Willy Loman is a tired, pitiable, senile man, older than his 60 years. But in the canon of 20th century American drama, he’s the Alpha dog, the big man, the Steve McQueen. He’s become an iconic figure, like Icarus or Hamlet, and lots of people who have never seen Arthur Miller’s defining 1949 Pulitzer-and-Tony-Award-winning Death of a Salesman probably know that to say somebody is “Willy Lomanesque,” is to call him pathetic and defeated, the epitome of self-effacement-as-cowardice rather than generosity. more ›