A DISCOURSE STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ARTHUR MILLER'S DEATH OF A SALESMAN

Abstract

This study examines Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949) through a discourse-stylistic lens, integrating Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to explore how language constructs ideology, identity, power relations, and psychological instability in the Loman family. The approach highlights that the play's tragedy is not merely thematic but enacted through discourse patterns. Key linguistic features analyzed include fragmented discourse and temporal shifts (blurring past and present to reflect denial and instability), repetition (e.g., "well liked," "be liked and you will never want"), turn-taking and silence (revealing power struggles and gendered silencing), high-certainty modality (asserting capitalist certainties as universal truths), and lexical metaphors (mapping human worth onto economic terms like "worth," "stock," "sales"). SFL meta-functions (ideational, interpersonal, textual) provide micro-level tools for clause analysis, while CDA situates these in broader socio-ideological contexts, critiquing the American Dream, capitalist values, and patriarchal norms. Findings reveal how conversational structures, interruptions, and silences encode Willy Loman's ideological entrapment, mental fragmentation, and family power dynamics. The study demonstrates that Miller's conversational tone, colloquialisms, irony, flashbacks, and expressionistic elements reinforce these discourse strategies. Implications suggest discourse analysis enriches literary discourse by linking language to social critique, adding a linguistic-ideological dimension to existing scholarship on the play.