Inevitability

• Inevitability

  A sense of inevitability and inability to escape fate is a common theme of tragedies and features heavily in Death of a Salesman.
• A classic theme

  • A sense of inevitability, of tragic heroes powerless to escape their fate, has been a feature of tragedy since the time of ancient Greek dramatists such as Aeschylus and Sophocles.
  • Tragedies often revolved around characters controlled by forces beyond their knowledge or understanding.
• Title

  • Miller creates a sense of inevitability from his title alone: audiences will witness the death of a salesman.
  • Willy Loman’s fate is known before the drama even begins.
• Foreshadowing

  • Miller also uses the technique of foreshadowing early in the play.
  • Willy tells Linda, “I’m tired to the death”, reinforcing the sense that Willy’s demise is fast approaching.
• Fate

  • Act One ends with a similar reminder of Willy’s inevitable fate.
  • As Willy dreams of Biff’s future success (“he’ll be great yet”), the gas heater, behind which Willy has hidden some rubber tubing, begins to “glow”.
  • The audience are reminded, just as Willy has begun to hope again, that he is set on the path to self-destruction.