THE PRICES WE PAID
Miller's Fixation on History

By Jacob Stoebel

A look at the relationship between Death of a Salesman (1949) and The Price (1968) through the lens of the history happening outside the characters' homes.

If there was one question our nation was collectively asking itself in 1968, it would have been "how did we get to where we are now?" If there were two, the second one would have been "where do we go from here?"

These questions blared through the amplifiers of our rock musicians, bellowed in the streets by people demanding equal rights, and whispered through the jungles of Vietnam.

Arthur Miller was as aware of these questions as anyone. Between 1949 and 1968, Miller faced the House Un-American Activities Committee, attended the Democratic National Convention of 1968, won the Pulitzer Prize and wrote six successful plays commenting on the state of our nation.

The relationship between these two eras emerges as a constant point of reference in Miller's work. A strong and interesting dialogue exists between these dates, serving as dates to compare, to contrast, and to see just how far America has come.

1949 and 1968 also mark the dates in which Death of a Salesman and The Price, respectively, were produced - two dates which, historically, stand at either end of a turbulent and transformative period for our country.

The earlier of the two plays, Death of a Salesman, comes from the milieu of optimism, success and materialism springing from post-war America while The Price, by contrast, was penned in an era of political and social upheaval, largely in response to the orthodoxy of the previous 20 years.

Yet, curious similarities exist between the two plays. Both are about broken dreams and notions of success, both are about the relationship between fathers and sons.

Perhaps most importantly, though, both take a critical eye to the past and future, from a personal view and, inferentially, from a very public view as well.

Named "an indelible part of the American landscape" by one British director, Death of a Salesman depicts the last 24 hours in the life of Willy Loman, the aspiring but never successful salesman, who lives a life obsessed with tomorrow and the perpetual dream that tomorrow will be better than today.

For Willy, as for all salesmen, everything centers on what is about to happen. The next town down the road, the next potential buyer. What happens today (failure, in particular) is unimportant, what happened yesterday is ancient history.

This constant recycling of hope was typical of post-war America, and Willy Loman's downfall begs the question: what roads are we heading down, and what will the future hold for us as a result of our legacy?

A large part of Willy's legacy is, of course, his two sons, Biff and Happy. Happy, the younger of the two, has found direction and purpose in his life. The elder son Biff, disillusioned from his father's self-denial, remains aimless.

Since the father-son relationship is essential in most of Miller's plays, it seems hardly an accident that The Price should also be about a father (now long dead) and his two sons.

These two sons, Victor and Walter, have reached their fifties (about the same age Happy and Biff would be in 1968), and, like Happy and Biff, have chosen two distinct pathways in life.

Victor, the devoted son to his broke and broken father, drops out of college as a young man to support his father through the Great Depression. Walter however leaves home to become a successful surgeon, hardly speaking to his family in the intervening years.

As the brothers meet for the first time in years in their father's old attic surrounded by relics of their past, they must, along with the rest of the country in 1968, confront their history, and ask what roads have gotten them to where they are now.

To be sure, calling The Price a "political play" in the traditional sense would be going too far. But this was, after all, the year of the Tet Offensive, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and countless protests for peace and civil rights worldwide.

To call any piece of art in 1968 completely non-political is to deny this history. 1968 was a time when the choices of the past (particularly those made in the era of Death of a Salesman and before) demanded evaluation. Miller himself writes of this need for affirmation in an op-ed piece in The New York Times:

The Price grew out of a need to reconfirm the power of the past, the seedbed of current reality, and the way to possibly reaffirm cause and effect in an insane world. It seemed to me that if, through the mists of denial, the bow of the ancient ship of reality could emerge, the spectacle might once again hold some beauty for an audience. If the play does not utter the word Vietnam, it speaks to a spirit of unearthing the real that seemed to have very nearly gone from our lives. ¹

While asking many questions, Miller offers our country no answers any more than telling us which of the two brothers is right.

Is the eternally devout Victor to be commended for the sacrifices made for his father, or was Walter the wise one to pursue ambition?

Is Victor's adherence to, and memory for, the past a necessary act, or is there such a thing as fixating too much on the past?

These are the questions laid before us, as individuals, as families, and as a nation.

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¹ Miller, Arthur. "The Past and its Power: Why I Wrote The Price." The New York Times. 14 December 1999.