Abstract:
Willy Lowman is the titular hero in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, that is, the very salesman. Willy is over sixty years old, and he works heart and soul for his company. However, he is fired by his boss, Howard. As Willy is unable to support his family, he chooses to commit suicide to get a sum of money especially for his son Biff so that Biff might start his business. This thesis aims to analyze the various causes of the tragedy of Willy chiefly from the social reasons such as imbalanced economic development, social inequality and the capitalism system could be the major contributing factors; family members, like his wife and his sons, can not understand him; and his own reasons, such as unfamiliarity with himself and the world, unrealistic and crazy dream etc. Thus, we conclude that the tragedy of Willy’s death is the tragedy of American society, the family tragedy and his personal character tragedy. The study, to some degree, can promote us to ponder on the fate of mankind, the value of life and the future of society in the hope of living a harmonious and decent life.

Key words: Death of a Salesman; Willy Lowman; the causes of death; tragedy

摘要：

威利•洛曼是阿瑟•米勒的作品《推销员之死》中的主人翁，他年过六十，为了公司呕心沥血，最后却被老板霍华德解雇。没有能力养家的他，选择自杀来给家人特别是给比夫一笔可观的保险金来创业。本论文旨在分析导致威利悲剧的各种原因，主要是从社会原因，例如诱发其发生的主要因素可能是不平衡的经济发展、社会的不平等以及资本主义体系等；家庭方面的原因可能是他的妻子和儿子不能够理解他；以及自身原因比如他缺乏对自身和世界的了解、不切实际的狂热的梦想等方面来分析，从而得出他的死亡悲剧是美国社会的悲剧，家庭的悲剧以及他的精神的悲剧。启迪人们对人生的价值、人类的命运和社会的前途予以关注和思索，以使人类走向和谐完美的世界。

关键词：《推销员之死》；威利•洛曼；死亡原因；悲剧

1 Introduction
1.1 The background of the Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller is one of the most influential playwrights of the 20th century. He has created plenty of works, for example, All my Sons, Death of a Salesman, Severe test, and Bridge Overlooking and so on. The Death of a Salesman is known as one of American’s most distinguished tragedies, which lays Miller’s status as American’s leading contemporary playwrights. This work depicts a salesman’s experiences in the last two days of his life. The series of setbacks make Willy’s mentality breakdown, and at last Willy kills himself. The depiction of Willy’s tragic fate reflects the lives of the general public, their condition and mental state, meanwhile brings a lot of influence to our Chinese society.