Language

• Modern tragedies require modern language: In Death of a salesman, colloquial language is primarily used. The language, which is comparatively simple in comparison to the previously classic dramas, represents the working class of American society through the characters in this work. Just as the formal and structural set-up of the drama has loosened, there is also an opening on the linguistic level. In this way, a convergence of language and reality takes place
• Metaphors: Using this rhetorical device, Miller emphasizes facts, draws the reader's increased attention to the mentioned fact or topic, and manages to create an emotional connection between the speaker and the reader. Especially when the respective character is upset or agitated, metaphors come into play. An example of the stylistic device of metaphor is Linda's statement about her husband Willy to Biff when they talk on the phone: "he's only a little boat looking for a harbour" (p. 80, l. 23). With this statement, Linda wants to say that Willy, despite his idiosyncrasies, is just looking for recognition and should not be rejected by Biff. Even when Willy, on being fired, says to his supervisor Howard "You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit!" (p. 87, l. 22f), he uses a metaphor. The comparison to a peeled orange stems from the fact that after years of working for his company, Willy feels like he's just being thrown away now that he's become useless in the eyes of his boss due to his age
• Emotional language: The author portrays the use of emotion in the language of his characters particularly impressively in the figure of the protagonist. To emphasise states of mind such as excitement, tiredness or anger, he specifically uses linguistic means. On the one hand, Miller uses emotive expressions such as swearing to emphasise Willy's agitation, and on the other hand, he uses the stylistic device of repetition, which also indicates the protagonist's agitated state. An exemplary situation for this is when Willy learns from Bernard that Biff had failed his maths exam at school and therefore came to Boston to find him having an affair (p. 100f). Willy, completely unsettled and confused, repeats himself by responding to Bernard's narrative as follows: "Well, don't - don't talk to me that way!" (p. 101, l. 17). Likewise, Willy Loman repeats himself as an expression of his commotion when he talks to his wife Linda about their son Biff and also realises that he has a lifetime to pay off a house in which he never wanted to live. So he complains "The way they boxed us in here. Bricks and windows, windows and bricks." (p. 13, l. 19f). Finally, there are pauses Miller inserts into the text that are meant to illustrate Willy's inner disruption, melancholy and emotion. The stylistic device of the pause is particularly evident in the following example when Willy Loman remembers his former car, a Chevrolet. "I was thinking about the Chevvy. (Slight pause.) Nineteen twenty-eight... when I had that red Chevvy - (Breaks off .)"

Genre

• The Tragedy: This literary genre is a form of drama whose origins can be dated far back into Greek antiquity. Originally, tragedy was performed in ancient Greece in favour of the god Dionysus. Dionysus stood for fertility and at the same time for madness, which significantly shaped the character of the tragedy. In this form of drama, people placed themselves above God's laws and a so-called self-exaltation, also called hybris, took place. In the meantime, tragedy has changed over the centuries, but the existential questions following the controversies of humanity are still an integral part of this theatre form. The tragic aspect of a tragedy lies in the fact that the protagonist becomes more and more entangled in his predicament through a fatal and far-reaching mistake. It should be noted at this point that tragic should not be put on the same level as sad, but rather represents the protagonist's hopelessness out of his situation
• The educational mandate of a tragedy: The unhappy ending of a tragedy has the mission of disillusioning the audience. It forces the audience to deal in depth with the moral conflict of the play and thus with its existence as a moral authority. The structure of a tragedy corresponds to that of a classical drama: beginning with an exposition, the problem comes to a climax. After the action has reached its peak, a retarding moment occurs, which then leads to the catastrophe. On the one hand, there is mimesis, which stands for the imitation of human action and is enacted by the actors in classical drama. The merciless exposure of the dark sides of human existence through mimesis is intended to trigger eleos, pity, and phobos, horror, in the spectator. These reactions alone guarantee a catharsis, a purification of the audience's consciousness and soul
• Elements of tragedy in Death of a salesman: The story of the travelling salesman Willy Loman undoubtedly contains tragic features. The protagonist struggles for recognition in a society to whose ideals he has dedicated his life and which abandons him in return as soon as he has become "old and useless". By depicting how a man may pursue the American dream and yet fail miserably, Miller is fulfilling his mission as a writer to disillusion the audience with his tragedy. The hopelessness that is indispensable in a tragedy is expressed in Willy Loman's case in the struggle for recognition on the one hand and the striving for self-fulfilment on the other. He cannot achieve one without destroying the other. In the present tragedy, mimesis is not exercised by the tragic hero alone, but also by all the other characters in the work. Linda, for example, endures her husband's whims and thus represents the silent suffering, while Biff, torn between truth and lies, lives a life just like his father. These depicted character weaknesses evoke in the reader the feelings of eleos and phobos, which are necessary for the tragedy too. A catharsis happens as a clarification about following one's ideals and dreams rather than chasing a goal that does not suit one takes place

Setting

The locations in Death of a Salesman change mainly from Boston to New York. Boston has a negative connotation, as it is the place where Biff discovers that his father is cheating on his mother with another woman. For Biff, this incident is an experience that has a lasting effect on his opinion of his father. The Lomans' house is located in Brooklyn New York. The author uses the walls of the house to distinguish between Willy Loman's dream and awake states of mind. At the same time, the steadily growing skyscrapers around the Lomans' relatively small estate function as a symbol of the migration of time in America that has taken place since the Second World War.
The house was formerly surrounded by space, but an apartment block and other buildings now dominate it. The restaurant where Biff and Happy abandon their father, Howard’s office and the site of Willy’s grave in the requiem is mentioned as well.