‘Death of a Salesman’ by

Arthur Miller - A2 Revision

Booklet
 Name: ___________________
Plot Summary

Death of a Salesman takes place in and around the Brooklyn house of Willy Loman, a
salesman who has traveled for more than 30 years up and down the New England coast.
The action is confined within a 24- hour period, from Monday night to late Tuesday
evening, much of it reflecting the tragic turmoil of Willy’s mind. A requiem concludes the
play, an epilogue at the funeral of the salesman.

The story is told through a complex montage of scenes interlocking the present with past
events - memories, imagined moments, and flashbacks from the life of Willy Loman.

At 63, Willy Loman, a traveling salesman all his life, is becoming increasingly worried
about his ability to make ends meet. Although his house is nearly paid for, and his sons
are on their own, lately each sales trip is more exhausting and less satisfying. He feels
drained and is losing his grip on his own existence: “I’m tired to the death” he tells his
wife, Linda.

Their older son, Biff, estranged from his father for years, has moved away and has been
drifting across the country: “I’ve had twenty or thirty different jobs since I left home
before the war.” Happy, his younger brother, stayed in New York and has his own place.
He works in a warehouse and pursues his dream: ”My own apartment, a car, and plenty
of women.” For the moment the two brothers are back home, visiting their parents. From
the bedroom they used to share as boys, they overhear their parents and also talk about
their own lives.

Willy has returned home from an aborted sales trip and Linda, worried about her
husband difficulties, urges him to ask his firm for a position that would not require
traveling. He agrees to speak to his boss. Once she has gone to bed, however, Willy begins
to talk to himself, troubled by a restless mind spinning out of control: “I have such
thoughts, such strange thoughts,” he had actually told Linda earlier.

In this tormented state Willy recalls his past, the young father he once was - an energetic
and boasting man, determined to properly raise his boys by sharing with them his
strong business outlook and dreams of success. This whirlpool of memories replays
snippets of the history of the Loman family leading up to the present. Through the play a
recurring image haunts Willy’s imagination – it’s his older brother Ben, a model of
entrepreneurial success. Other scenes reveal discrepancies between Willy’s apparent
optimism and the actual situation in which the Loman family finds itself.

When Happy and Biff wonder about Willy’s behavior, Linda Loman sadly acknowledges
the deterioration of their father’s spirit, and reveals to them that he has lost his salary
and is now working on commission only. She then insists to the boys not to turn their
backs on Willy, but to show him respect and give him support: “Attention must be finally
paid to such a person,” she emphatically reminds them. When she also tells them that
their father has even tried to kill himself, Biff agrees to move back home, find a decent job
and help out his parents.

Next morning, encouraged by his sons’ renewed support, Willy goes to see his boss. The
young man, Howard, heir to the Wagner company, not only refuses Willy’s request, but
he eventually lets know the failing salesman that he is no longer needed as an employee.
Willy turns to his neighbor Charley who offers him a job, but Willy’s pride prevents him
from accepting this reasonable proposition. Instead, as he has done before, he borrows
more money from Charley to pay the latest round of bills and his insurance premium.

In a restaurant, as planned, Willy meets his sons for dinner. He finds out that Biff failed to
have the intended interview with Oliver, his former employer, and was left waiting for
hours with no other result than his helpless frustration. This circumstance lead him to
steal the man’s fountain pen, an irrational, impulsive, reprehensible act. Willy, anguished
by his own predicament, refuses to hear any such facts because, as he shouts at his sons:
“The woods are burning, boys, you understand? There’s a big blaze going on all around. I
was fired today.” They are quite shocked by the news. Meanwhile Willy is unable to
acknowledge Biff’s disappointment and refuses to listen to the uncomfortable truth why
his son’s plan didn’t succeed. Together, Biff and Happy end up leaving Willy behind, as
they walk out of the restaurant with two young women they had met there. Alone, and
again tormented by his contradictions and confusing thoughts, Willy recalls figments of
the past. Particularly disturbing is his guilty memory of an extra-marital encounter with
a woman in a Boston hotel room, where Biff had once surprised him.

At night, later, when Biff and Happy return home, Linda chastises her sons for having
abandoned their father in the restaurant. And she continues to fiercely defend Willy. But
Biff can no longer live with lies and false hopes. He tells his father to “take that phony
dream and burn it” and explodes with rage and bitter recriminations. Willy sees Biff’s
outburst as a sign of love. “That boy is going to be magnificent!” he exclaims as he clings
to his resolve to make his dream of success possible for his sons. Counting on the money
from his life insurance policy that will ensure the family’s future prosperity and his sons
success, he drives off into the night and is killed in an automobile crash.

After the funeral, when Biff concludes that his father had “the wrong dreams,” Charley
counters and defends Willy: “Nobody dast blame this man. [...] For a salesman, there is no
rock bottom to the life. [...] 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. [...] A salesman is
got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.”

Finally, Linda left by herself in her devastating grief, addresses Willy and wonders why
did he do it, why did he kill himself just when the last payment on the house was made.
Shaken by pain, she mutters, “We’re free and clear. We’re free...”
The Structure of the Play
The structure of the play is such that we are not so much interested in asking, ‘what is
going to happen to this family?’ as ‘what has happened to this family to make them like
they are?’ The play is pervaded by different kinds of dreams: the American dream, hopes
and ambitions and daydreams and fantasies. These dreams motivate the characters,
(temporarily) shield them from the disappointing ‘reality’ of their lives and give them
false hopes. Arguably, it is the characters’ dreams which ultimately lead to the play’s
tragedy.

Arthur Miller said of Death of a Salesman that it ‘explodes the watch and the calendar’.
The past lives of Willy and his family are mixed in with what is happening to them in the
present and this can be quite confusing when you read the play for the first time. It is less
confusing if you see the play performed.

PAST AND PRESENT

When the action shifts into the past it is not just as flashbacks to past events, to let the
audience know what happened in the past. All of the characters, and especially Willy, are
deeply affected now by what happened in the past.

What we see of the past is a mixture of the events and conversations that happened and
the characters’ view of the past as it affects them now.

Arthur Miller wrote about the play that he wanted to show that ‘nothing in life comes
‘next’ but that everything exists together and at the same time within us; that there is no
past to be ‘brought forward’ in a human being, but that he is his past at every moment
and that the present is merely that which his past is capable of noticing and smelling and
reacting to. I wished to create a form which, in itself as a form, would literally be the
process of Willy Loman’s way of mind.’

Miller helps the audience to be aware of scenes from the past in three ways:

1. When the action is in the present, the actors stay inside the imaginary walls of the
house on the stage. When they enter into the past, they step through the imaginary
walls onto the front of the stage and scenes from the past are shown at the front
of the stage.
2. The lighting changes to allow the house to look as if it is covered in the shadows
of leaves.
3. A flute plays to suggest happier times in the past. Miller says it suggests ‘grass and
trees and the horizon’.
FLASHBACKS / DAYDREAMS

In Death of a Salesman, this style (blending of Expressionism and Realism) is most

obvious in the use of ‘flashbacks’ or ‘dream sequences’. At the beginning of the play, Miller
first of all provides an anchor in reality. He presents a series of events that are accepted
by the audience as the objective reality of the play i.e. those sections of the play that take
place in the present. We understand them as objective reality because we see various
different characters’ perceptions of the events – for example, Willy’s breakdown is
discussed by the boys and Linda; Jenny the secretary talks to Bernard before Willy enters.

However, the play also shows the internal turmoil and psychological breakdown that
Willy is experiencing by presenting what is going on in Willy’s head. Sometimes this takes
the form of the acting out of Willy’s past experiences, sometimes in the appearance of Ben
or The Woman in Willy’s ‘present’. This style means that while the audience can share the
nightmare experience of Willy’s breakdown with him, we never lose touch with the real
events even though Willy perceives reality in a distorted way. Miller described Willy as
‘literally at that terrible moment when the voice of the past is no longer distant but quite
as loud as the voice of the present’. He did not see Willy’s internal sequences as
‘flashbacks’.

“There are no flashbacks in this play but only a mobile concurrency of past and
present... because in his desperation to justify his life Willy Loman has destroyed the
boundaries between now and then.” Arthur Miller

LANGUAGE

The use of language in Death of a Salesman is entirely Realistic. Miller’s dialogue is

carefully constructed to follow the exact speech patterns of ordinary New Yorkers. It is
very dense and fast, with repetitions, hesitations, and contradictions. The characters
often use slang and clichés such as: “Biff is a lazy bum”, “You make mountains out of
molehills”, “I’m a dime a dozen”, “You’re a pal”, “He’s gonna flunk you”, “I’m takin’ one play
for Pop”.
Inspiration

“...To me the tragedy of Willy Loman is that he gave his life, or sold it, in order to justify the
waste of it. It is the tragedy of a man who did believe that he alone was not meeting the
qualifications laid down for mankind by those clean-shaven frontiersmen who inhabit the
peaks of broadcasting and advertising offices. From those forests of canned goods high up
near the sky, he heard the thundering command to succeed as it ricocheted down the
newspaper-lined canyons of his city, heard not a human voice, but a wind of a voice to which
no human can reply in kind, except to stare into the mirror at a failure.”
Arthur Miller, “The ‘Salesman’ Has a Birthday,” The New York Times, February 5,
1950

“The first image that occurred to me which was to result in Death of a Salesman was of an
enormous face, the height of the proscenium arch, which would appear and then open up,
and we would see the inside of a man’s head. In fact, The Inside of His Head was the first
title. It was conceived half in laughter, for the inside of his head was a mass of contradictions.
... The Salesman image was from being absorbed with the concept in life that nothing in life
comes “next” but that everything exists together and at the same time within us; that there
is no past to be “brought forward” in a human being, but that he is his past at every moment
and that the present is merely that which his past is capable of noticing and smelling and
reacting to.

I wished to create a form which, in itself as a form, would literally be the process of Willy
Loman’s way of mind. But to say “wished” is not accurate. Any dramatic form is an artifice,
a way of transforming a subjective feeling into something that can be comprehended
through public symbols. Its efficiency as a form is to be judged – at least by the writer – by
how much of the original vision and feeling is lost or distorted by this transformation. I
wished to speak of the salesman most precisely as I felt about him, to give no part of that
feeling away for the sake of any effect or any dramatic necessity. What was wanted now was
not a mounting line of tension, nor a gradually narrowing cone of intensifying suspense, but
a bloc, a single chord presented as such at the outset, within which all the strains and
melodies would already be contained. The strategy ... was to appear entirely unstrategic. ...
If I could, I would have told the story and set forth all the characters in one unbroken speech
or even one sentence or a single flash of light. As I look at the play now its form seems the
form of a confession, for that is how it is told, now speaking of what happened yesterday,
then suddenly following some connection to a time 20 years ago, then leaping even further
back and then returning to the present and even speculating about the future.”
Arthur Miller, Introduction to Collected Plays, 1957

“Willy is foolish and even ridiculous sometimes. He tells the most transparent lies,
exaggerates mercilessly, and so on. But I really want you to see that his impulses are not
foolish at all. He cannot bear reality, and since he can’t do much to change it, he keeps
changing his ideas of it.” Arthur Miller, Salesman in Beijing, 1984

Arthur Miller once said that everything he had written was based on somebody he
had seen or known...

Death of a Salesman began as a short story that 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.

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 traveling 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 theatre’s most famous plays took shape.

Character Map
Context – The American Dream

The idea of the American Dream is that, through a combination of hard work,
courage and determination, prosperity can be achieved. These values came to America
with the early settlers and were passed on to later generations. The Irish Potato Famine
and other problems in Europe encouraged mass immigration to America. People fled the
problems at home in order to prosper from the freedom and financial security that they
had heard existed in America.

In the later half of the 19th Century, there was a distinct possibility of coming across a
fortune through relatively little effort, as long as you were able to invest in land. Many
early prospectors bought cheap land west of the Rockies in the hope of finding deposits
of gold. The American Dream was a driving force in the Gold Rush of the mid to late 1800s,
as well as encouraging the immigration that followed.

As the 20th Century drew closer, the Dream became that of industry and capitalism, with
men such as John D Rockerfeller beginning life in humble conditions, but going on to
control vast corporations and the fortunes that resulted. Successes such as these
suggested that talent, intelligence and a willingness to work hard were all that was
needed to achieve the dream. America has always been perceived as a place where the
streets are paved with gold; consequently, there are more legal immigrants to the US per
annum than any other country in the world. They were (and are) drawn to work in the
major cities such as New York, Chicago and Detroit.

During the 1920s and 1930s, the Depression was a cause of major hardship and seemed
to be a reverse of the Dream which people had held dear for so long.

Yet the end of WWII drew young American families to live in comfort and stability in the
suburbs, living the life of a ‘perfect family’. The rise of the hippy values of the 1960s
rejected this ideal – but did not kill it off entirely.

Many people today say that that the American Dream is misleading. It is impossible for
everyone to gain prosperity simply through hard work and determination. The
consequence of this is that those who do not achieve success believe that it is entirely
their fault. In addition, the poor are penalized as their poverty is seen as proof of their
laziness. The American Dream does not take account of the fact that the family and wealth
that one is born into, as well as traits such as natural intelligence, have a bearing on
potential success in life.

Things to consider:

1. The word ‘Dream’ is important – what does it suggest?

2. What do you think that Miller is trying to say about the American Dream in Death
of a Salesman?

Context – What was happening then?

In 1880s and 1890s when Willy was growing up:

 the first machine, the graphophone, was invented to record and play back your
own voice in 1885;
 Geronimo, the Apache Indian Chief surrendered in 1886;
 there was a Goldrush in Alaska in 1896;
  the Battle of Wounded Knee was fought in 1890 - the last major battle between
the American Indians and the white soldiers.

In 1913, when Willy joined the Wagner firm:

 it was just before the First World War;

 the first Ford Motor Company moving assembly line was opened, to begin mass
production of the Model T car. Henry Ford talked of ‘democratizing the auto-
mobile’;
 American society was small, stable and relatively secure economically - it was
the period before the great Depression of the twenties;
 Arthur Miller was born in 1915.

In 1932, when Biff would have been at high school, captain of the football team
and about to take his State Board of Regents examinations to qualify for the
University of Virginia:

 America was in the middle of the Depression;

 about 15 million people were unemployed;
 factories were closing and shops were empty of customers and going out of
business, or partly closed for inventory, having overstocked products - being a
salesman was not an easy job in this climate;
 few people could afford to drive a car, except for business.

Context – The Theatrical Context

In 1947, Miller saw Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire on stage and was
impressed at how Williams had used a mixture of realism and expressionism to create
a unique feeling for his play. It is this influence that we see in Death of a Salesman.
REALISM
 An artistic movement which began in France in the 19th Century.
 It sought to accurately portray everyday characters, situations and problems.
 The language used was as close as possible to natural conversation.
 Costumes were contemporary and sets were three-dimensional and lifelike.
 The plays were usually about social problems.

EXPRESSIONISM

 Was a reaction to realism and began in the 1900s.

 It sought to portray the inner psychological life of a character, concentrating on
a subjective view of the world rather than an objective one.
 Plot, structure and characterisation were less important than poetic dialogue.
 Lighting was used to create atmosphere.

Miller was fascinated by Expressionism but didn’t want to give up the conventions of
Realism. In Death of a Salesman, he incorporates the two so that we see the reality of the
events as well as the turmoil that Willy is undergoing.

Sometimes, this takes the form of Willy’s past experiences being acted out; at other times,
it is in the appearance of characters from the past in Willy’s present.

Some people call these events ‘flashbacks’. Miller did not. He said that it is ‘literally that
terrible moment when the voice of the past is no longer distant but quite as loud as the
voice of the present’. ... ‘There are no flashbacks in this play but only a mobile concurrency
of past and present ... because in his desperation to justify his life Willy Loman has
destroyed the boundaries between now and then.’

Themes

Reality and Illusion

The gap between reality and illusion is blurred in the play -- in the structure, in Willy’s
mind and in the minds of the other characters. Willy is a dreamer and dreams of a success
that it is not possible for him to achieve. He constantly exaggerates his success: (‘I
averaged a hundred and seventy dollars a week in the year of 1928’) and is totally
unrealistic about what Biff will be able to achieve too. Willy’s inability to face the truth of
his situation, that he is merely ‘a dime a dozen’, rubs off on his sons. Happy exaggerates
how successful he is and Biff only realizes in Oliver’s office that he has been lying to
himself for years about his position in the company: “I realized what a ridiculous lie
my whole life has been. We’ve been talking in a dream for fifteen years. I was a
shipping clerk.” Biff is the only one who realizes how this blurring of reality has
destroyed them all. His aim becomes to make Willy and the family face the truth which
they have been avoiding, the truth of who they are: “The man don’t know who we are!...
We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house.“ This blurring of reality and
illusion is carried through into the structure.

Memory and the past.

The American Dream (and dreaming more generally – hopes and ambitions,
daydreams and fantasies)

The American Dream is the capitalist belief that if you work hard enough you can be a
success in America. However, the success that the dream aspires to is based on money
and power. In Willy’s mind it is also linked with being “well-liked”. Biff realizes that
being true to yourself is a more important success. Howard’s treatment of
Willy shows how destructive the pursuit of this dream can be. He lays Willy off when
he can no longer generate money for the company which enrages Willy: “You can’t eat
the orange and throw the peel away – a man is not a piece of fruit.“ Willy’s
adherence to the dream means that he buys status symbols on credit that he cannot
afford to keep the payments up on. It is ironic then that Willy’s funeral is on the day that
the last mortgage payment is made.

Family and relationships (particularly between fathers and sons)

In the play, each generation has a responsibility to the other that they cannot fulfill. Biff
and Happy are shaped by Willy’s sins. In Happy’s case, he is destined to perpetuate Willy’s
values and strive for material success, where Biff has been destroyed totally by Willy’s
betrayal of the family through the affair and the fact that Willy never discouraged him
from stealing. On the other hand, Biff and Happy have the opportunity to save Willy by
becoming “successful” in his eyes and supporting him and Linda in their old age. However
they are not able to do this because of the way they have been raised. Biff is attempting
to break this cycle of destruction in the family.

Nature and Physical Pursuits

In the play, the alternative to the corruption of urban capitalism is physical or natural
pursuits. Biff talks about working with horses or cattle on ranches as his calling. Happy
knows he can ‘outbox, outrun and out-lift anybody in that store’ and Willy ‘was a happy
man with a batch of cement’. The ‘Loman Brothers’ would sell sporting goods and Willy
should have gone to the wilds of Alaska. The suggestion is that the true nature of all three
of these men would be in physical pursuits and in a rural setting. However, Willy’s
dependence on ‘the dream’, means they cannot follow their true calling.

Masculinity and Heroism

Willy is very much caught up in the masculine dream of America and it does not succeed
as he wishes. He tries to live up to expectations and prove his popularity and success, yet
he is unable to achieve these things in the way he envisages. In many ways, Miller is
questioning and shattering the construction of manhood in a similar manner as he does
with the American Dream.

Whilst Willy fulfils the ‘masculine’ stereotype within the household – he pays for the
fridge and is the sole provider etc. –he never really earns himself a respectable place in
the community. He believes people laugh at him and that he is ‘not noticed’. Whilst Linda
does her best to console and reassure him, her position as female in the text does not lend
her the authority she needs to be able to change his perceptions.

Indeed, women are objectified and seen as consumable objects in the play. All the male
characters display this attitude to some extent. ‘The Woman’ is not even granted a name,
and Happy regularly refers to women as food and games; they are sexual objects that can
be used and thus display their masculinity.

Motifs
The jungle/woods

The woods or the jungle are a symbol of life, especially the risks of life. Uncle Ben is not
afraid to take risks in life. He literally walked into the jungle to achieve his dreams – he
took control of his life. Willy is more fearful and is losing control of his life. He tells the
boys that “the woods are burning” when he loses his job. But Ben tells Willy that “the
jungle is dark” but that he must walk in to it – he is telling him he should take control by
committing suicide.

Diamonds

Diamonds are a symbol of success. Ben find diamonds in the jungle and gives Willy a
diamond watch fob. Willy has to pawn the watch fob to pay for a course for Biff – he is
trying to pass the “success” on to Biff. He tries to do this again by committing suicide and
leaving money to Biff; he must “fetch a diamond”. Willy has a vision of the success Biff can
achieve with the insurance money – “I see it like a diamond, shining in the dark, hard and
rough, that I can pick up and touch in my hand”.

The garden

The garden is a repeated motif that works as a symbol of Willy’s desire to create a good
life for his family. Willy’s garden used to grow well before the apartment blocks were
built. But now ‘The grass don't grow anymore, you can't raise a carrot in the backyard.’
Willy is trying to ‘grow’ something for his family i.e. he wants to become a success and
support them. He used to be on his way to achieving that but he has ultimately failed. At
the end of the play, one of his last acts in life is his futile attempt at planting seeds. Willy
never achieves success in life, and he also never plants his garden.

Stockings

Stockings, for Willy, represent his affair with The Woman. Linda is seen several times
mending stockings, while The Woman is given new stockings by Willy. In the same way,
Willy gives love to The Woman which he should be giving to his wife. Willy always feels
guilty when he sees Linda mending stockings and orders her not to do it. Stockings are
also a symbol of material wealth and Willy feels like he cannot provide Linda with new
stockings. She is more pragmatic however, and hides them instead of throwing them
away – she understands that they cannot afford to be wasteful.

Falling / Down The words fall, falling and down and the movements they suggest re-
appear again and again and emphasize the fall of Willy and his family. Willy is described
as ‘beaten down’ and he ‘lies back, exhausted’. Willy also ‘falls’ into bed with the woman
and she shouts at him to ‘get up, get up’. When Biff leaves him in the hotel, Willy is on his
knees. Biff is also going down – when he steals the pen from Oliver's office he runs down
11 flights of stairs. Finally, when Willy has fallen down to his death, Linda lays flowers
down at his grave.
Stealing

Biff and Happy both steal. Happy steals fiancées and Biff steals a football, basketballs,
lumber and cement, a suit, a fountain pen and many other things not mentioned. Their
stealing can be seen to represent the way their true identities have been stolen by lying
and the pursuit of an unachievable dream.

Brand Names

The use of brand names helps to heighten the realism of the play – Chevrolet, Simonize,
Hastings, Studebaker. However, these “status symbols” also represent the material
success that Willy strives for and how it is ultimately empty. He is so proud of
the Chevvy as “the greatest car ever built” but when it goes wrong he says “they ought
to prohibit the manufacturer of that car”. He is duped by advertising into thinking that
owning these things equates with success.

Theatrical Context - Tragedy

A tragedy, in the theatrical sense, is a serious play which represents the disastrous
downfall of a central character (the protagonist). In some Ancient Greek tragedies, a
happy ending was possible, but the more usual ending is that the protagonist dies.

Aristotle (4th Century) defined a tragedy as an action which is serious and complete, with
the protagonist achieving catharsis (purification) through incidents which arouse pity
and terror. The protagonist is led to this point through hamartia (an error) which often
takes the form of hubris (excessive pride).

Traditionally, the protagonist would be of high status. The protagonist in a tragedy has a
character defect or tragic flaw which brings about their downfall.

‘Death of a Salesman’, with its concerns for a socially inferior protagonist, may be
considered a domestic tragedy (consider carefully the use of setting and the key
characters). It can also be considered a modern tragedy; one where ordinary people are
placed in tragic situations – made popular after the First World War.
Key Terms

Consumerism Contemporary society’s obsession with

spending on new products
Irony Saying something in a way which coveys
a different or opposite meaning
Materialism An excessive regard for material
possessions
The American Dream First coined in 1931 by James Truslow
Adams, The American Dream is the
‘dream of a land in which life should be
better and richer and fuller for
everyone, with opportunity for each
according to ability or achievement’.
Requiem A religious ceremony and mass for the
dead.
Protagonist The main character in a plot or story.

Objectification The action of degrading someone to the

status of a mere object.
Tragedy (play) A serious play which represents the
disastrous downfall of a central
character.
Hubris Excessive pride – usually a flaw which
leads to the downfall of the protagonist.
Capitalism An economic and political system in
which a country’s trade and industry
are controlled by private owners for
profit , rather than by the state.
Key Character Maps

Willy
Biff
Happy
Linda
Questions by Act to make you think

ACT ONE

1. Why is Willy home? Why is Linda alarmed that he’s home?

2. Why is Willy annoyed at Biff? How does he describe Biff? What does this tell us
about Willy?
3. How has the neighborhood changed? Why does it matter to the story that his
surroundings are no longer the way they used to be?
4. How does Linda treat Willy? How do the boys feel about him? Is Biff trying to
spite Willy? Why does Biff come home in the spring?
5. Why won’t Happy go out West with Biff, and why won’t Biff stay? Why doesn’t
either son get married and settle down?
6. How does Willy act toward the boys when they are young? How do they act
toward him? How does Willy feel about Charley and Bernard?
7. What does Willy’s reaction to Biff ’s theft of the football tell us about Willy? He
says the boys look like Adonises. What other clues show that Willy believes in
appearances?
8. Willy praises and then curses the Chevrolet; he tells Linda that he’s very well
liked, and then says that people don’t seem to take to him. What do these
inconsistencies tell us about Willy?
9. “Five hundred gross in Providence” becomes “roughly two hundred gross on
the whole trip.” How does Linda take Willy’s stories? What does this reveal about
her? Why does Willy make a fuss about Linda’s mending stockings? How is this
important to the play?
10. Why does Charley visit? How does he feel about Willy? How and why do they
insult each other?
11. Who is Ben? Why does Ben appear? What does Willy think about the future?
About the past? What does Ben teach Biff? Why does Willy feel “kind of
temporary” about himself and want Ben to stay?
12. What does Linda think is the trouble with Willy’s life? Why is she angry at her
sons? Why does she put the rubber hose back after she had taken it? What does
this tell about her?
13. Why is Willy interested when Biff mentions Bill Oliver? Why do they argue?
How does Happy try to capture attention?
ACT TWO

1. Why is Willy’s mood upbeat at the start of Act Two? What does he expect to
happen?
2. Why does Willy tell Howard about Dave Singleman? Describe the dramatic
effect when Howard listens to the voices of his family while Willy tries to talk
business. Why does Howard tell Willy to drop off his samples and forbid him to
go to Boston? Why is this such a blow to Willy?
3. What is Willy’s philosophy? How does Biff as a football hero embody his
father’s dreams? Why does Charley say Willy hasn’t grown up?
4. What is Willy’s impression of Bernard when he sees him in his father’s office?
Why does Willy exaggerate Biff ’s importance? Why does Bernard ask what
happened after the game at Ebbets Field?
5. Why won’t Willy work for Charley? Why is Willy able to ask Charley for
money? How is Charley’s view of what a salesman needs different from Willy’s
view?
6. In the restaurant, how does Happy reflect Willy’s values? Why does Miller have
the girls come in?
7. How does Biff ’s realization that his life is a lie underline the theme of the play?
Why does Biff take Bill Oliver’s fountain pen? Why can’t he tell his father what
happened with Bill Oliver? Why do Biff and Happy leave Willy at the
restaurant?
8. Why did Biff go to Boston? What does he discover when he sees the Woman?
Why is it that Biff never went to summer school? Why can’t he believe in his
father?
9. Why does Linda tell the boys, “Get out of here, both of you, and don’t come
back!”?
10. Why does Willy keep planting seeds where they’ve never grown before? Why
does Willy think Biff will be impressed with his funeral? Why does Ben say that
Biff will call Willy a fool?
11. Why doesn’t Willy want to see Linda? Why does he think Biff is spiting him?
Why does Biff show him the rubber hose? Why does Biff confront Willy and
Happy?
12. What does Biff do that elates Willy? How does Happy try to attract Willy’s
attention? How does Ben influence Willy at this point?
REQUIEM

1. What is a requiem? What is the purpose of this final act? To what extent is it
successful?
2. Charley says: “No man only needs a little salary.” To what is he referring? What
else does a man need?
3. Explain the irony of Linda’s last speech.

Example Essay Questions

Past Questions

1. Discuss Miller’s dramatic presentation of success and ideas about success in Death of a
Salesman.
2. Discuss the dramatic presentation and significance of competition and sport in Death of
a Salesman (question taken from our exam zone).
3. By what means and with what effects does Miller present Willy’s varying states of mind
in the play?

Potential Questions

1. How helpful is the manipulation of the time sequence in Death of a Salesman in understanding
some of the conflicts of the play?
2. Discuss the significance of Willy’s brother, Ben, in ‘Death of a Salesman’.
3. In what ways does ‘Death of a Salesman’ point out the hopelessness of chasing the American
Dream? Are there any rewards?
4. ‘Willy is the victim of a phoney dream’. To what extent do you agree with this statement?
5. To what extent do the characters of Willy and Biff Loman reveal the emptiness of some of the
ideals of American life?
6. Discuss the importance of dreams in ‘Death of a Salesman’.
7. ‘Willy Loman is too naïve and superficial a character to be the hero of a tragedy.’ To what
extent do you agree with he statement?
8. ‘He had all the wrong dreams. All, all wrong.’ Discuss in relation to Willy in ‘Death of a
Salesman’.
9. To what extent is ‘Death of a Salesman’ about ‘the inside of a man’s head’?
10. What is the importance of the relationships between fathers and sons in ‘Death of a Salesman’?
11. Miller has said that ‘Death of a Salesman’ is ‘really a love story between a man and his son, and
in a crazy way between both of them and America.’ Do you agree with this statement?
12. Discuss the presentation and significance of women in the play.
13. Discuss the significance of the title ‘Death of a Salesman’. What is the importance of selling in
the play?
14. What is interesting about Miller’s handling of time and memory in the play? What does this
add to your understanding of the characters?
15. ‘Biff’s rejection of Willy’s ideas is the climax of his self-discovery.’ To what extent do you agree
with this statement?
16. ‘Willy’s image of America is a mistaken one: it is no longer the land of opportunity but a
concrete jungle.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement?
17. Discuss the presentation and significance of Happy in the play.
18. Discuss the dramatic presentation of family and relationships in ‘Death of a Salesman’.
19. By what means and with what effects does Miller present concepts of reality and illusion in
the the play?
20. What role does the fear of abandonment play in the characters’ lives.
21. ‘Linda is the moral center of the play.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement?