In this scene, possibly the biggest revelation is that of Biff and Willy’s true feelings towards each other. When Willy is planting seeds in the garden and talking to his brother, almost in another reality, he is horrified by the thought of Biff thinking of him or talking of him as a coward, should he commit suicide. When Biff tries to take him inside to talk to Linda and tell her that he is leaving, Willy seems to think that he is talking about telling her about his affair years earlier, which Biff discovered. However, after some considerable arguments, in which Biff is accused of having nothing but spite for his father, Willy realises that Biff actually just does not want to fail him, having been so pressured to succeed in his earlier life. He also sees that all Biff ever wanted from him was pride and love, saying ‘Loves me. Always loved me. Isn’t that a remarkable thing?’
However in this scene, the climax of the play also takes place. Willy almost seems to be tempted into his suicide whilst talking to Ben. The impetus behind his decision seems to be Biff, in more ways than one. At this point, he still believes that Biff spites him, and he wants to show him how popular he was, with all the people coming to his funeral. However, he is desperately afraid of his own son seeing him as a coward, as I mentioned before. Perhaps the most important reason behind his decision is the fact that, in his heart, he still wishes that he could see Biff succeed, carrying on the family trade, as he sees it. He wants to kill himself so that Biff can access the life insurance money, $20,000 in all. We see this when he says ‘, that boy – that boy is going to be magnificent!’ Ben then replies with ‘Yes, outstanding, with twenty thousand behind him.’
To me, Ben is merely the part of Willy that wanted to follow his dream of adventure and discovery in Alaska, but didn’t. It is the part of him with a sense of adventure, and which still holds his true dream of success as a man, not just as a salesman. Without his job, this part of Willy, and thus his true dream of respect and real success, takes over. To me, this is what drives him to take his own life.
In this scene, I believe that Arthur Miller builds up to the astonishing climax using a number of different methods. The first, and most obvious of these, is the fact that there are no long monologues or speeches throughout this scene, more so as it progresses. This short, frantic action creates a growing sense of urgency, building to the end of Willy’s life and the climax of the play.
Also, this scene contains the greatest number of stage directions describing emotional states anywhere in the play. This helps to create the enormous feeling of emotional turbulence that is happening. We can see, for example, ‘with promise’ for Willy and crucially ‘almost uttering her fear’ for Linda. The fact that Willy dies at the point when he is most proud of himself and of Biff, least delusional about his “social standing”, and crucially the happiest that he has been for 17 years, is a fitting end to his life, in my opinion.
However, in my opinion, possibly the most moving and revealing scene in the play is “REQUIEM.” This scene, set after Willy’s funeral, highlights the true feelings of each of the characters from the play. It also highlights some revealing comparisons between them, as well as between dreams and reality.
The first comparison, in this case a hypocrisy, which we see is from Happy. He was seen earlier in the play to be far more concerned with himself and his ‘lousy rotten whores’, as Linda calls them, than with the wellbeing of his father. However, he is now “deeply angered” by Willy’s suicide, saying ‘he had no right to do that. There was no necessity for it. We would have helped him’. In my opinion, Happy seems to think that as long as he shows some sort of feeling now, all will be forgiven, even though he denied that Willy was his father earlier. This, to me, shows the continuing selfishness in Happy.
The second comparison that can be seen is between Willy’s funeral and the funeral of the old salesman whose popularity influenced Willy to take up his career in the first place, instead of going to Alaska with Ben. Earlier in the play, Willy talked with admiration, but also a touch of envy, of Dave Singleman, 84, who died the ‘death of a salesman,’ as Willy puts it, with ‘hundreds of salesman and buyers at his funeral.’ At Willy’s funeral, however, nobody comes but his family and Charley. Also, Willy talks about Dave being able to ‘go into twenty or thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many different people.’ In my opinion, this is what Willy really wants. Not to become a successful salesman, but to be respected and loved man. However, before his death, he talks about being called a ‘walrus’ by another salesman, and people not taking to him anymore.
In this scene, Linda also talks about the house being empty now, without Willy, and with the boys finally growing up and making something of themselves. Earlier in the play Willy and Linda are reminiscing about paying off their mortgage and bringing up their children, and Linda says ‘well, it served its purpose,’ referring to the boy’s childhoods. However, Willy is dismissive of this, questioning this achievement and wishing ‘if only Biff would take this house, and raise a family…’ At this point, Willy is still unhappy that his sons, and especially Biff, have never really been successful in their lives or careers, having had such promising starts. So, the house has gone from a home for the children and the family, to an empty home with only Linda.
In my opinion, the most important part of this scene is the discussion of Willy’s dreams. Linda is a little excluded from this, partly due to the fact that she is still completely unaware of Willy’s affair, but there is enormous value in the comments of Charley and Biff. Happy is fierce in his determination to fight for his father’s legacy for the first time in the play.
Biff believes that his father was a man of the soil, and was following the wrong dreams. In my opinion, Willy was following the wrong dreams, as I believe that he was following the stereotype of the “American Dream”, a successful businessman, a large house in suburbia, a big car and a perfect family. He seemed to feel that it was the dream that he had to follow, there was no other. I believe that what he really wanted was to live a simple life with his family, and to be respected and loved by all for what he was.
However, Charley makes some very interesting arguments as well. He says that ‘no man only needs a small salary’, indicating Willy’s stubborn pride, which is slowly diminishing as he begs Howard for his job. Also, he does agree in part with Biff, saying that Willy ‘was a happy man with a batch of cement’ in reference to Willy’s simple and honest soul, that desired nothing more than an easy life.
The most important point that Charley makes, however, is when he talks about the life that Willy has to lead. ‘For a salesman,’ he explains ‘there is no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back- that’s an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream boy, it comes with the territory.’ In my opinion, this is one of the most stirring and revealing speeches in the play, and shows a lot about the pressures that Willy was under. Charley is basically reiterating his point that this was the only dream that was available to Willy, and so he had to follow it. Also, when Charley talks about spots on a hat, I believe that links can be seen to the change in Willy’s personality after Biff’s discovery of the affair. Willy becomes irritable, withdrawn and paranoid, and when a salesman has to sell himself to make a living, the consequences are bound to be disastrous.
There are also some very strong links to earlier moments in the play in this scene.
Just before his death, Willy became very concerned with planting seeds, or as I see it, forming a legacy to leave behind. He seemed to realise that he was never as respected as he believed, and was so desperate to be remembered that he had to lay the foundations for life after Willy Loman. The seeds also have another aspect to them, in my opinion. To me, they represent the dream of a simple life. Earlier, in the play, we are told that nothing will grow in the dusty back yard because of the ‘hard’ apartment blocks that crowd the house. These apartments represent to me what might be called “The American Reality”, where this sense of adventure beyond the constraints of urban, restricted and repetitive life, is drowned out. As I mentioned before, this sense of adventure is personified by the character Ben, who had been restrained while Willy had his job and was settled in his lifestyle. However, towards the end of his life, Ben re-emerges in a last desperate attempt to break through the barriers and restraints that have been set.
On the stage at the end of the play, the scene is one of darkness and of false hope in my opinion. It basically sums up the harsh reality of Willy’s life. This is done using the flute, which is present throughout the play, and to me represents the hiding of reality behind a false dream, such as when Willy returns to previous memories, when all was good, or so he could pretend. This flute appears in harsh contrast to the cold, hard reality of the daunting apartment blocks. These blocks represent the oppressive uniformity which has spelt the end for men like Willy Loman, men with character and spirit, not men who wanted to follow the same, stereotyped dream. Ironically, however, this is exactly what he had found himself doing for so many years.