At the end of the play, Willy purchases some seeds for his garden and begins to plant them late at night. He is close to suicide but realizes that he must leave something "real" behind for his sons. The planting of the seeds is symbolic of Willy's desire to grow big and tall; ironically, Biff is the one who will secure growth in life. Happy, in his determination to continue Willy's action can be seen as the weed in the Loman's garden.
In terms of imagery, one of the most important is that of "the woods are burning." Willy's brother Ben made a success of himself early in life and compared the process of success-building to entering a jungle. Willy constantly remembers Ben saying "When I was I was seventeen, I walked into the jungle and when I was twenty-one I walked out...And by God I was rich!" The jungle was the locale of Ben's success, but for Willy, the forest is burning and there is little time left. The burning woods image is symbolic of Willy's feeling that everything is closing in on him: time, debts, human relationships. Even the apartment buildings in his neighborhood are closing in on him and he cannot bear the pressures. That is why he considers throwing himself into the fire and committing suicide.
=====================================
Sidebar:
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
1. Why do you think an author uses symbols and images in her/his writing? What purpose do they serve?
2. How does Miller's use of symbols and images affect your response to the play? Does it make reading it and/or seeing it a richer experience for you or does it not affect the way you respond to the play at all?
3. Did you notice any other symbols and/or images in Death of a Salesman? What do you think they represented?
4. Can you think of other plays and/or movies that use symbols and images? How did they compare to the ones in Death of a Salesman?
=====================================
Miller's Inspirations for Salesman
Death of a Salesman began as a short story that Arthur Miller wrote at the age of seventeen while he was working for his father's company. The story told of an aging salesman who cannot sell anything, who is tormented by the company's buyers, and who borrows change for the subway from the story's young narrator. After finishing the story, Miller wrote a postscript on the manuscript saying that the real salesman on whom the story is based had thrown himself under a subway train. Many years later, on the eve of the play's Broadway opening, Miller's mother found the story abandoned in a drawer.
=====================================
Sidebar:
Arthur Miller's inspiration for Death of a Salesman came from many sources; most importantly however, it came from paying close attention to the lives of the people around him.
=====================================
In his autobiography Timebends, Miller related that he found inspiration for that short story and the play in his own life. Miller based Willy Loman largely on his own uncle, Manny Newman. In fact, Miller stated that the writing of the play began in the winter of 1947 after a chance meeting he had with his uncle outside the Colonial Theatre in Boston, where his All My Sons was having its pre-Broadway preview. Miller described that meeting in this way:
"I could see his grim hotel room behind him, the long trip up from New York in his little car, the hopeless hope of the day's business. Without so much as acknowledging my greeting he said, 'Buddy is doing very well.'"
Miller described Newman as a man who was "a competitor at all times, in all things, and at every, moment." Miller said that his uncle saw "my brother and I running neck and neck with his two sons [Buddy and Abby] in some horse race [for success] that never stopped in his mind." He also said that the Newman household was one in which you "dared not lose hope, and I would later think of it as a perfection of America for that reason...It was a house trembling with resolution and shouts of victories that had not yet taken place but surely would tomorrow." The Loman home was built on the foundation of this household.
Manny's son Buddy, like Biff in Miller's play, was a sports hero, and like Happy Loman, popular with the girls. And like Biff, Buddy never made it to college because he failed to study in high school. In addition, Miller's relationship with his cousins was similar to Bernard's relationship with Biff and Happy in Salesman. As Miller stated:
"As fanatic as I was about sports, my ability was not to be compared to [Manny's] sons. Since I was gangling and unhandsome, I lacked their promise. When I stopped by I always had to expect some kind of insinuation of my entire life's probable failure, even before I was sixteen."
In Timebends Miller described Manny's wife as the one who "bore the cross for them all" supporting her husband, "keeping up her calm enthusiastic smile lest he feel he was not being appreciated." One can easily see this woman honored in the character of Linda Loman, Willy's loyal but sometimes bewildered wife, who is no less a victim than the husband she supports in his struggle for meaning and forgiveness.
Miller met many other salesmen through his Uncle, and they influenced his perception of all salesmen. One man in particular struck Miller because of his sense of personal dignity. As Miller stated in Timebends, this man "like any travelling man...had, to my mind, a kind of intrepid valor that withstood the inevitable putdowns, the scoreless attempts to sell. In a sense [all salesmen are] like actors whose product is first of all themselves, forever imagining triumphs in a world that either ignores them or denies their presence altogether. But just often enough to keep them going, one of them makes it and swings to the moon on a thread of dreams unwinding out of himself." Surely, Willy Loman is such an actor, getting by "on a smile and a shoeshine," staging his life in an attempt to understand its plot.
Because he was so deeply involved in the production of All My Sons, Miller did not give the meeting with his uncle more than a passing thought, but its memory hung in his mind. In fact, Miller described the event as the spark that brought him back to an idea for a play about a salesman that he had had ten years previously - the idea that he had written as a short story. In April 1948 he drove up to his Connecticut farm and began to write the play that would become Death of a Salesman. As he sat down before his typewriter in his ten- by twelve-foot studio, he remembered "all I had was the first two lines and a death." From those humble beginnings, one of American theater's most famous plays took shape.
=====================================
Sidebar:
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
1. Do you think that Death of a Salesman would make a good short story, as it was in its original form? What could Miller include in story format that he could not include in play format? What could Miller include in play format that he could not include in story format?
2. What parallels can you draw between Arthur Miller's Uncle Manny Newman and Death of a Salesman's Willy Loman?
3. What does Arthur Miller mean when he says that all salesmen are like "actors whose product is first of all themselves?" Do you see this description reflected in Willy Loman?
4. Have you ever written a poem, story or play based on people from your own life? If so, why did you choose to write about these particular people? How did the characters in your writing differ from their real life counterparts?
Writing Death of a Salesman
(Arthur Miller wrote the selection on this page for his autobiography Timebends.)
With [the play] A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams had printed a license to speak at full throat, and it helped strengthen me as I turned to Willy Loman...I had known all along that this play could not be encompassed by conventional realism, and for one integral reason: in Willy, the past was as alive as what was happening at the moment, sometimes even crashing in to completely overwhelm his mind. I wanted precisely the same fluidity in the form [of Death of a Salesman].
By April 1947 I felt I could find such a form, but it would have to be done in a single setting, in a night or a day. I did not know why. I stopped making my notes in our Grace Court house in Brooklyn Heights and drove up alone one morning to the country house we had bought the previous year.
I started writing one morning...[and] wrote all day until dark, and then I had dinner and went back and wrote until some hour in the darkness between midnight and four. I had skipped a few areas that I knew would give me no trouble in the writing and gone for the parts that had to be muscled into position. By the next morning I had done the first half, the first act of two. When I lay down to sleep I realized I had been weeping - my eyes still burned and my throat was sore from talking it all out and shouting and laughing. I would be stiff when I woke, aching as if I had played four hours of football or tennis and now had to face the start of another game. It would take some six more weeks to complete Act II...
I did not move far from the phone for two days alter sending the script to [director Ella Kazan]. By the end of the second silent day, I would have accepted his calling to tell me that it was a scrambled egg, an impenetrable, unstageable piece of wreckage. And his tone when he finally did call was alarmingly somber.
"I've read your play." He sounded at a loss as to how to give me the bad news. "My God, it's so sad."
"It's supposed to be."
"I just put it down. I don't know what to say. My father..." He broke off, the first of a great many men - and women - who would tell me that Willy was their father. I still thought he was letting me down easy. "It's a great play, Artie. I want to do it in the fall or winter. I'll start thinking about casting." He was talking as though someone we both knew had just died, and it filled me with happiness.
On the play's opening night, a woman who shall not be named was outraged, calling it "a time-bomb under American capitalism." I hoped it was, or at least under the bullshit of capitalism; this pseudo life that thought to touch the clouds by standing on top of a refrigerator waving a paid-up mortgage at the Moon, victorious at last...
=====================================
Sidebar:
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
1. How does Arthur Miller show that the past is as alive as the present in Death of a Salesman?
2. How did Miller's decision to have Death of a Salesman take place "in a single setting, in a night or day" affect the impact of the play? What effect would expanding the scope of Salesman have on its impact?
3. Based on this description, what effect did writing Death of a Salesman have on Arthur Miller?
4. Why do you think so many people have seen their own fathers in Willy Loman? Do any features of Willy resemble your own father?
5. What did the unnamed woman mean when she said that Death of a Salesman is a "time-bomb under American capitalism?" Do you agree with her? What do you think about Arthur Miller's response to this woman?
Death of a Salesman Vocabulary
Following is a list of vocabulary words from Death of a Salesman with which many of your students may be unfamiliar. As you can see, the list is quite extensive; therefore, in order that Miller's language does not become a barrier to your student's enjoyment of his play, we encourage an in-depth study of the play's vocabulary. You may wish to have your students:
° Look up the definitions of some or all of these words. ° Write sentences using some or all of these words.
° Write stories/essays using some or all of these words.
° Create word searches and/or crossword puzzles using some or all of these words.
° Create personal dictionaries of vocabulary words from this list with which they are unfamiliar.
° Complete any of your normal vocabulary activities with some or all of these words.
Important Quotes
The following quotes are not explained here, though most of their meanings are fairly evident. The speaker of the quote is also identified here. All quotes deal with theme or symbolism.
Structure
The play is divided into three main parts, Act I, Act II, and the Requiem. Each section takes place on a different day in present-day. Within Act I and Act II, the story is presented through the use of Willy's flashbacks. This use of flashback is fundamental to the structure and understanding of the play.
The story starts at present-day and Willy then lapses in and out of the past. Each flashback is somehow related the present. Very often, the contents of the flashback offer essential background knowledge for understanding why the present-day problems in the Loman family are occurring. For example, when Willy is thinking about Biff and Biff's problems, Willy is transported to the summer of Biff's senior year. The events that took place in the past expose for the reader the situations that have led up to the present-day boiling point in the Loman household.
Motifs
Motifs are elements of a story (dialogue, symbols, situations, etc.) that keep reappearing throughout. In Death of Salesman, Arthur Miller uses several motifs. They are:
The woods/jungle and diamonds:
Uncle Ben is the character who deals with the motif of the jungle (sometimes referred to by Willy as 'the woods') and diamonds. These motifs are symbols. The jungle is symbolic of life, and diamonds of success. As Willy's life is crashing down around him, he says, "The woods are burning! I can't drive a car!" At the end of the play (and many other places as well) Uncle Ben refers to the jungle: "You must go into the jungle and fetch a diamond out."
The garden:
The idea of planting a garden is a major motif in the play. Willy is always discussing the idea of planting a garden, in Act I on page 17 he says, "The grass don't grow anymore, you can't raise a carrot in the backyard." At the end of the play, one of his last acts in life is his futile attempt at planting seeds in the backyard of his fenced-in house. The garden is symbolic of Willy needing to leave something behind for people to remember him by. Something that people will think about and remember him as a great man. Willy never achieved success in life, and he also never planted his garden. (He does in the end of the play, but it is assumed that will not grow.)
Moon, stars:
Willy is often seen looking and commenting on the stars or the moon. This is seen in the first act after a fight with Biff when Willy says, "Gee, look at the moon moving between the buildings." This motif is also seen elsewhere in the play.
Theme
Throughout the play the Lomans in general cannot distinguish between reality and illusion, particularly Willy. This is a major theme and source of conflict in the play. Willy cannot see who he and his sons are. He believes that they are great men who have what it takes to be successful and beat the business world. Unfortunately, he is mistaken. In reality, Willy and sons are not, and cannot, be successful.
Certain lines in the play point to this character flaw that is present in Willy, Hap, and (for a time) Biff. For example, Willy believes that to be well liked is the means to being successful. This is an illusion that Willy lives in. Also, on the literal level, Willy very often lapses into a flashback and appears to be reliving conversations and situations that occurred years ago. This itself is an inability to see reality.
This reality versus illusion problem eventually brings about Willy's downfall. In the end, Willy believes that a man can be "worth more dead than alive." Charlie, always the voice of reality tells Willy, "A man isn't worth anything dead."
Willy is also unable to see change. He is man lost in the modern era of technology. He says, "How can they whip cheese?" and is constantly "In a race with the junkyard."
Willy has lost at trying to live the American Dream and the play can be viewed as commentary about society. Willy was a man who was worked all his life by the machinery of Democracy and Free Enterprise and was then spit mercilessly out, spent like a "piece of fruit."
Chunk 1
pages 1-29
Summary: ()
Willy Loman, an elderly failing salesman whose salary has been taken away and works on straight commission, returns home from a sales trip that he could not complete. He is weary and tired of life on the road. His two grown sons, Biff and Hap have returned home to visit. Biff has lost his way in life and has returned home after 15 years of drifting. Hap, who lives in his own apartment is also home to visit.
Willy has a conversation with his wife, Linda, as he gets ready for bed. Willy cannot understand why Biff is lost, with no job and no money to his name. Willy reminisces about the past and the reader sees for the first time that Willy sometimes lapses into another era, when he talks about opening the windshield on his car. Linda suggests Willy go to the kitchen have some whipped cheese before coming to bed.
Meanwhile, the boys are having a conversation in their old bedroom. They discuss their father and the fact that he is becoming senile in his old age. They have been on a date, and through their conversation we see that Hap holds himself to low moral standards. They talk about success, their hopes, and all the while Willy is downstairs having a conservation with no one. Willy is immersed in one of his flashbacks, where he relives conversations and scenes from the past. The boys are embarrassed for him, and the scene transforms into a fall day, 15 years ago.
pages 41-52
Summary: ()
Willy is ranting in the kitchen, and Hap comes downstairs to quiet him down. Willy's mind returns to the present-day. Willy talks of his failure to make the trip to New England. He starts talking about his brother, Ben, now dead. Ben is a mysterious, almost god-like figure, whom Willy idolizes. Ben became rich mining diamonds in the jungles of Africa. Ben had asked Willy to come along, but Willy declined.
Willy begins to accuse Hap that he is too free with his money, his women, and his car. Charlie, the next door neighbor, comes over to see what's wrong. They sit down and play cards, while Hap goes upstairs. During the course of the game, Willy is cheating, and making fun of Charlie. Charlie, who owns a sales firm, offers Willy a job. Willy declines, and the reader gets the sense this conversation has taken place many times. They talk about Biff and how he wants to go back to Texas. Willy ends up insulting Charlie and begins to talk of his brother Ben. Willy begins to slip into another flashback and soon, Charlie is out the door and the scene is back to Biff's senior year in high school on the day Ben visited the family before leaving on a business trip.
They talk about their father, a man who deserted his family. He sold wooden flutes, and for some reason Willy idolizes his father. Willy believes his father was a rich and successful man. Ben challenges Biff to a fight, and Biff ends up on the ground.
Willy tries to show of the prowess of his sons by asking them to go steal some sand from a construction site to rebuild the front stoop. Ben tells them the simple story of how he became successful, and then is gone. The scene switches back to present-day.
Willy is a man who is lost in the past and his mind is constantly tormented with the hopes and dreams he had years ago that have since fallen through. He wants Biff to be successful, and yet he is lost. Willy tells Linda, "In the greatest country in the world a young man with such - personal attractiveness, gets lost." Willy believes that all it takes to become successful is to be well liked, and is evidenced by this quote and others like it.
Willy talks about how the neighborhood has been boxed in and, "…you can't raise a carrot in the backyard." The idea of planting a garden, of leaving something behind, is a major motif of the play. He yearns desperately to make a difference in his life, but he has failed. All that is left to Willy is his self-importance. He says, "I'm the New England man. I'm vital in New England." It is possible that Willy was once a vital salesman, but he is not anymore. The only way Willy can live with himself is to live in a world of illusion. He has immersed himself and his family in a false sense of reality.
The Loman family is wrought with dysfunction, stemming from these false dreams and hopes Willy has imbued in his sons. Biff and Hap have always been shown that a business career is the only way to achieve success. Yet, Hap has taken this course, and through the boys' dialogue we see that he his not happy, nor is he successful. Biff asks Hap, "You're a success, aren't you? Are you content?" Hap replies, "Hell no! … But then, it's what I've always wanted. My own apartment, a car, plenty of women. And still, goddammit, I'm lonely." Willy's definition of success, similar to the life Hap lives, is not really valid. Hap doesn't understand or realize this, though.
Biff, on the other hand, rejects this materialistic sense of success. He has been living in the West on a cattle ranch, enjoying a leisurely life. Nonetheless, this sub-conscious drive to become something bigger than most men has brought him home. He says, "[When spring comes out West] I suddenly get the feeling, my God, I'm not getting anywhere! I'm thirty-four years old, I oughta be makin' my future." The conflict between what Biff really enjoys, and this vision of success will remain an internal struggle for Biff until the end of the play.
pages 29-41
Summary: ()
Chunk two begins as a transition from Willy standing in the kitchen having a flashback as an observer sees it, to the flashback as Willy sees and lives it. The reader is taken back to Biff's senior year of high school. Biff is the captain of the football team, and he is full of verve and life, much different from the drained and confused present-day Biff.
Biff is in the yard practicing his passing with a new football. Willy asks him where he got it. "… I borrowed it from the locker room," he says. All of the Loman's are good with their euphemistic view of situations. "Coach'll probably congratulate you on your initiative!" replies Willy.
Willy and Linda talk and Willy tells Linda that he feels he is foolish to look at, and this is possibly why he doesn't sell as much merchandise as he could. During this scene, Willy has a brief remembrance of a woman he has had an affair with. She is a young woman who he meets on his sales trips, and he gives her Linda's stockings as presents.
As Willy comes out of these guilty thoughts, Bernard, the next-door neighbor boy, comes in and tells Willy that Biff had better start studying for the Regents or he will not graduate from high school. Willy goes into a rage and begins storming around looking for Biff. As Willy paces around the house ranting, the scene switches back to present-day and Hap comes downstairs and discovers his father talking to no one.
Willy is constantly sending his sons mixed messages about life and success. At the same time Willy congratulates Biff for stealing the football, he tells him that stealing never gets you anywhere. "I never in my life told him anything but decent things!" yells Willy. Biff is confused, and understandably so. Willy tells Bernard to give Biff the answers for the Regents. Willy is blind to the source of his family's problems. He says, "Why is he taking everything?"
Biff is the son Willy focuses on the most, and Hap is always trying to get his father's attention. Throughout this section, Hap keeps repeating, "I'm loosing weight, you notice, Pop?" knowing that Willy should congratulate him for his appearance.
This chunk reveals one of the core problems of Willy's character that will eventually lead to his tragic fall. Willy believes, falsely, that all it takes to get ahead in the world is to be well liked. He tells his sons, "Be liked and you will never want… Take me, for instance… 'Willy Loman is here!' That's all it takes, and I go right through." Willy is also lying to himself.
In reality, Willy is not well liked, and he has a very hard time selling. He tells Linda, "The trouble is, Linda, people don't seem to take to me." Nonetheless, Willy still inflates his image for his sons and himself. Appearance is so important to Willy he tells his sons, "That's why I thank Almighty God you're both built like Adonises." In the Loman household, that is the key to the high country: be well liked, look good.
In the beginning of the chunk Willy is playing cards with Charlie. During this game some important discourse takes place. The reader sees that Charlie is the voice of reality in the play. Unlike Willy, he knows where and who he is, and accepts the fact that he is just an ordinary guy. The two talk about Biff, and Charlie says, "Let him go." Willy cannot bear this, he tells Charlie, "I got nothin' to give him, Charlie, I'm clean, I'm clean." And it's true: Willy Loman is too poor to give his son anything. Willy wants to see his son succeed, and his investment of time and energy hasn't paid off. Charlie tells Willy, "When a deposit bottle is broken, you don't get your nickel back."
Willy is ashamed that he is stuck in Brooklyn, with a low-paying job and yearns for Ben's happy-go-lucky lifestyle. Nonetheless, being Willy, he has to cover this fact up with lies. When Ben appears, Willy talks admirably about their father. He weaves a myth that he was a good man, who, "…made more money in a week than a man like you could make in a lifetime…" He is another of Willy's idols. In reality, it is not possible to make a lot of money selling flutes. The father deserted his family, and Ben tried to go to Alaska to look for him. He ended up in Africa, stumbled upon some diamond mines and became rich. Ben says, "Why, boys, when I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich."
Willy sees this story differently, though. Ben stumbled across his wealth, but Willy believes that he worked hard for it, and wants his sons to do the same: work hard and be like Uncle Ben. Willy asks Ben, "What's the answer? How did you do it?" Willy wants to be reassured that he has been raising his sons properly. Willy says, "…to walk into a jungle. I was right! I was right!"
More mixed messages are sent in this chunk, not only from Willy, but Ben as well. Ben asks Biff to fight with him, but Ben trips him and says, "Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You'll never get out of the jungle that way." The jungle that Ben keeps talking of is metaphorical of life. It is the same jungle that Willy talks about when he tells Hap, "The woods are burning! I can't drive a car!" Willy's life is crashing down around him, and he cannot stop it: his boys are stealing on his insistence, he feels woefully inadequate beside Ben, he is ridden with the guilt of his infidelity, he has lost his job. He continues to lie to himself and his family hoping everything will turn out all right in the end.
pages 52-70
Summary: ()
Willy is yelling, "I was right! I was right!" as the present-day Linda comes down and finds him in the kitchen. Willy decides to go for a walk and leaves the house. He continues yelling as he walks down the street, lost in the past. Biff comes downstairs and talks to Linda. He wants to know how long Willy has been acting strangely. Linda accuses of Biff of not being home enough, or at least in contact with Willy. Linda says that Willy is all smiles and perfectly fine when Biff writes. It seems that just thinking about a happy future is all it takes for Willy to be content.
Through Linda's dialogue the reader sees that Willy and Biff have been at odds since the summer after Biff graduated from high school. Biff has no respect for his father anymore, although he used to in high school. Happy comes downstairs and joins the conversation.
Linda accuses Biff and Happy of deserting the family. She tells them that Willy is exhausted. He has worked all his life for his boys, and now his sons have turned their backs. Linda shows the boys that Willy has been trying to kill himself. Willy's car accidents are no accidents, and he has fixed a hose up to the water heater in the cellar to suck gas.
Biff tells Linda that he will try his best to please Willy and make do. Hap and Biff begin arguing about why Biff has always failed in the business world. During this argument Willy walks in the door. Biff and Willy begin arguing. As the tension increases, Hap tries to smooth things over by telling Willy that Biff is going to see Bill Oliver - Biff's previous employer - to see if he'll loan them money to start a sporting goods business. Hap comes up with a fantastical plan to make money and Willy immediately becomes all smiles. Biff is being pushed into something he doesn't want to do, but goes along with it for now just please his father.
Near the end of the scene, they begin fighting again and Willy goes up to bed upset. The boys go up and try to cheer him up.
It is this chunk that reveals the intense tension that exists between Willy and Biff. Biff has no respect for Willy, but the reader doesn't know why yet. This lack of respect has caused Biff to dismiss his father and his wishes. This scene also exposes Linda as the peace keeper and moderator of the family. She knows that Willy has been trying to commit suicide, but she lets it continue. Linda does not want to confront this reality, thinking that doing so will only make family matters worse than they are.
Biff sees that Linda's hair is gray and says, "Dye it again, will ya'?" showing his inability to see change. Willy has this same inability. In fact, it is probably Willy that passed this attribute onto his son. Willy tells Biff, "Don't be so modest. You always started too low. It's not what you say, it's how you say it, because personality wins the day."
Again, we see that Happy has a desire to get Willy's attention, and please him. Happy tells his parents, "I'm gonna get married, Mom. I wanted to tell you." Also, Hap's sporting goods business idea does not seem sound. He simply made it up knowing that it would please Willy. Such lies and deceit are a vicious cycle in the Loman household: Hap and Biff will soon be making up stories to cover for their last one, leading the family lower and lower.
pages 70-99
Summary: ()
It is morning the next day, and the beginning of Act II. Willy is very happy, knowing that his sons are going to see Bill Oliver and become successes. Nothing can ruin this. The boys have left the house, and Willy is preparing to go see his own boss, Howard, to tell him that he does not want to travel anymore and wishes to have a job on the sales floor in New York. As he leaves, Linda tells him that the boys are going to treat him to a big dinner that night at Frank's Chop House.
Willy has a long discussion with Howard, and finally Howard tells Willy that the firm is firing him. Willy is shocked. Howard is the son of the previous owner, who Willy was good friends with. Willy delivers a long monologue about sales, and eventually Howard leaves the office for a few minutes. Ben appears and Willy is transported back to Biff's senior year again. It is the day of the big football game. Biff has been asked to attend three Universities. Willy refuses Ben's business offer once more, and tries to defend his position as a "lowly" salesman. Still immersed in this fantasy, Willy leaves Howard's ranting as he walks down the street to Charlie's office.
At Charlie's office Willy runs into Bernard and they talk for a bit. Willy is almost in tears and asks Bernard what happened to Biff after his senior year. Biff had flunked math and was ready to complete the credit in summer school, but he did not and became a drifter. Bernard tells Willy that after Biff went to go see Willy on a business trip, he came back changed. Willy refuses to talk about what happened on the trip, and soon Bernard is off.
Willy and Charlie talk for a little while. Charlie gives Willy fifty dollars so that he can go home to Linda and pretend that it's his pay. Willy leaves the office almost in tears and we are then taken to Frank's Chop House where the boys are waiting for Willy.
Willy lives on false hopes and, and in the morning he is happy with the thought that Biff is finally going to go into business and make it big. Linda tells Willy about the expenses around the house that need to be paid, including the broken refrigerator, and Willy says, "Once in my life I'd like to own something outright before it's broken! I'm always in a race with the junkyard." Willy is a man who cannot deal with the reality of the modern era.
Willy's boss, Howard, fires him that same morning. Willy responds with a long monologue about why he became a salesman. He talks about an old salesmen he once knew: "…when he died - and by the way he died the death of a salesmen, in his green velvet slippers … hundreds of salesmen and buyers were at his funeral." This was where Willy's illusions of becoming a salesman began. Willy tells Howard, "I put thirty-four years into this firm, Howard, and now I can't pay my insurance! You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away-a man is not a piece of fruit!"
Willy makes his way to Charlie's office where he meets Bernard. Bernard is off to argue a case in the US Supreme Court. Willy is awed by Bernard's success and asks him, "What-what's the secret? … How-how did you? Why didn't he ever catch on?" Willy is talking about Biff, and it pains him to see a young man like Bernard so successful. Bernard talks about how Biff changed after visiting Willy the summer of Biff's senior year. Bernard says, "I've often thought of how strange it was that I knew he'd given up his life." The reader does not find out until the next chunk what the root of Biff's problem is.
Willy goes into the office and talks to Charlie. He mentions that Howard fired him that day. Charlie says, "Willy, when are going to realize that them things don't mean anything? You named him Howard, but you can't sell that." Willy responds, "I've always tried to think otherwise, I guess. I always felt that if a man was impressive, and well liked, that nothing-" Charlie cuts him off, and it is here at this moment that Willy begins his tragic fall.
Willy tells Charlie, "Funny, y'know? After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive." pages 99-123
Summary: ()
It is now the same evening and Hap has arrived at Frank's Chop House where he and Biff and Willy are going to meet for dinner. Happy starts hitting on a woman at the next table and Biff comes in, distraught. Biff did not land the deal with Bill Oliver that day, and now he has to somehow tell the bad news to Willy. Hap tells Biff that it would be best if they simply lie to Willy and make up a story about how Bill Oliver is going to think it over. Biff does not want to do this. Biff's experience that day with Oliver made him realize everything that is wrong in his life and how to fix it, but he knows Willy will not be pleased.
Willy arrives and Biff begins telling his story. Biff did not actually even see Oliver, in fact he accidentally stole Oliver's fountain pen. As Biff tries to tell the truth, Hap keeps interrupting, trying to turn the story around so Willy will not be upset. Willy ends up leaving the table, and goes to the restroom where he lapses into another flashback. Biff and Happy leave the restaurant with a couple of women.
The reader is taken back to the summer after Biff flunked math his senior year. Willy is in a hotel room on a business trip with a woman he has been having an affair with. Biff has decided to come visit his father to talk to him about flunking the math class and ends up discovering his father's infidelity. We are then transported back to Frank's Chop House, present day.
Willy leaves the restaurant in a daze.
At the beginning of this chunk, Hap's character is further revealed as he tries to hit on a woman in the restaurant through the lies he tells her.
The most important part of this chunk is the flashback where Biff finds Willy with the woman. Up to that point in his life, Biff always believed that his father was beyond reproach. Biff placed him on a pedestal and had worshiped him. The knowledge of his father's unfaithfulness shatters this ideal that Biff has held for so long. It this event that sparks the turmoil Biff suffers for the next fifteen years.
As Willy leaves the restaurant, he tries to give all of his money to a waiter, saying, "Here's some more, I don't need it anymore… is there a seed store in the neighborhood?" Willy has decided to commit suicide and leave the insurance money for Biff so he can start a business and be a success. "I've got to get some seeds, right away. Nothing's planted. I don't have a thing in the ground." Willy has an urgent need to leave something behind, and the seeds act as a metaphorical representation of this.
pages 123-end
Summary: ()
Biff and Hap return home late that evening, after Willy. Linda is awake still, and none too happy that her sons abandoned Willy in the restaurant. She lambastes the boys about their behavior and Biff insists on seeing Willy. Linda will not permit it, knowing that an argument will ensue. Meanwhile, Willy is outside planting the garden and talking to Uncle Ben.
He talks to Ben about how his life insurance money will give Biff the start he needs to be success. They discuss this for a while and Biff comes out to talk to Willy. Biff has decided to simply leave the house and never come back or have any contact with his parents again.
Biff pulls Willy inside so he can say goodbye to both of them. A huge argument occurs. Biff pulls out the rubber hose that Willy has been sucking gas from the furnace with. The climax of the play occurs during this argument, and Biff goes to his room, promising to leave in the morning.
As the house settles down and Linda and the boys get ready for bed, Willy is in the kitchen. Ben appears again and tells Willy that his plan is sound. Willy tells Ben that Biff will finally realize how much he (Willy) is loved when Biff sees all of the hundreds of people that show up to his funeral. Ben leaves and Willy follows him out the door. Willy gets in his car and drives to his death.
The next scene is at the grave site after Willy's funeral. Only Biff, Hap, Linda, Charlie and Bernard are present. The play closes with just Linda onstage talking to Willy.
pages 123-end
Explanation:
The boys come home from their night on the town and Linda is furious, she asks them, "Don't you care whether he lives or dies?" Linda knows Willy's faults, and tries to shield him from hurting himself.
Willy is planting his garden and talking to Ben about the life insurance Biff will receive when Willy commits suicide. Ben tells him "…it's a cowardly thing." Willy replies, "Why? Does it take more guts to stand here the rest of my life ringing up a zero?" Although Willy feels he is "ringing up a zero," he still wants Biff to think he's important. Willy says, "Ben, that funeral will be massive! … That boy will be thunderstruck, Ben because he never realized-I am known!" This is another one of Willy's illusions.
Biff brings Willy inside to have it out with him. Biff yells, "The man don't know who we are! The man is gonna know! We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house!" Biff has finally seen the light and understands the family situation. Biff says, "I stopped in the middle of that [Oliver's] office building and I saw - the sky." He continues, "Pop! I'm a dime a dozen and so are you!" Willy shouts back, "I am not a dime a dozen! I am Willy Loman and you are Biff Loman!" Although Biff realizes the reality of their lives, Willy continues live the illusion. Biff retreats upstairs with the rest of the family.
Ben appears and says, "The jungle is dark, but full of diamonds, Wily." Ben continues to use the jungle as a metaphor for life, and the diamonds the symbol of success. "One must go in and fetch a diamond out." Willy says, "Imagine, when the mail comes, he'll be ahead of Bernard again!" And with that we leaves the house.
At the graveyard, Biff correctly says, "He had the wrong dreams. All, all, wrong." Happy tries to defend Willy. Happy cannot see the reality that Biff does.
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is a play constructed around characterization. Linda Loman is the only multidimensional character, possessing great emotional strength, rather than the weakest character, as felt by some. Linda is the base of the Loman family, and is the reason the household does not collapse. Linda has helped Willy survive, and kept him and Biff from destroying each other.
The reader is given the impression of Linda being a passive character from the beginning of the play: “Most often jovial, she has developed an iron repression of her exceptions to Willy’s behavior-she more than loves him, she admires him, as though his mercurial nature, his temper, his massive dreams, served her only as sharp reminders of the turbulent longings within him, longings which she shares but lacks the temperament to utter and follow to their end” (12). Linda’s love and respect for Willy allow her to withstand his “little cruelties,” such as when she asks with concern, “You didn’t smash the car again did you?”(12). And he snaps at her, “I said nothing happened. Didn’t you hear me?” (12). Linda endures Willy’s petty complaints because she wants to: “Willy, dear, I got a new kind of American-type cheese today. It’s whipped” (16).
“Why did you get American when I like Swiss?” (16) asks Willy. Linda responds “I just thought you’d like a change. (17). “Well I don’t want change! I want Swiss cheese. Why am I always being contradicted?” (17) questions Willy. Linda responds “with a covering laugh: ‘I thought it would be a surprise’” (17).
“Why don’t you open a window in here, for God’s sake?” (17) Willy yells irascibly. Linda answers “with infinite patience: ‘They’re all open dear’” (17). Linda at first appears weak, but Linda truly loves and respects her husband, and her goal is to make him happy. Linda is satisfied with how Willy treats her, and when Willy is happy, she is happy. Linda truly believes Willy is worthy of the praises she murmurs to him, “Willy darling, you’re the handsomest man in the world…and the boys Willy, few men are idolized by their children the way you are” (37). Willy acknowledges that his household is held together by Linda when he tells her “You’re my foundation and support, Linda” (18).
Linda truly is the foundation of the Loman family; she takes care of the finances, mediates between her sons and their father, and looks out for the families entire well being. While Willy is gone all day, Linda manages the house and the finances. Every day when Willy returns from work, Linda will ask, “'Did you sell anything?’”(35). And Willy may respond “’I did five hundred gross in Providence and seven hundred gross in Boston’” (35).
“‘No! Wait a minute, I’ve got a pencil.’ She pulls a pencil and paper out of her apron pocket. ‘That makes your commission…’ without hesitation, ‘two hundred gross. That’s…’ she figures” (35).
“‘What do we owe?’” (35) asks Willy. “‘Well, there’s ninety-six for the washing machine. And for the vacuum cleaner there’s three and a half due on the fifteenth. Then the roof…’” (36).
Without Linda, the household would have not only physically deteriorated by now, but mentally and emotionally as well. Linda spends her time mediating between Biff and Willy. “‘ You shouldn’t have criticized him, Willy, especially after he just got off the train. You mustn’t lose your temper with him’” (15). Linda frequently lectures Biff on his treatment of Willy, “‘ Biff, dear, if you don’t have any feelings for him, then you can’t have any feelings for me’” (55).
“‘Sure I can, Mom’” (55).
Linda gives Biff an ultimatum: “‘no. You can’t just come to see me, because I love him…he’s the dearest man in the world to me. And I won’t have anyone making him feel unwanted and low and blue. You’ve got to make up your mind now, darling; there’s no leeway anymore. Either he’s your father and you pay him that respect, or else you’re not to come here’”(55).
Willy is the dearest man to Linda; she accepts him and loves him for who he is, even though he is not always “all there.” Lately Willy has been getting more and more distant, and Biff notices this, yet Linda sympathizes with Willy, asking Biff:
And what goes through a man’s mind driving seven hundred miles home without having earned a cent? Why shouldn’t he talk to himself? Why? When he has to go to Charley and borrow fifty dollars every week and pretend to me it’s his pay? How long can that go on? And you tell me he has no character? The man who never worked a day but for your benefit? When does he get a medal for that? (57).
Linda is an exceptionally strong person, both mentally, and emotionally. During Biff’s absence, Linda deals with family problems entirely by herself. When Biff discovers that Willy no longer has a salary, and is now working on commission, he replies indignantly: “‘I didn’t know that, Mom’” (56).
“‘You never, asked my dear! Now that you get your spending money someplace else, you don’t trouble your mind with him’” (56), Linda responds resentfully.
Linda has also been dealing with Willy’s suicidal tendencies alone. She finally brings herself to tell her sons that Willy, for some time now, has been planning on killing himself. “‘He’s dying, Biff’” (58).
“‘Why is he dying?’” (85).
“‘He’s been trying to kill himself. I was looking for a fuse. And behind the fuse box was a length of rubber pipe-just short…I knew right away. And sure enough at the bottom of the water heater there’s a new little nipple on the gas pipe…I don’t know what to do. I live from days to days, boys’” (59).
Linda finds inner strength and explodes with anger at her sons and kicks them out of the house for abandoning Willy at the restaurant “‘Did you have to go to your women tonight? You and your rotten whores! Get out of here, both of you, and don’t come back! I don’t want you tormenting him anymore.’ She starts to pick up the flowers and stops herself. ‘Pick up this stuff, I’m not your slave anymore. Pick it up, you bum, you!’” (124).
Linda is the only one who knows what the family needs to survive. “‘He [Biff] was crestfallen, Willy. You know he admires you. I think if he finds himself, then you’ll both be happier and not fight anymore’” (15). When things with Oliver don’t work out for Biff, and he gives up trying to please his father, Linda musters the courage to let go of her son. Biff resigns the fight with Willy and says to Linda “‘All right, we [Biff and Willy] had it out. I’m going and I’m not writing anymore. People ask where I am and what I’m doing, you don’t know and you don’t care. That way it’ll be off your mind and you can start brightening up again ‘“(128). Linda reluctantly responds, considering Willy’s wellbeing and the rest of the family, “‘I think that’s the best way dear. ‘Cause there’s no use drawing it out, you’ll just never get along’” (128).
By then end of the play, the reader is convinced that Linda is in fact the deepest character possessing the most mental and emotional strength. Death… makes the reader reconsider their definitions of strengths and weaknesses, and made me realize that although someone may appear weak, if they are satisfied with their situation, then they are in fact not.
