy is constantly in a world of his own. It is like we are taken back in time to share what Willy experienced. It explains why he is the way he is. Willy often reminisces about a certain time in the past when there is something in the present that reminded him of it. For example, when Biff comes home, he remembers when Biff was in high school, in the football team and being offered scholarships in universities for their sport teams. In this scene he is speaking to Bernard in the past:

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Willy (angrily): What’re you talking about? With scholarships to three universities they’re gonna flunk him?

Willy has this flashback the evening he comes home after almost crashing his car, when Biff has just come home (Act 1). He remembers Biff as he was in high school, full of hope and promise. He feels Biff is now completely lost, as explained to the audience in the beginning of the play in his conversation with Linda:
Linda:
He’s finding himself, Willy.
Willy:
Not finding yourself at the age of thirty-four is a disgrace!
Biff grew up trying to accept Willy’s values and ideas of how ...

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