Interpretation of a drama text based on Gadamer's Hermeneuticscase text: Arthur Miller's Death of Salesman

Theater is an art created collectively by humanity. It is affected by every change that humanity has. These changes are reflected in the theater texts. Sometimes text for theatre becomes the most important element for the art and sometimes it loses attention. However, no matter what the temporary reflex towards the notion of text, its value does not diminish at the end of the day as a result of being an artwork itself. Each time these artworks are read, staged, and seen a new meaning emerges. In order to qualify the meaning of the text, some understanding and assessment disciplines are used. Hermeneutics is one of these disciplines of assessment and interpretation. The name Hermeneutics comes from the god of ancient Greek mythology Hermes. The most important task of Hermes is to convey the commandments of the gods to the people. While transferring the orders, he interprets them to be understood by the receivers. Therefore, the act of interpreting divine texts is called hermeneutics. The name of the Hermeneutics remained the same but application fields have changed over time. In the twentieth century, it was transformed into a fundamental philosophy discipline by Gadamer. Today's meaning is much more advanced than it means at its origin. Today, it is defined as the doctrine of understanding and interpreting the meaning of human's actions, words, products and institutions. This study aims to demonstrate how a theater text can be interpreted based on Gadamer's hermeneutics through Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman as the case text. "Death of a Salesman" is an art piece seen as a modern tragedy and an aesthetic object. Hermeneutics tries to interpret the text considering these qualities. With the guidance of this information, aesthetic doctrine is briefly mentioned in this study. Then the definition of hermeneutics and the changes it has gone through are given. In particular, Gadamer's hermeneutical understanding is studied. Prior than interpretation, the American theater where Arthur Miller is an element is mentioned. Later on, as the text is a modern tragedy, some information about the notion of tragedy is given. Thereafter, the text of Death of a Salesman is interpreted. Keywords: Hermeneutics, Gadamer, Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman, Aesthetics, Tragedy