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Arthur Miller\'s Death of a Salesman stems from both Arthur Miller\'s personal experiences and the theatrical traditions in which the playwright was schooled. The play recalls the traditions of jewish theater that focus on family as the crucial element, reducing most aspects of the play to a family level. This is particularly evident in the family structure within the play, concerning two sons estranged from their father. This has parallels to another one of Miller\'s major works, "All My Sons", which premiered two years before Death of a Salesman.
Although the play premiered in 1949, Miller began writing Death of a Salesman at the age of seventeen when he was working for his father\'s company. In its short story form, it concerned an aging salesman who cannot sell anything, is berated by company bosses and must borrow subway change from the young narrator. The end of the manuscript contains a postscript that the salesman on which the story is based had thrown himself under a subway train.
Arthur Miller reworked the play in 1947 upon a meeting with his uncle, Manny Newman, a salesman who was a competitor at all times, even with his sons, Buddy and Abby. Miller described the Newman household as one in which one could not lose hope, and based the Loman household and structure on his uncle and cousins. There are numerous parallels between Abby and Buddy Newman and their fictional counterparts, Happy and Biff Loman: Buddy, like Biff, was a renowned high school athlete who failed high school. Miller\'s relationship to his cousins parallels that between the Lomans and their neighbor, Bernard.
The play was a resounding success, winning the Pulitzer Prize, as well as the Tony Award for Best Play. The Since then, the play has been revived numerous times on Broadway and reinterpreted in stage and television versions. As an archetypal character representing the failed American dream, Willy Loman has been interpreted by diverse actors.
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