To the Editor:
Re “Why American Jews Still Weep for Willy Loman,” by Eric Alterman (Opinion guest 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 Jewish to weep while seeing “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
To the Editor:
Re “As He Warned of A.I.’s Danger, His Father Turned to Chatbots” (front page, April 16):
Joe Riley’s story is devastating. It is also not rare. We see versions of it every week in our clinics and in our inboxes, with patients using A.I. to interpret symptoms, diagnoses and treatment options.
Clinicians rarely ask patients whether they are using chatbots to discuss their medical conditions. Without these conversations, we risk missing a powerful, often invisible influence on patient understanding.
We recently wrote the first practical guide for clinicians on how to address this. The approach is simple: Ask directly. How do you use chatbots? What medical topics are you discussing with A.I., and what is it telling you? What changes have you made to your health as a result?
But this cannot live only in a doctor’s office. Families need to be asking too. Not as surveillance but as conversation.
The goal is not to scare people off these tools, as many are getting real value from them. The problems are isolation and silence. When a chatbot quietly becomes someone’s most trusted adviser, and no one in his or her life knows it, we lose the chance to step in.
Ask the questions. Then keep 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 research fellow at Brainstorm and a global medicine scholar at the University of Illinois College of Medicine.
