In Death of a Salesman, the family is both a refuge and a source of destruction. Arthur Miller shows how love, ambition, guilt and self-deception pass from one generation to the next. The tragedy of the Lomans begins when family affection becomes inseparable from professional success.
Why is family central to Death of a Salesman?
Arthur Miller places the Loman family at the centre of Death of a Salesman. However, the play is not simply a domestic drama about an unhappy father and his disappointed sons.
The family becomes a small-scale version of American society. Inside the Loman home, characters reproduce the same values that govern the business world: competition, popularity, financial success and fear of failure.
In his essay The Family in Modern Drama, Miller asks how a person may “make of the outside world a home”. The question defines Willy Loman’s deepest ambition.
Willy wants the impersonal world of commerce to behave like a loving family. He imagines that personal charm can transform customers into friends and employers into protective fathers.
At the same time, he brings commercial values into his own home. He evaluates Biff and Happy as if they were products whose value depended upon their marketability.
Consequently, the distinction between home and workplace collapses. Willy cannot create a home in the outside world because he has allowed the outside world to colonise his family.
