Selling or Being Sold? A Reading of Willy Loman of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman from a Buddhist Standpoint

1. K.G.Swarnananda,
Lecturer, English Language Teaching Unit,
Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka.
Selling or Being Sold?
A Reading of Willy Loman of Arthur Miller’s Death of a
Salesman from a Buddhist Standpoint

2. Buddhist Point of View
W!fKdaf,dafldaw;s;af;dalreKdodfida
W!Kdjmq;ajdkúm;a;sfoayx
rÜGmd,iQ;%h
Man is always in need of something, dissatisfied and
lives as a slave to the crave
And subsequently dies under the same circumstances

3. Criticism of consumer society and capitalism
Everything has a price, everybody has a price and Everything
and everybody is sold one way or the other

4. Other related issues that motivated Arthur
Miller
 Failure of American Dream
 Being fed up with the situation created after
industrial revolution
 Impact of second world war
 Futility of the concept “ Time is money”

5. Buddhism is very much sought after in
America now
 Richard Gyre
 Tina turner
 Steve Jobs
 Madonna
 Bill Clinton

6. Drama which came up with the pioneer plays
 Caucasian Chalk Circle ( 1945)
 Death of a salesman (1949)
 Waiting for Godot (1953)

7. Willy Loman’s tragedy
 Became a “salesman” seeing Dave Singleman
Victim of consumer society

8. Common tragedy
“I don’t say he’s a great man... His name was
never in the paper... But he’s a human being, and
a terrible thing is happening to him. He’s not to
be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog.
Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a
person‘......’’44
Linda Loman

9. And he’s exhausted. Instead of walking he talks
now. And what goes through a man’s mind,
driving seven hundred miles home without
having earned a cent. P 45
Linda Loman

10. How a “price” of a man fluctuates
I.“The kids are all grown up I don’t need much any more
if I could take 65 dollars a week, I could swing it,” P 62
Willy Loman

11. II. “Howard, all I need to set my table is 50 dollars a week.’’
P 62
III. “If I had forty dollars a week – that’s all I’d need. 40
dollars, Howard.’’
Howard replies
“Kid, I can’t take blood from a stone.’’
P 64

12. “I put thirty-four years into this firm, Howard and
now I can’t pay my insurance ! You can’t eat the
orange and throw the peel away – a man is not a
piece of fruit.’’
P 64
Willy Loman

13. Buddhism does not just identify suffering (Dukka) and
teach people to face it
It also teaches people how to overcome suffering

14. Reference :
“Death of a Salesman’’
Arthur Miller
Penguin Twentieth – Century Classics
Penguin Books, London, England 1949

15. Thank you !
Questions & comments are
most welcome !!