The Price by Arthur Miller

First published: 1968

First produced: 1968, at the Morosco Theatre, New York City

Type of plot: Melodrama

Time of work: The 1960’s

Locale: A brownstone in Manhattan, New York

Principal Characters:

• Victor Franz, a middle-aged police sergeant
• Esther Franz, his wife
• Gregory Solomon, an eighty-nine-year-old furniture dealer
• Walter Franz, Victor’s brother, a successful surgeon

The Play

The Price begins with Victor Franz’s entrance into a room crowded with old furniture that is ugly but impressive. A nice-looking uniformed police sergeant, Victor steps meditatively, gazing at his deceased parents’ furniture; various pieces attract him, before the phonograph draws him and he puts on a “laughing record.” Two comedians’ attempts to utter a sentence are interrupted by gales of laughter, and Victor himself chuckles and then begins to laugh hard.

Esther, his wife, enters, hears the laughter, and thinks that a party is occurring, and Victor worries that she has been drinking. While both wait for a furniture dealer, Victor tells her about his brother’s refusal to take his calls regarding the furniture sale, and Esther cautions him to bargain with the appraiser. Money and class are important to Esther; she is upset about going to a film with Victor in uniform rather than a suit. Victor wonders whether the cause of her unhappiness is the departure of their son, Richard, to college. Esther does not deny this possible cause, but additional matters bother her, such as the absence of communication between Victor and his brother, Walter, and, more important, Victor’s failure to retire from the force, return to college, and pursue the scientific career he had desired as a young man. Victor’s indecision bewilders Esther, who all but calls him a failure. Before going to pick up his suit at the cleaners, however, she tries to cheer her husband by asking to see a fencing move (she has noticed his foil and mask).

As Victor playfully lunges at Esther with the foil, the furniture dealer, Gregory Solomon, enters. The courtly Russian Jew is nearly ninety and walks with a cane but is straight backed. To show her confidence in Victor, whose feelings she has hurt, Esther goes to pick up his suit and leaves the men to bargain. Solomon is pleased by the harp and several other pieces and would like to purchase them individually, but Victor insists that everything must be sold because the building is scheduled for demolition.

Believing that no deal can be made without trust, Solomon tries to win Victor’s confidence, telling him stories about his varied past. Victor is suspicious and impatient, wanting only a price, and the old man is so upset that he rises to leave several times. Victor, Solomon says, must have used an old telephone book to contact him, since he had cleaned out his store two years earlier. Having overcome his fear that he will not live to finish selling the furniture, Solomon determines to make an offer, for he misses the work. As Solomon questions Victor about his family, while examining the furniture, both men perceive the difference between Solomon and Victor’s father—the furniture dealer is resilient, while Mr. Franz was not. As Solomon remembers his family, he reflects on the indeterminacy of one’s motives for past choices. Victor agrees, saying that he can no longer understand his motive to support his father and join the police force during the Depression, denying himself and his wife, while his brother, who was successful, sent only five dollars a month. As the eleven-hundred-dollar price is determined and Solomon begins to pay Victor, Walter appears unexpectedly, and the deal is suspended as act 1 ends.

Arthur Miller did not want The Price broken by an intermission, so the handshake closing act 1 is completed in act 2. After polite queries about each other’s families, Victor tells Walter about Solomon’s offer. Walter thinks the price too low but does not intervene, only asking for some of his mother’s dresses. When Esther returns, however, Walter challenges Solomon’s offer and promises to give his share to Victor and Esther. During the ensuing argument, Solomon begins to feel physically weak. As Walter attends the old man in a back room offstage, Esther, onstage, expresses pleasure at Walter’s warmth and irritation with Victor for not responding to it. When Walter returns, he suggests another deal, keeping Solomon as appraiser but giving the furniture to the Salvation Army and claiming a charitable deduction—a twelve-thousand-dollar deal for Victor and Esther. Victor embraces neither the deal nor his brother, but he warms slightly to Walter’s memory of their mother’s admiration for Victor’s fencing.

When Solomon again needs assistance, Walter leaves, and Esther again argues in his behalf. On Walter’s return, Victor asks why Walter would not take his telephone calls, and Walter confesses that his nurse was trying to protect him, for he had had a mental breakdown. He explains his belief that much of his drive to succeed was a response to the sudden financial failure of his father, before therapy freed him. Buoyant, Walter offers Victor a job at his hospital as a liaison between scientists and the hospital board.

Solomon interrupts, offering $1,150 for the furniture; he also offers to do the appraisal if that is what is wanted. After Solomon leaves, Victor asks Walter what he really wants, denying that he has the education for the job Walter has offered. Walter angrily takes one of his mother’s gowns and starts to leave, but Esther stops him and tries to get the brothers to discuss their real grievances. When they remain stubbornly silent, Esther describes how hurt Victor felt years before when Walter refused him a five-hundred-dollar loan to complete college. Walter, embarrassed, says that he recanted and offered the loan in a talk with his father, who refused it, insisting that Victor wanted to help him. Furthermore, Walter says that the loan was unnecessary since their father had had four thousand dollars that Victor did not know about. Stunned, Victor wants to know why his brother did not clarify the situation earlier, though Victor still believes that his sacrifice was necessary to show loyalty. Walter becomes angry and, after a few bitter words, flings his mother’s gown into Victor’s face and leaves. Accepting Victor’s choice, Esther prepares to go to the movies after Solomon pays him. When they leave, Solomon is at first overwhelmed by his age and his task, but then he discovers the laughing record and puts it on, and The Price closes with laughter.

Dramatic Devices

One of the most difficult tasks onstage is to move back in time. In All My Sons (pr., pb. 1947), Arthur Miller adopted a dramatic form used by Henrik Ibsen that ties progressive suspense to a discovery of a secret in the past. In Death of a Salesman (pr., pb. 1949), Miller used projected images in lighting, music associated with character and time, and Willy Loman’s partially transparent house to establish past, present, and Willy’s dreams. The Price does not use the special effects of Death of a Salesman, but Miller does adapt Ibsen’s structure by using a room full of furniture as a portal to memory and fantasy for Walter, Victor, and Esther, and even for Solomon, though he is not a member of the family. The furniture thus enables an audience to see the characters both at the time they were making life-shaping decisions and nearly thirty years later, as they struggle with the consequences of those choices. The harp, with its cracked sounding board, is almost a stand-in for Victor and Walter’s mother, and the worn easy chair represents their father.

Just as the props are entries to the past, so too are Gregory Solomon and Esther. They are indeed the furniture appraiser and Victor’s wife, but they are also measures of response by Walter and Victor to their father and mother. Victor is kind to and protective of Solomon just as he was toward his father; Walter tries to get Esther’s approval and favor just as he tried to win his mother’s favor, competing with Victor. Walter’s compliments on Esther’s appearance and his fascination with his mother’s elegant dresses and gowns are all of a piece. Walter thinks that Solomon is manipulating Victor just as their father did, while Victor resents Esther’s snobbery and class consciousness in the same way he resented his mother’s. Esther’s failure to support Victor emotionally parallels his mother’s failure to support his father when the family fortune collapsed.

Except for the absence of a catastrophe, The Price could almost be considered a tragedy rather than a melodrama, with Esther, Walter, Victor, and even Solomon experiencing recognition of their situations by play’s end. The Price, however, is not without comedy. Solomon’s decision to buy the furniture is almost as life-affirming as a romantic hero’s decision to marry. His maneuvers to lower the price he pays Victor for the furniture are the moves of a comic rascal, and his repeated entrances break the tension between Walter and Victor in act 2 and are progressively more humorous. Though sorrow, guilt, and grief about past choices and their consequences dominate The Price, the play begins and ends with laughter—laughter in the face of life’s difficulties.

Critical Context

Like many of Arthur Miller’s other plays—Death of a Salesman, All My Sons, A Memory of Two Mondays (pr., pb. 1955), and A View from the Bridge (pr., pb. 1955)—The Price deals with the American dream of improving one’s income, education, and social class. The four characters of The Price share this dream, but only Walter has achieved it. Solomon has built and lost several fortunes, while Victor and Esther have to be content with wage-earner prospects. Only a full scholarship to a prestigious university has rescued their son. The Price, however, is not an index of personal outcomes for its characters but a measure of the cost of pursuing the dream. The dilemma of Victor and Walter—choosing between their own ambitions and their father, who was broken in spirit by the Depression—is one many Americans share. Victor and Walter are not simply two parts of the same man, as Walter believes; they represent the contrary impulses in most Americans. The genesis of both impulses—selfishness and loyalty—is in the family, a family that Miller has observed acutely in all of his plays.

The goods of this world—its tape recorders, refrigerators, and Chevrolets—are important in Death of a Salesman, and they are in The Price as well; in the latter play, however, the harp, chiffoniers, divans, and dining-room table for twelve are decidedly upscale. Where Willy Loman was worried about objects being worn out before he could even pay for them, in The Price the furniture of the Franz family is imposingly solid and heavy with tradition. Such furniture is a challenge, Solomon observes, because it is not disposable and limits one’s freedom to shop. Interestingly, Walter takes none of his family’s possessions, while Victor only takes his foil, mask, and gauntlets. With these choices, Miller may be asking what is necessary, how much one needs. This issue has caused some critics to question the intensity of The Price, for Victor (and even Walter or Esther) is far from the hungers and appetites of a Willy Loman or a Joe Keller (in All My Sons). The Price, however, is clearer in its statement of its social dilemma than Miller’s more famous plays.

Sources for Further Study

Bigsby, C. W. E., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Centola, Steve, ed. The Achievement of Arthur Miller: New Essays. Dallas: Contemporary Research, 1995.

Chaikin, Milton. “The Ending of Arthur Miller’s The Price.” Studies in the Humanities 8 (March, 1981): 40-44.

Cohn, Ruby. “The Articulate Victims of Arthur Miller.” In Dialogue in American Drama. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1971.

Miller, Arthur. Timebends: A Life. New York: Grove Press, 1987.

Moss, Leonard. Arthur Miller. Rev. ed. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980.

Nelson, Benjamin. “I Just Didn’t Want Him to End Up on the Grass.” In Arthur Miller: Portrait of a Playwright. New York: McKay, 1970.

Schlueter, June, and James K. Flanagan. Arthur Miller. New York: Ungar, 1987.

Schroeder, Patricia R. “Arthur Miller: Illuminating Process.” In The Presence of the Past in Modern American Drama. Teaneck, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1989.

Weales, Gerald. “All About Talk: Arthur Miller’s The Price.” Ohio Review 13 (1972): 74-84.