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    Death of a Salesman
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    Death of a Salesman
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    Death of a Salesman
    Audiobook (abridged)1 hour

    Death of a Salesman

    Written by Arthur Miller

    Narrated by Thomas Mitchell and Arthur Kennedy

    4/5

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    Unavailable in your country

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    About this audiobook

    Arthur Miller’s most famous play, Death of a Salesman, has become a key text in Western literature. This unusually powerful recording, made for radio in 1953, was directed by Elia Kazan who premiered the play. It features Thomas Mitchell and Arthur Kennedy as father and son. Willy, a travelling salesman, based in New York, relentlessly chases material success. As the disappointing nature of his reality crowds in upon him, Willy and his family suffer the tragic cost of his delusions of greatness. A domestic tragedy, a cynical indictment of materialism and the American Dream, and a profoundly moving story of one man’s struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of continual adversity – Miller’s play is essential listening.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateDec 1, 2009
    ISBN9789629548933
    Unavailable
    Death of a Salesman
    Author

    Arthur Miller

    Arthur Miller was born in New York City in 1915. After graduating from the University of Michigan, he began work with the Federal Theatre Project. His first Broadway hit was All My Sons, closely followed by Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and A View from the Bridge. His other writing includes Focus, a novel; The Misfits, first published as a short story, then as a cinema novel; In Russia, In the Country, Chinese Encounters (all in collaboration with his wife, photographer Inge Morath) and 'Salesman' in Beijing, non-fiction; and his autobiography, Timebends, published in 1987. Among his other plays are: Incident At Vichy, The Creation of the World and Other Business, The American Clock, The Last Yankee, and Resurrection Blues. His novella, Plain Girl, was published in 1995 and his second collection of short stories, Presence, in 2007. He died in February 2005 aged eighty-nine.

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    Reviews for Death of a Salesman

    4/5

    155 ratings58 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Death of a Salesman is about Willy Loman, a traveling salesman who has worked hard all his life to create a legacy of greatness for his sons to emulate and build upon. This greatness rests not so much on education or cultivated intelligence, but upon a man's innate charisma which Willy believes can be parlayed into networking skills and a successful career (which in turn is measured by who you know.) However, neither of Willy's sons have lived up to his expectations and so the foundation upon which Willy has built his legacy bears examination. The inspection reveals cracks in Willy's ethics and is the substance of this American Tragedy. The idea of a father's legacy to his sons, more specifically the idea of the father doing his best to do what is best for his sons, was introduced in the interview with Michael Hackett, the director of The Man Who Had All the Luck and is a dominant theme in Death of a Salesman.

      Whatever the original concept of Willy Loman's physicality was when Death of a Salesman was first written, the image has been "owned" by Lee J. Cobb since Cobb played Loman in the film adaptation in 1966. Since then, audiences expect a bear of a man, a brutish, forceful man to play the role; and if a director chooses to cast against the Cobb-type, criticism is sure to follow. In this regard, Stacy Keach does not disappoint. He is what the audiences want: a mans whose volume in voice is a measure of his will. Neither Keach or Jane Kaczmarck (as Linda Loman) are the most transparent of performers: Listeners will hear both of the actors before they hear the characters; but both actors deliver what the audience wants: assertive and emphatic performances.

      Redacted from the original blog review at dog eared copy, Death of a Salesman; 05/08/2012

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The fictional play about the Loman family who live in a house in Brooklyn. Willy and Linda have two sons named Biff and his younger brother Happy. Neither son is a real success in life yet, and Biff especially is not satisfied with his life. The play deals with Willy, a salesman, trying to achieve happiness and wanting his sons to make him proud and be successful. This slowly leads him to go crazy and end his own life. The story looks into the idea of the American dream and what it really is that brings happiness. Very good story and a very important play.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I have read this play twice: once when I was thirteen and again when I was a junior in high school as part of the required reading. As with most classic books, I didn't really like it the first time around. When I listened to the reactions and opinions of my classmates in high school, I realized that this was the common case. The biggest reason is that it is depressing. Teenagers already battle against hormones. They don't need to read tragic stories of suicide to top it.
      Honestly, Death of a Salesman should not be a mandatory reading for high school students, and parents, please do not force your children to read this simply for the sake of its literary value. Instead, have them watch it as a performance when they are old enough to really understand the meaning behind the tragedy. I will say that I saw the 1985 movie with Dustin Hoffman in class, and it was very well done.
      For students and simply anyone who wants to read this, I say go for it. If you like it, you do, if you don't like it, you don't. I'm just saying that I can't guarantee that everyone will enjoy it. It is, however, a very enduring story of the shadows cast by the American Dream and what it means to be successful.
      For anyone interested in theatre, this is a must read.
    • 4/5
      Willy Loman, the everyman antihero, goes crazy while everyone around him just sort of watches helplessly. Trapped in a world of his own mediocrity, forced to face the reality that he will never be anyone, even though he is sure he is a superior salesman to all those around him, he put all his dreams into his eldest son, Biff, and watched them turn to dust before his eyes. Now he is nearing the end of his career, and has no where left to go. Miller deftly crafts a tale of the ordinary and the familiar that is nevertheless able to hold interest. He creates characters so far from perfect you know they just must be real, and invites us to look closely into their ordinary life to see the seething disillusionment underneath. Truly a classic for the ages, it manages to speak to modern audiences in spite of being set in the trappings of its time.
    • 5/5
      Even more powerful as a script
    • 1/5
      I used my copy of this book to wedge up the corner of a bookcase, so it was useful, but I hated this book. Maybe I disliked it so much because it captures too well a side of apathetic, defeatist humans that I detest, but whatever the cause, I'd not recommend this book. There are too many other, better books to read to waste time on reading this one.
    • 5/5
      Never before had I listed to a play on cassette tapes, now I have. After reading the play itself, I could see just how intense everything was and I just had to hear it myself. It's an incredible play, if you ever get to see it in person, I envy you greatly!
    • 2/5
      I hate to sound juvenile, but this play is just plain depressing.
    • 3/5
      The dialogues are different from the original text, but the interpretation was great.
    • 4/5
      Although I didn't really enjoy the play because it was so depressing, it has a lot of strength. To see Dustin Hoffman play Willy Lomax is a great experience. This was written for Hoffman. He makes the story a real, personal, experience for the audience. It is so very, very excellent.
    • 4/5
      A painful examination of American life and the American dream.
    • 1/5
      A fairly uneventful play. I couldn't really sympathize with any of the characters because I didn't like them.
    • 5/5
      contemporary american literature on a par with ancient greek tragedy
    • 4/5
      “You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit.”Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman covers the last 24 hours of Willy Loman's life concluding with his suicide and subsequent funeral. The play looks at a man's inability to accept changes going on within himself and society. 15 years previously Willy had an affair which his eldest son, Biff, discovered. Miller uses this affair and its aftermath to show how one single event can define our lives. Biff had previously idolised Willy, believing him to be a model father and successful salesman, but after learning of the affair he loses his respect of Willy and his teachings. Willy has built a legend of myth about himself with his family. He fails to acknowledge the fact that he is only a moderately successful salesman rather than a great one as he would have everyone believe. Willy blocks out the memory of the affair and cannot understand why his relationship with Biff has changed. Willy wants Biff's affection but instead they all they do is argue. Linda, Willy's wife, is aware of Willy's habit for exaggeration but prefers not to challenge him even at the expense of their own sons. Happy, the couples youngest son, has followed in Willy's footsteps in that he too has created a more glamorous reality for himself, making himself out to be a bigger shot than he really is. As Willy grows older, he prefers to reminisce on past successes rather than look at his present failings, slowly the ability to distinguish fact from fantasy.Denial and betrayal are major themes throughout. Willy prefers to block out memories with his one lapse, the affair, rather than own up to it thus perpetuating the rift between himself and Biff. Willy prefers to fixate on the memory of Biff at college rather than see him as the man that he has grown in to. In doing so denying any responsibility for having any negative influence on his son's life choices. This denial leads into betrayal.Biff’s inability to succeed in business further estranges him from his father. Willy takes this as a personal affront believing it to be a betrayal of his ambitions for boy. When Willy finally thinks that Biff is on the verge of going something great in business Biff brutally shatters his illusions reinforcing Willy's belief that Biff's lack of ambition is due to malice and the notion that he, the great 'salesman', has failed to 'sell' the American Dream to his son. When Willy is fired by the company that had employed him for 36 years he only feels further betrayal. In contrast Biff feels that his father's years of ego massaging lies of successes that he never rally had is a betrayal towards him as well as his mother.This play still resonates with audiences and readers because it holds up a mirror to our own hopes and dreams in life. As we see Willy slowly degenerate as he struggles to cope with the changes going on around him so we are forced to question how decisions that we made many years previously can impact on our own hopes and ambitions of today. The ultimate message of this play should be to live for the moment and to appreciate what is right in front of us. First rate.
    • 4/5
      There are some Pulitzer Prize winning novels or plays that are difficult to understand how they garnered such attention and acclaim. Not so, with this drama by Arthur Miller. There are great depths of meaning composed within this drama. While often interpreted as speaking to the myth and oftentimes futility of the American dream, I think the drama speaks to so much more. The ghetto of one's own mind and thinking can become a very dark place. In the main character of Willy Loman, MIller illustrates how retreating into one's own mind can be a very limiting and treacherous existence. Loman has created for himself a world and an opinion of himself that does not exist. He is also stuck in the past, governed by illusions of the past that were inconsistent with reality. The whole of this family's existence was based upon the refusal to see life as it really was. They were content to live in deception, unwilling to face the world honestly. This unwillingness to embrace reality eventually led to Loman's demise, not able to see and be content with life as it really was. There are so many points that are borne out in this drama that one could concentrate upon. Since this is a short review, I do not have the time to dwell upon all of them. Two things, however, do come to mind and I will briefly point them out. One, as seen in the relationship between Loman and his son Biff, it is plainly obvious that one can not always live up to the expectations of others. By all accounts, Loman was a good father; Biff was a good son. Both had a respect and love for the other that fueled admiration, which, unfortunately, led to unrealistic expectations. Due to this, Biff was forever changed by the confrontation of his father's humanity. This destroyed Biff's belief in the goodness and immutability of his father, which ultimately colored Biff's world. Putting people on pedal-stools never ends well. Realizing that the people around us are human and capable of moral turpitude will go a long way towards warding off disillusionment. Second, the only successful character in the story is Uncle Ben. His "...when I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich." indicated that life requires risk. Being unwilling of taking such risk in life can be stifling. Loman remained in the confines of what he considered safe, and in the end, he led a very unfulfilling life. Not going with Ben, or taking the many chances he was offered to go to Alaska, was something Loman regretted his entire life. Lastly, Death of a Salesman possesses the quality that makes literature and the classics live. The ability to speak to multiple layers of life, remaining relevant in any age or climate, will sustain these as priceless treasures. This is a drama that I will read again and again. I can only hope that by listening to its message, I can avoid some of the pitfalls that made this drama tragic.
    • 4/5
      Death of a Salesman is a play that tells the story of a man named Willy Loman. Willy has been chasing after the American Dream his whole life, but has never been able to achieve it. However, Willy never loses faith in that one day either him or his two sons, named Biff and Happy, will achieve it. Willy often looks back on his life wishing he had done things differently, such as go to Africa with his brother Ben, which would've made him rich. Instead, Willy is stuck in a terrible life that is full of lies. One day, Willy is fired from his job, but he still believes that Biff will achieve the Dream by starting his own business with Happy. Instead, Biff fails at trying to work again, so Willy thinks he only has one choice. That choice is to kill himself, as he has been saving up money in life insurance and that with his death, his family will finally achieve the American Dream by getting the insurance money.
    • 4/5
      Had to do this for AS level coursework (I failed) but I enjoyed reading this play even though I don't really like plays!
    • 2/5
      Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller is a painful examination of the American Dream and how the pursuit of it can ultimately lead to destruction. Willy Loman, the destructively insecure protagonist, is a painfully ordinary man who makes several destructive choices and does not have a firm grip on life, frequently escaping into fantasy. His own sons conclude that Willy had the "wrong dream" and instead of being a travelling salesman, should have been a carpenter or a rustic worker. Instead his sons watch his dream and eventually his life fall apart.

      Written in a manner similar to stream-of-conscious, Miller often merges the present setting of the play with events in the past only Willy can see and interact with. This is often confusing as the action shifts into the past frequently during present scenes, which reflect Willy's deteriorating mental state.

      Overall then, this play does expose the emptiness of consumerism and the American Dream - pursuit of which can ruin lives physically and spiritually, yet in doing so Miller writes a deeply dark and depressing play that does little to inspire the reader, instead causing self-reflection on their own dreams.

      Goodreads does not allow half-stars but the actual rating is more akin to 2½ stars.
    • 5/5
      This book appeared in my wifes' library many years ago in school.It appeared in mine shortly before I was to be time in abundance when being run over by car.I work in retail and do more than my share. It has won me admirers and has been at the sacrifice of my marriage to some extent: mostly time! This was the easiest and hardest book to put down for me as it spoke to me personally about where my life could end up if I don't make better choices as to wher to spread the butter of my life. Thankyou Arthur=)
    • 4/5
      See Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross for a modern update to this classic.
    • 1/5
      I hate this entire time period of art, I get that they want to portray bleakness and whatever but why would I read a whole book to experience that when I already have depression and get to feel that 90% of my life. So I GUESS it achieves it's goal. But did I like it? F no. Get out of my life Arthur miller.
    • 4/5
      Willie Loman is a salesman. He travels more than he'd like. He doesn't do as well as he'd wish. He's generally disappointed with his life. When his sons visit for a few days, Willie slips into a reminiscent mode, in which he relives past events, and spends a lot of time talking with his recently deceased older brother.This concerns the Lomans, and they try to help. But at the same time, Willy's two sons learn a lot about their father from his flashbacks. Some things good, but other things bad.The play itself is masterfully written by Arthur Miller, playwright of other notable works, including The Crucible and All My Sons. Miller masterfully paints a picture of a salesman, down on his luck, dissatisfied with life, and at the end of his rope, resorting to crazy (both highly irrational and legitimately insane) means to cope with his wasted life.The play is both beautiful and tragic, wonderful and horrible, showing the dichotomy of visceral real life. Showing you a world that's too real, and too sad. Showing you a world that makes you glad it's not happening to you.If you enjoy dramatic writings, then you must read Death of a Salesman. If you read it in school and HATED it, then you MUST reread it. Don't worry about extracting and dissecting during your reading. Enjoy, let yourself get wrapped up in its words. But don't get in too deep. Be careful not to get in too deep.
    • 3/5



      Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman shows the American Dream in all its tawdry glory, but he does it in the most unsurprising way possible. I'm happy to give Miller his due: as times Death of a Salesman is highly affecting, and the play seems to capture an era of American life, but throughout it felt as though Miller was going after only low-hanging fruit.

      The characters of the play seem to be little more than an amalgam of flaws stretched into a family tree. From the first lines of the play the characters showcase their lack of foresight, inability to commit, quick temper, aimlessness, greed, tendency to overspend, selfishness, dishonesty, inflated sense of self-worth, unrealistic expectations, willful blindness, propensity to blame their problems on others, pride, etc. With all of these flaws it’s impossible not to see yourself in the characters at least a bit, as even the best of us has exhibited at least a couple of these flaws ourselves. I found, however, that having characters with so many flaws also limited my sympathy for them. There is only so long you can want to knock some sense into these characters before you just give up on them and watch the inevitable train wreck happen.

      And that train wreck is indeed inevitable; something that would become clear early on even if the play had a different title. Willy’s been bamboozled by the material American Dream of the 1940s, though him falling for it is as much his fault for never thinking about his life as it is the fault of the companies that run the biggest ads in the newspaper or the society that puts wealth on a pedestal (I never noted the play substantively addressing the idea that, as a salesman, Willy is complicit in selling this materialistic idea of life that he himself has fallen prey to). Willy seems like he might have been better off in another age (one where he didn’t have time to think as much), but I’m doubtful that a man who believes “connections” and “impressions” are everything and backs get-rich-quick schemes would do very well in any age. Nevertheless, despite his flaws and his complicity in his eventual fate, it's hard not to feel for Willy as he marches to the grave, being kicked by chance and circumstance and his own nature again and again.

      Death of a Salesman taps into the fear that your life won’t go the way you want it to, or the realization that it hasn’t gone as planned, which I imagine are almost universal feelings. Nevertheless, despite this universal core, there’s something very period specific about the play. The play is set during the time when apartment buildings are replacing yards, when cities are growing so big that a traveling salesman no longer knows the people he’s selling to, when it’s grown all but impossible to feel special any more instead of a dime a dozen. Loman, and Miller too, seems to look at the recent past with rose-tinted glasses, while criticizing the way in which the post-WWII America had become obsessed with material possessions, where you were stuck in a rat race to keep up your lifestyle instead of doing fulfilling work, where everyone was being reduced to something less than individuals. This disaffection with the age despite participation in it, with the veneer of comfort hiding withered and dissatisfied souls, seems to encapsulate the era (or at least I get the impression that it does, I wasn't around then so I can't say for sure), and that’s no mean feat.

      Still, centering the text on a salesman who has seen his life wasted in the rat race seems the most boring way to encapsulate 1940s and 50s America. It’s as if I wrote a book today about a late 20 something-early 30 something working for a tech startup or a large website like Google who is worried about terrorism and big data, and who feels like the world is getting to complicated to even understand, let alone change. Doesn’t that already sound incredibly cliché? The other books that have encapsulated periods of America, like The Great Gatsby and Moby Dick, do so much more than just choose the most obvious archetype of the time and make him live out the most obvious criticism of the zeitgeist. Compared to those works Death of a Salesman seems, well “lazy” is perhaps too strong a word, let’s go with “uninteresting.”

      Miller gets the responses he wants out of you with this play, but nevertheless fails to impress. It makes you feel, but more out of knee-jerk emotion than true sympathy. It shows you an era of American history, but it does so with an unimaginative plot and cast. It levels strong criticism against the world of its day, but it’s such a large target that the hit is rather unimpressive. It certainly has its place, but Death of a Salesman isn’t at the top of the pantheon of American literature.
    • 3/5
      Halfway through the first act, I wasn't impressed. But my friend Onnyx advised me to see it through to the end. Well worth it. The family dynamic is what most moved me, though it would be easy to see this as a commentary on the American Dream. The emotional involvement of the characters and the way that involvement drives their choices -- that is at the very heart of the play. Lovely.
    • 3/5
      3777. Death of a Salesman Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem, by Arthur Miller (read 29 July 2003) I ran across a 38-title list of "American Classics" and this was one of the 3 or 4 titles I had not read, so I decided to read it, though I must have seen the movie since the play is familiar. It seemed overblown, but I suppose that is to be expected when reading a work to be acted. It won the 1949 Pulitzer for drama, and is only the second such winner I have apparently read--the other being Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill which won the 1928 award and which I read 24 April 1949.
    • 4/5
      This book was given to me as a school assignment, to examine the American Dream! I finished it within hours of it being given to me.

      Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Happiness....

      Willy does just what that entails. He works himself to the bone to try to afford what he wants, and needs to survive. He is one of the many who does what he can, hoping to get a promotion, to support his family. It is a story most of us know very well.

      It is a great novel, I highly recommend it.
    • 5/5
      Technically a play, but also a very thin book. Interesting tones about the American Dream, consumerism, and family. I recommend it simply because you can read this in an afternoon. (Or watch it, I assume there's some good versions of the Play around).
    • 2/5
      I think I would’ve enjoyed seeing Death of a Salesman performed in person, rather than reading the script. This is supposed to be one of the best American plays ever written and my friend, Helen, assures me that seeing it onstage is a very different experience. {And, hopefully, one better than watching the movie.}My English class read the script aloud and I was disappointed. Helen and two other friends of mine cried at the end of the script, so I know I was supposed to sympathize with the characters. Yet, in order to sympathize with them I’d have to like them and that didn’t really happen. Willy refused to admit the truth, his sons were morons, and Linda was so utterly useless that I described her as “little more than a talking prop” to my English class. My teacher, and my friends, were not pleased with my declaration. “I don’t say he’s a great man. Willie Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall in his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.” {pg. 40}I understand the point of the play. I understand it’s supposed to make you feel sympathetic for the characters when they painfully become victims of the American Dreams. But I liked the idea more than the actual execution.Still, Death of a Salesman did make me feel as though I understand others better. I understood the family even when I didn’t like them or agree with them. “After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive.” {pg. 76}
    • 5/5
      Enjoyable and upsetting all rolled into one!
    • 5/5
      Depressing. Brilliant.