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Setting
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
Death of a Salesman is written in a simplistic style. The play departs from the elevated, conventional playwriting styles of the time to more faithfully capture the social status of its characters. Biff, Willy, and Happy routinely use slang and idioms to express their concerns and frustrations. Expressions such as “no kiddin’” or “whattya got, Dad?” powerfully evoke the sense of casual familiarity that defined parts of 20th-century America. The colloquialisms provide a homespun touch to the characters’ dialogue while expressing deeper class and cultural allegiances. By inhabiting their modes of speech, the play aligns itself with the lower middle class and gives voice to their struggles. Its attentiveness to the spoken language provides a striking portrait of the American common man.
Miller’s accessible style extends beyond the stage itself, where cues sketch out setting changes and character movements. Italicized stage directions—such as descriptions of Willy “carrying a flashlight, a hoe, and a handful of seed packets”—provide enough clarity for the reader to grasp immediate actions and gestures. Even detailed instructions about emotions, like Willy’s “apparent” exhaustion as he “crosses the stage to the doorway of the house,” make the characters’ emotions as transparent to the audience as possible. Death of a Salesman makes itself understandable even outside the context of live performance. The play’s straightforwardness allows readers to follow along with what happens in both speech and on stage.
