Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller is a modern tragedy portraying the final days of Willy Loman’s life. Willy was once a well-liked salesman who could provide for his family. Sadly, as Willy is ageing, he is no longer able to make ends meet. Willy suffers from both depression and anxiety, the cause of which is his disintegrating career and his guilt of a past affair, which his eldest son, Biff, causing a great strain on their relationship. As the play advances, Willy becomes less able to differentiate between the present and the past.

The drama of the play is realistic when the action occurs in the present, but the drama becomes dreamlike when the action is in the past. This flashback technique is used as a tool to not only incorporate Willy’s deceased brother, Ben, whom he relies on for guidance, but also the past is used as a way fro the complexity of the play to be understood.

The plot of Death of a Salesman is complex due to its method of blending the past and the present as well as the fact that it is built on a foundation of lies, denial and deceit. Arthur Miller’s play takes places in an evening and the following day, yet it is still capable of depicting the present and roughly seventeen year prior to that, as well as reality and subjectivity.

While Biff and his younger brother Happy move back into their parents home, they both take the chance to express their disappointment in their failure to recognise their dreams and reminisce their youth. Only their