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Women in Arthur Miller‟Sall My Sons and Death of a Salesman Ms JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755 Women in Arthur Miller‟sAll my Sons and Death of a Salesman Ms. Sonia Chahal Department of English (Asst. Prof.) G.K.S.M. Govt. College,TandaUrmar, Punjab, India Email: [email protected] Mobile: 9855578798 Abstract-The world of Arthur Miller, one of the most significant American playwrights, is not known for its pictures of impressive women. The centre of action in most of Miller‟s plays is family. However, mother is not necessarily the pivot in the families of Miller. Kate Keller and Linda Loman, the two mothers in Arthur Miller‟s most popular plays All my Sons(1947) and Death of a Salesman(1950) are in no ways memorable characters. Rather, the father-son relationship is at the heart of both the plays. In spite of their love and devotion for their families, both Kate and Linda prove to be ineffectual characters. Miller‟s projection of their characters stands counter to the American social trend of giving more and more freedom and equality to women. However, we must remember that Arthur Miller lived in the America of post-World War II era. In that period of time, the role of women was limited to the traditional one of a housekeeper alone. This reality of American society explains the female characters of his play. Even Sue Bayliss and Lydia Lubey in All my Sons, who belong to the younger generation, are essentially homemakers. Ann Deeveris the only female character in both the plays who is a woman of substance and stands apart from the rest of them. Barring her, men occupy the primary and all-important place in Miller‟s world. Keywords: American society, passive, traditional, housekeeping, submissive. Full Paper Arthur Miller, one of the most significant American playwrights, is known for taking up in his plays serious issues confronting the American society. His plays, invariably reflect his moral, social and political concerns. The central theme of one of his earlier plays All my Sons(1947) is a businessman‟s evasion of responsibility for a decision in wartime which led to the loss of twenty-one lives. Willy Loman of Death of a Salesman(1950) is a victim of the American dream of success. However, the world of Miller is not known for its pictures of impressive women. Both the plays have women characters who appear to be neither extraordinary nor memorable. They do not influence the action in any significant way and one might go as far as to say that they can even be dispensed with, without doing any serious damage to the play. It is surprising that Miller, who is otherwise known for his complex characters, chose to create such insipid, flat and wishy-washy female characters. Though Miller‟s plays are never devoid of a social context, the centre of action in most of the plays is the family. However, mother is not necessarily the pivot in the families of Miller. Rather, the father is the unquestioned head of the unit. He wields absolute authority and power over his family. Joe Keller and Willy Loman are the typical patriarchs in their respective families. During the time of war, Keller had a contract for the manufacture of airplane cylinder heads, a batch of which developed manufacturing defect. Instead of trashing Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 699 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755 those defective pieces, Joe Keller told his partner, Steve Deever on the telephone “to weld, cover up the cracks in any way he could, and ship them out.”1 He compounded his crime furtherby skilfully shifting the blame onto his partner, Steve Deever and escaped the law. However, Keller family was not able to escape the brunt of the tragedy of war entirely. His younger son Larry, a fighter pilot, died in an air crash during the war. As the play opens, we see that Joe‟s dreams are now centred around his elder son, Chris. He tells Chris, “I‟m going to build you a house, stone with a driveway from the road. I want you to spread out, Chris, I want you to use what I made for you.” (p.39) Willy Loman, similarly is immensely proud of his elder son, Biff from whom he has high hopes. As Biff has distinguished himself as a good footballer very early in life, Willy tells his brother Ben, “Without a penny to his name, three great universities are begging for him, and from there the sky is the limit.” (2) In both the plays, the sons have great affection and respect for their fathers. Chris‟ admiration for his father is apparent from what he says to Ann, about Joe, “Isn‟t he a great guy?” (p.34)Biff idolizes his father so much that when he flunks mathematics in school, he travels all the way to Boston to meet his father. He thinks that only Willy can prevail upon the mathematics teacher to consider his case. In both the plays, the father figures exercise great authority and power over their sons. Joe Keller, for instance, does not let Chris leave the family business. Willy Loman has a hand in spoiling his son. Far from reprimanding him for stealing a football from the school locker- room, Willy almost expresses his approval of Biff‟s action by telling him that the “coach probably congratulate you on your initiative.”(p.63) Thus, brought up, Biff wanders from place to place, takes up job after job, but fails to make good. Both the father-figures are shown as moral miscreants. The moral misdeeds of both Joe Keller and Willy Loman become the cause of conflict between the father and the son in both the plays. Joe Keller is a criminal while Willy Loman is an adulterer. It is the knowledge of his father‟s complicity in the misdeed of shipping out defective cylinder heads to the army that brings about a serious upheaval in the life of Chris Keller. Life will never be the same for Chris as is clear from his outburst, “I know you‟re no worse than most men but I thought you were better. I never saw you as my father. (Almost breaking) I can‟t look at you this way. I can‟t look at myself.”(p.87) He has decided to leave his family and home for good. The discovery is unbearably shocking for Chris, since he has always been an idealist. He simply cannot fathom how his father could have thought about business at a time when so many young boys were making the supreme sacrifice for their motherland. He cries out in anguish, “You are not even an animal, what animal kills his own, what are you?”(p.76) Biff Loman is similarly shaken to the core, at the discovery of his father‟s adultery. It is all the more devastating for him because he chances upon its shocking discovery while he is still in his formative years. After failing in Mathematics, Biff follows his salesman father Willy to Boston. There, he sees a strange woman in his father‟s hotel room. This affects the young Biff deeply. All the pleadings by Willy fall on deaf ears. Biff leaves the room after telling his father: “Don‟t touch me, you ---liar! You fake! You phoney little fake! You fake!”(p.138) The sexual aberration on the part of his father spells doom for the life and career of young Biff. He never completes his graduation. He throws away his chance to reappear in the examination and thus ruins his life. As Willy tells Bernard, his neighbour‟s son later in the play, “He flunked the subject, and laid down and died like a hammer hit him.”(p.115) Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 700 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755 The father-son conflict is at the heart of both the plays. The conflict ends with the suicides of both Joe Keller and Willy Loman. The salvation of both the sons, in a way,comes at the hands of their fathers only. Though he is greatly pained at the death of his father, we know that Chris will be able to begin his life anew as his father has atoned for his sin by paying with his life. He will do as told by his mother, Kate, “Don‟t dear. Don‟t take it on yourself. Forget now. Live.”(p.90) In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman takes his own life so that his family may get twenty thousand dollars as insurance money. The death of his father brings Biff Loman face-to-face with his own reality as well as that of his father. It is as if through the tragedy of his father that Biff comes to an understanding of his self and where he stands in terms of talent and capability in the world of intense competition. The realization and acceptance that he is “a dime a dozen”(p.148) is complete now. When the play ends, Biff is ready to leave once again for his wanderings. But he has overcome his restlessness. He has cast off his illusions that he is someone special and has no false self-image now. Both Chris and Biff attain a high level of self-reconciliation as a consequence of being involved in and watching the tragedy of their fathers closely from a vantage point. If the discovery of the ethical misconduct of both the fathers had wrought havoc and devastation in the lives of both the sons, the deaths of their fathers fill the sons with a strange calm and acceptance.
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