The Death of a Salesman Essay Topics: How to Write to Get Good Stories

The Death of the Salesman is a tragic story that covers a lot of aspects of American life. It reveals everything – from family to political relations. This tragedy worth to write an essay about it. And we will guide you here about the main points you should pay attention to.

Briefly about This Story

The Death of a Salesman was written by Arthur Miller and first published in 1949. This story is about an old salesman Willy Loman who had realized the idea of the American Dream in a way that is far from ordinary and ethical. This play covers Willy’s relation with his family and good acquaintances.

This story’s plot is full of tragic events and conflicts between Willy and his son and other people. Willy failed with his career and even committed suicide. This is not an easy play to read because it reveals hidden problems that stand behind the perfect images of happy social realization. It is about real things people need to face and overcome or fail and loose. 

The play has many aspects of speaking about. For sure, you will emphasize something is touching for you also. But, we want to draw your attention to the main lines this play has.

What Are the Main Themes This Story Has?

This story is rich for valuable topics. Actually, it covers the most important of them:

The American Dream

This topic is central here. All characters, more or less, are interested in pursuing this Dream. They look at it from various perspectives. The difference in which they treat this Dream may be interesting for your essay.

Family relations

Here we can focus on the conflict between Willy and Biff, his son. The last one was a promising guy who was able to pursue the desired American dream. But, he dropped his studies at school and rejected that idea. How the author develops family relations is very interesting and can be interpreted in a couple of ways. We suggest you look at them more precisely.

Politics

Here we face how does politics work at different levels. More emphasis is made on how corporate politics is realized. Who is responsible for someone’s failures more: intricate corporate rules or employees themselves? How do you think? 

Writing Tips

Read this play at least once if you have already decided to write an essay about it. During this writing, we suggest you make notes about the most important plot twists you have noticed. After that, we also suggest you reading various analytical resources about this play. Research how did other authors analyze certain aspects of this play. Perhaps, you have omitted something not very obvious for you at first glance. Take these opinions into consideration also. 

When you have your notes, pay attention to those aspects that interest you most in this play. They should serve as a basis for choosing a topic for your essay. We also have suggestions for topics later in this article. But, we strongly advise you to choose an aspect that touches you most of all.

After you have picked your topic, elaborate on ideas about it and list them freely on a separate paper. At this stage, only your considerations and emotions matter. Write about how do you assess each character, its actions, and the outcomes of such? What moves you in a certain aspect you analyze? Why do you think it is important? What valuable conclusions can you make from that?

Let’s say you already have your topic and a list of ideas. Write the main thesis statement about this play. It should be based on your opinion about this topic. Later, outline a future essay. Your thesis statement will be the first and major ones. After it, you should indicate all the valuable ideas you want to communicate to your readers. Form such as arguments, and don’t forget about referring to the text of a play where this is necessary. 

Your essay should have its introduction, the main body, and conclusion. We suggest you indicate a good hook based on your impressions and include here your thesis statement for your introduction. Pass gently to the main body of an essay. Here, you should devote 4-5 paragraphs to the equivalent number of ideas that expand your thesis statement. Keep it brief and add supporting quotes from the text. Also, you may refer to works of critics you rely on during your writing.

In conclusion, we suggest restating the main thesis and other supporting statements. Condense the essence of all previously developed content. And also think about a good hook. For instance, this may be a statement that leaves room for considerations for your future reviewers.

The style we suggest you apply should be reflective and neutral in tone as this is a tragedy. Indicate your opinion confidently and prefer active forms of words.

Our practice shows that a couple of writing attempts is always better for the result. For your first draft, apply the freewriting technique. Don’t take any notice of the length of your essay here. Later, you will condense statements to make them shorter and more meaningful. We suggest you edit your essay on your own and by using various editing online tools. Other tools will also help during your work – these are readability checkers.

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Suggested Topics for Your Essays

Of course, there are a lot of aspects of this play to speak about. But, we have prepared for you good suggestions about topics worthy to cover:

1. What personal role dreams have in this story?
2. Wrong vs good dreams
3. What is the meaning and significance of names in this play?
4. Gender relations in this play
5. Which type of relations you like most of all in this play?
6. What is your opinion about the American Dream?
7. The character and personality of Willy Loman?
8. The idea of money in The Death of a Salesman
9. What are the main Willy’s drawbacks that resulted in his failures?
10. What choices and actions Willy could make to succeed?
11. How does Willy’s inner world appear in this play?
12. Which symbols Miller uses in his play?
13. How do conflicts appear in this play?
14. Self-realization in the play The Death of a Salesman
15. Suffering from delusions 
16. Love and conflict between generations 
17. Making choices that contradict the generally accepted ones.
18. What is success according to this play?
19. What is the role of society and small groups according to this play?
20. How do you understand the title of this play?
21. Discuss your feelings about the final of this play
22. Write a review of this play
23. What about memories in this play?
24. Describe the most interesting character in this play for you?
25. How do you treat flashback scenes in this play?
26. What was the main Willy’s mistake about the American Dream?
27. Death theme in the play
28. Family problems in The Death of a Salesman
29. What alternative ways of behavior could ensure better outcomes of the story?

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Last Words

The Death of a Salesman is a tragic play by Arthur Miller, who masterly covers the most important aspects of American life – from family relations to social realization thanks to the so-called American Dream. This play is about the real-world problems that ordinary people face on their way to personal and social realization. The play is full of conflicts and has many interesting twists to write about. It also contains tragic events you may pay attention to and analyze why certain personal attitudes had not worked. Yes, this play is far from easy. But, you may always refer here again for extra help.