The play follows the family's attempts to make one last grab at The American Dream.įirst produced on Broadway in 1949 with Lee J. Biff is his equally washed-up son, once a high school sports hero with a bright future, now a perennially unemployed loser. Willy Loman is an aging, washed-up salesman obsessed with the concept of greatness and convinced that being liked and respected is the most important thing in life. In doing so, he wrote what is often considered the greatest American play.
Miller intended to write a play with said hero's shoes filled by an everyman. Once upon a time, playwright Arthur Miller set out to disprove one of the fundamental theories about the Tragic Hero - specifically, that they must be royalty, nobility, or some other type of great man who has far to fall and much to lose.
