Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman

 I. Basics:

Author: Arthur Miller

Setting: Willy’s home in an unnamed city. The home carries signs of age and “an air of the dream hangs on the place, a dream rising out of reality.”

II.) Characters:
Willy: Willy Loman, the main character of Death of a Salesman, put his full faith into the American Dream when he launched his career. However, as his age climbs and his sales skills begin to waver, Willy loses his job as well as his mind. The intimate relationship between Willy’s career and his mental well-being intensifies the nature of the story and allows readers to understand that the power of the mythical dream.

Biff: Biff is the first in the family to become disillusioned with the American dream. Willy, putting his full faith into the American way, embraces a businessman’s morality. Convinced that what he’s doing helps his family, Willy cheats, lies, and even has an affair with an unnamed woman. When Biff discovers Willy’s affair, he simultaneously discovers the reality of the American dream. He leaves the society of his father and the dream until he is called back by Linda. The tension between Biff’s love for his father and his disillusionment for the American Dream propels the action of the novel.

Linda: Willy’s rock, Linda acts as emotional and spiritual support for the struggling family. She does her best to keep the family together, yet despite her actions their fates seems sealed. In many ways, Linda is a martyr and also possible a masochist.

Happy: Willy and Linda’s second son, Happy lacks Biff’s common sense. He embraces Willy’s idea of the American dream, fabricating a different world with his words. Happy’s naive pursuit of Willy’s path reveals many contradictions of the American dream.

Bernard: Biff’s neighbor and the local nerd, Bernard tries to help tutor Biff in math. Although he is undervalued in childhood, in adulthood Bernard thrives. He becomes a brilliant lawyer and even shows mercy for Willy and his family. Bernard illustrates the imbalance of values in the American society and that achieving success requires a sense of reality that none of the Loman’s possess.

Uncle Ben: Willy’s mystical brother, Uncle Ben is said to have to either Africa of Alaska and when he returned, he was rich. This get rich quick story symbolizes the American dream which Willy pursues.

III.)Plot: To begin the play, Willy returns home from a business trip exhausted. Although Linda attempts to comfort him, he seems to deflect her efforts. Their talk rouses Biff and Willy from sleep and provokes a conversation between the two brothers in which they talk about dreams and their experiences. Downstairs, Willy lets himself slip into daydreams. He remembers when the boys were teenagers and Biff was a star football player and he himself had a great job. Then Willy is pushed back into reality, and his neighbor Charlie arrives at the Loman house, awakened too by Willy. Charlie and Willy begin to play cards, but they eventually stop because of Willy’s cheating. Willy also begins to envision his Uncle Ben. In another room, Linda, Happy and Biff discuss the severity of Willy’s slipping mental state. Linda reveals Willy’s suicide attempt and guilts Biff into attempting to find a job to please his father. The night ends on a hopeful note as all the Loman’s seem unified into making their dream a reality. The boys leave to attend to their business and Willy goes to visit his boss in the hopes of securing a better position in the job. Instead however, Willy ends up getting fired. Rejected, Willy’s only hope lies in Biff and Happy’s meeting with Bill Oliver. The three meet at dinner and Biff begins to lie to Willy about the meeting at Willy’s encouragement. He then realizes however that lying only perpetuates Willy’s problems and is reveals that Bill Oliver did not even recognize him. Upset with this slap of reality, Willy recalls his affair with the unnamed woman and the moment when Biff lost his faith in him and the American Dream. When Willy returns home, he finds his house in disarray and gets into a conflict with Biff. Biff cannot stand to live in Willy’s world of lies and disillusionment anymore and the tension of the play reaches its climax here. After the fight, Willy reasons that he might still be able to have the American dream, in death and thus commits suicide. The scene then changes to Willy’s funeral. Instead of the thousands of people he imagined, only his intimate family and Charlie attends, illustrating a final disparity between Willy’s dreams and his reality.

IV.)    Narrative Voice/Author’s Style
POV: The play’s narrator is 3rd person, objective and omniscient.

Tone: Heavy and heartbreaking.

Symbolism: Seeds, Willy’s car, the house, Howard’s recorder, math, football, stockings, geography and diamonds.

V.)    Quotes

“A man is not an orange. You can't eat the fruit and throw the peel away.”

This quote is said by Willy to Howard. Upon getting fired, Willy uses this quote to sum up the injustice of his situation. The quote represents a major part of the American society-- a culture known for using and abusing its own workers.

“Nobody dast blame this man. You don’t understand: Willy was a salesman, 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.”

This quote is said by Charlie at Willy’s funeral. Here, Charlie’s speech takes on an almost preaching quality. This allows his words to seem more significant and to reverberate beyond just Willy.

VI.)    Themes and explain:
The fallacy of the American Dream.
The entire premise of Death of a Salesman rests on the Willy’s conflict between reality and the illusion of the American dream. The more he buys into the idea of “getting rich quick” and that schemes and cheats are the way to go, the farther he falls into a system which he cannot escape from.