Opinion | The Tears at ‘Death of a Salesman’
Re “Why American Jews Still Weep for Willy Loman,” by Eric Alterman (Opinion visitor essay, April 18):
Mr. Alterman’s wonder at why he and his father cried at “Death of a Salesman” (which I have done over the decades that I have seen the play) only confirms my long-held belief: that it changes perspective depending on the age of the viewer.
Sitting in the audience might be a young person who wonders if this is the story of his father. What does he do for a living? Will he be able to support us?
Beside him, his middle-aged father wonders: Will this be my fate? Will I be able to keep my job? Am I a good father? And the grandfather whispers, “There but for the grace of God go I.”
No other play, in my opinion, has this ability to be read differently by different generations at the same time. Not Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen or Albee. And this is what makes “Death of a Salesman” timeless.
Mashey Bernstein
Santa Barbara, Calif.
To the Editor:
Surely you don’t have to be Jews to weep while watching “Death of a Salesman.” It’s enough to understand what propelled men like my father and two brothers to embrace salesmanship. Not just as a way to make a living but also — what Arthur Miller understood so well — as a way of life.
My father always told me, “Son, whatever you do in life, you have to sell yourself.” Which is why I never wanted to be a salesman.
But that conviction captures the existential nature of salesmanship: Every successful sale is an affirmation of self-worth. My elder brother especially relished the challenge of making a cold call (calling on someone who did not know him or the manufacturers he represented) and walking away having made a new customer.
The downside is that every failure can be interpreted as a failure of self. Isn’t that part of what eventually led Willy Loman to take his own life?
I have seen five Broadway productions of “Death of a Salesman,” and I know why I cried profusely every time.
Kenneth L. Woodward
Chicago
To the Editor:
Regardless of how Arthur Miller intended to portray Willy Loman in “Death of a Salesman,” over the years many ethnic groups have felt a connection with the doomed protagonist and his family. Such is the power of the play.
Years ago, I heard Miller speak at a Jewish community center in Manhattan. During the Q&A period, someone asked whether audiences should assume that the Lomans are Jewish. Miller said no — and noted with some amusement that when the play was staged in Boston, a local critic praised it as “an honest depiction of the Irish American experience.”
Philip Berroll
New York
A Remedy for Patients Who Use Chatbots
Re “As He Warned of AI’s Danger, His Father Turned to Chatbots” (entrance web page, April 16):
Joe Riley’s story is devastating. It can be not uncommon. We see variations of it each week in our clinics and in our inboxes, with sufferers utilizing AI to interpret signs, diagnoses and therapy choices.
Clinicians not often ask sufferers whether or not they’re utilizing chatbots to debate their medical circumstances. Without these conversations, we danger lacking a highly effective, typically invisible affect on affected person understanding.
We lately wrote the primary sensible information for clinicians on find out how to handle this. The strategy is easy: Ask instantly. How do you utilize chatbots? What medical subjects are you discussing with AI, and what’s it telling you? What adjustments have you ever made to your well being as a end result?
But this can not stay solely in a physician’s workplace. Families must be asking too. Not as surveillance however as dialog.
The aim is to not scare individuals off these instruments, as many are getting actual worth from them. The issues are isolation and silence. When a chatbot quietly turns into somebody’s most trusted adviser, and nobody in his or her life is aware of it, we lose the possibility to step in.
Ask the questions. Then hold asking.
Nina Vasan
Saneha Borisuth
Dr. Vasan is a psychiatrist and the director of Brainstorm: The Stanford Lab for Mental Health Innovation. Ms. Borisuth is a analysis fellow at Brainstorm and a international medication scholar at the University of Illinois College of Medicine.
