Death of a Salesman

Author and setting: Written by Arthur Miller in 1949; takes place in the late 1940s, although sometimes earlier due to Willy’s flashbacks. Most of the play takes place in New York in the Loman’s house.

Characters:

·      Willy Loman: Willy is the main character. He has been a salesman for most of his life and has always romanticized the life of a salesman. He seems to believe that the only way to be successful is to be well liked and is not particularly fond of the idea of hard work to achieve success.

·      Linda: Willy’s wife and supporter. She protects Willy’s pride and almost always does what she is told, even if Willy is being completely rude to her.

·      Biff: Willy’s older son. He has lost faith in Willy and seems to be lost in general. He does not really know what he wants to do with his life, but he still loves his mom and wants to please her which means pleasing his dad as well.

·      Happy: Willy’s younger son. Happy tries to make others happy, but does not seem to be truly happy himself. He over-exaggerates things and is often ignored or not taken seriously.

·      Uncle Ben: Willy’s brother. He symbolizes everything Willy is not and Willy idolizes him to an extreme. Ben is already dead, so in Willy’s mind he is forever big and powerful.

·      Charley: the Lomans’ neighbor. He leads a successful life and is always lending money to Willy. He offers Willy a job but Willy is too prideful to accept and promises that he will pay back every penny that he has borrowed from Charley.

·      Bernard: Charley’s son. Bernard serves as a foil to Biff. Growing up, Bernard seemed to really like Biff, wanting to hold his equipment to his sports games. Bernard also nagged Biff a lot to do his work. In the end, Bernard worked harder than Biff ever did and it is Bernard who leads a successful life as an adult (he ends up being a lawyer).

·      The Woman: is a secretary and has an affair with Willy. Willy gives her stockings and in exchange she sends him customers.

·      Howard Wagner: Willy’s boss who eventually fires him.

Plot: The play begins as Willy returns from a sales trip. He enters the kitchen and talks to Linda about how Biff hasn’t made anything of his life or of himself. Biff and Happy are also in the house, and they discuss their past and talk about how worried they are of their father.

Later, Willy begins talking to himself and reminisces on the past. He thinks about how successful Biff used to be, as a high school quarter back, and how happy their family was in general. Soon Charley comes to the house and plays cards with Willy. Willy still is in the past and thinks about Ben too. Ben had everything Willy wishes for: a wonderful job and great success and wealth. Willy simply cannot get Ben out of his mind. Charley leaves and Willy walks outside.

While Willy is outside, the rest of his family talks about him. Linda tells Biff that he is not being fair to his father and that he should try to show some compassion. Biff calls Willy a fake, because he knows that Willy had an affair, but Biff does not tell this to Linda. When Linda reveals that Willy has been trying to commit suicide, the situation seems a bit different to both Happy and Biff and Happy suggests that he and Biff going into the sporting business as the Loman Brothers.

In the next act Willy seems happy but quickly becomes upset about their financial situation and not being able to pay off all their appliances. He becomes happy again though when Linda tells him all the great things that are going on with their sons.

Willy goes to work to talk to Howards about working in New York and not traveling so much. Howard is distracted by his new tape recorder and becomes tired and annoyed with Willy and fires him. Howard claims that he has wanted to fire Willy for a while now. Meanwhile, Biff asks Bill Oliver for assistance and is similarly rejected. Biff leaves and steals Oliver’s fountain pen.

At the end of the days, Happy and Biff take Willy out to dinner but completely ignore him the whole night and spend it instead with two girls. The day has gone horribly for Willy and in another one of his flashbacks about Ben, Ben influences Willy to kill himself so that he can give money to his family.

In the end, Biff decides to leave and Willy decides to kill himself. 

Quotes:

“I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want. ‘Cause what could be more satisfying that to be able to go, at the age of eighty-four, into twenty or thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many different people?”

Willy says this line and it pretty much sums up his take on life. He wants everyone to remember and love him, and he believes that being a salesman will allow him to achieve such a dream.

“The jungle is dark but full of diamond, Willy.”

Ben says this to Willy towards the end of the play as Willy gets closer and closer towards his decision of suicide. Ben is trying to convince Willy that being well-liked does not matter so much; what really matters is wealth. Sometimes the road to wealth, or diamonds, is dark like a jungle, but it is worth it in the end (according to Ben). 

Theme:

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman portrays that valuing words over actions to achieve conventional success and maintain personal dignity will lead to eventual self-destruction.

            Willy never really seemed to believe in hard work. His philosophy was that, as long as he remained well-liked, he would never have to truly work for anything. If a person is liked, other people will do things for them; everything will come naturally. Of course, this did not actually work out for Willy because this logic is flawed. If anyone ever wants to achieve anything, they have to put effort in to doing so.

Willy also believes that if he said that simply says something is great, it might become so. For instance, Willy continuously lies to his wife about how great work is going and to keep up his charade, he borrows money from Charley and pretends that it is his paycheck. Willy also talked Biff up, always telling Biff how great he is and how he would be a star one day. It is hard to tell whether or not Willy actually believes everything that he says, but either way Willy thinks that simply saying something is more important that actually doing something. He seems to think that success can come simply from words.

In the end, Willy never realizes that he should have put more value in his actions. He concludes that he has failed and that the only way out of his horrible mess is to kill himself so that his family can be left with some money.