thesis statement and summary of death of a salesman act 1

Death of a Salesman

By arthur miller, death of a salesman summary and analysis of act i.1.

Act I (Loman Home, Present Day):

The salesman, Willy Loman , enters his home. He appears very tired and confused. Linda Loman , his wife, puts on a robe and slippers and goes downstairs. She has been asleep. Linda is mostly jovial, but represses objections to her husband. Her struggle is to support him while still trying to guide him. She worries that he smashed the car, but he says that nothing happened. He claims that he's tired to death and couldn't make it through the rest of his trip. He got only as far as Yonkers, and doesn't remember the details of the trip. He tells Linda that he kept swerving onto the shoulder of the road, but Linda thinks that it must be faulty steering in the car.

Linda says that there's no reason why he can't work in New York, but Willy says he's not needed there. Willy claims that if Frank Wagner were alive he would be in charge of New York by now, but that his son, Howard, doesn't appreciate him. Linda tells him that Happy took Biff on a double date, and that it was nice to see them shaving together. Linda reminds him not to lose his temper with Biff, but Willy claims that he simply had asked him if he was making any money. Willy says that there is an undercurrent of resentment in Biff, but Linda says that Biff admires his father. Willy calls Biff a lazy bum and says that he is lost. Willy longs for the days when their neighborhood was less developed and less crowded. He wakes up his sons Biff and Happy, both of whom are in the double bunk in the boys' bedroom.

At the beginning of the play, Arthur Miller establishes Willy Loman as a troubled and misguided man, at heart a salesman and a dreamer. He emphasizes his preoccupation with success. However, Miller makes it equally apparent that Willy Loman is not a successful man. Although in his sixties, he is still a traveling salesman bereft of any stable location or occupation, and clings only to his dreams and ideals. There is a strong core of resentment in Willy Loman's character and his actions assume a more glorious past than was actually the case. Willy sentimentalizes the neighborhood as it was years ago, and is nostalgic for his time working for Frank Wagner, especially because his former boss's son, Howard Wagner , fails to appreciate Willy. Miller presents Willy as a strong and boisterous man with great bravado but little energy to support his impression of vitality. He is perpetually weary and exhibits signs of dementia, contradicting himself and displaying some memory loss.

Linda, in contrast, shows little of Willy's boisterous intensity. Rather, she is dependable and kind, perpetually attempting to smooth out conflicts that Willy might encounter. Linda has a similar longing for an idealized past, but has learned to suppress her dreams and her dissatisfaction with her husband and sons. Miller indicates that she is a woman with deep regrets about her life; she must continually reconcile her husband with her sons, and support a man who has failed in his life's endeavor. Linda exists only in the context of her family relationships. As a mother to Biff and Happy and a husband to Willy, and must depend on them for whatever success she can grasp.

The major conflict in Death of a Salesman is between Biff Loman and his father. Even before Biff appears on stage, Linda indicates that Biff and Willy are perpetually at odds with one another because of Biff's inability to live up to his father's expectations. As Linda says, Biff is a man who has not yet "found himself." At thirty-four years old, Biff remains to some degree an adolescent. This is best demonstrated by his inability to keep a job. He and Happy still live in their old bunk beds; despite the fact that this reminds Linda of better times, it is a clear sign that neither of the sons has matured.

A major theme of the play is the lost opportunities that each of the characters face. Linda Loman, reminiscing about the days when her sons were not yet grown and had a less contentious relationship with their father, regrets the state of disarray into which her family has fallen. Willy Loman believes that if Frank Wagner had survived, he would have been given greater respect and power within the company. Willy also regrets the opportunities that have passed by Biff, whom he believes to have the capability to be a great man.

Miller uses the first segment of the play to foreshadow later plot developments. Willy worries about having trouble driving and expresses dissatisfaction with his situation at work, and Linda speaks of conflict between Willy and his sons. Each of these will become important in driving the plot and the resolution of the play.

Death of a Salesman Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Death of a Salesman is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Significant of the tittle in 600 words.

I think the title refers to both the death of Willy the salesmen and the death of his dreams. Willy's dreams of success turn to disillusionment when he cannot compete in the capitalist world. An extended metaphor might also involve Capitalism and...

death of a salesman

Charley visits because he is worried about Willy.He knows Willy is a proud man and he wants to help him, though Willy isn't really willing to take his help.

Please submit your questions one at a time.

How have biff and happy responded to their father’s condition

Biff denies responsibility for his father's condition, but he is forced to acknowledge that he is linked to his father's guilt and irrational actions. I think happy is just stressed about it.

Study Guide for Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman study guide contains a biography of Arthur Miller, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Death of a Salesman
• Death of a Salesman Summary
• Character List

Essays for Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.

• Shattered Dream - The Delusion of Willy Loman
• Perceptions of Self Worth and Prominence: Spaces and Settings in Death of a Salesman
• Sales and Dreams
• Musical Motifs
• Death of A Salesman: Shifting of the American Dream

Lesson Plan for Death of a Salesman

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Introduction to Death of a Salesman
• Relationship to Other Books
• Notes to the Teacher

Wikipedia Entries for Death of a Salesman

• Introduction
• Characters and cast

Death of a Salesman Act One Summary

• Let’s pretend we’re watching this play. We see a nice little two-bedroom house, probably only one bathroom, but that’s OK.
• We hear some nice flute-like music and feel like we’re entering Fantasia .
• Yet instead of dancing hippos, Willy Loman, an old, worn-out salesman, enters. He’s talking to himself, and this just can’t be good.
• Willy’s back from a trip and carrying some bags. It’s late at night, and he definitely should be in bed.
• Inside, Linda, Willy’s wife, is surprised to see him—he is supposed to be gone for several days on a business trip.
• Her husband explains that he kept forgetting he was driving (scary). Since his mind was totally not on the road (and frequently his car wasn’t either), he headed home.
• Linda, ignoring the fact that Willy has been talking with imaginary people and driving off roads, recommends that he ask his boss to transfer him to a local office job.

• Willy insists that he’s vital as a traveling salesman, but eventually agrees. He’s sure that his boss, Howard, loves him enough to give him the local NY gig.
• Willy and Linda chat about their grown sons, Biff and Happy, who happen to be sleeping upstairs.
• Biff has just come home from the West, where he was working as a farmhand.
• Willy is mad at Biff. The father-and-son duo had yet another fight that morning, primarily because Willy can’t handle the fact that his 34-year-old son isn’t able to hold down a real job, you know, the kind with suits and fluorescent lights.
• He concludes that Biff must be lazy.
• Willy then declares his son is hard-working hot stuff (notice how he changed his mind about the lazy part?). He can’t understand why, in the greatest country ever (a.k.a. America), his son can’t get his life together. Clearly (to Willy), Biff is wasting his life in order to spite his old man.

• Willy reminisces, in a rather sad and I-want-to-live-through-you-vicariously kind of way, about what a hotshot Biff was in high school.
• Willy and Linda get to bickering about cheese and population growth (no, we weren’t aware of any correlation between the two either).
• Biff and Happy are now awake (upstairs) listening to their dad’s odd mutterings. They’re worried about his sanity. We are, too.
• The brothers have a heart-to-heart conversation complete with reminiscing about their past. Biff, the sensitive one, tells Happy (the happy one?) that he’s upset about his fight with their dad.
• Happy thinks Willy is anxious about Biff’s aimlessness; he wants the low-down on what Biff is doing with his life.
• Biff tells his brother that he’s unhappy, hates the competitive world of business, and thinks farm work is better. (He likes acting strong and being shirtless, which he just can’t do in an office.)
• AND YET—he can’t keep even a farming job. This guy is having a serious internal battle.
• Happy’s name turns out not to fit him at all. He’s lonely despite having a decent job and endless women at his disposal.
• Biff and Happy fantasize about moving to the West together and being real men with a ranch and cattle and sweating in the sun while working with their hands.
• Biff seems ready to head for a ranch, but Happy won’t let go of his pursuit of wealth.
• Like so many other brothers, these two start chatting about ladies. Both want to settle down with someone, but Happy is a player and can’t stick to one woman. He’s super-competitive and chases his friends’ girls just for fun.
• Since the ranch idea is not working out, Biff says he’ll talk to this guy he used to work for named Bill Oliver. Biff was a salesman in Oliver’s sporting goods business way back when and thinks he made a good impression. He’s hoping Oliver will give him a loan so that he and Happy can start a business together.
• Happy thinks this is the best idea ever . With big dreams in mind, the brothers go back to sleep.
• Cut to downstairs, where Willy is still chatting with imaginary people.
• In his head, Willy relives the high school days of his sons.
• Said high school days go something like this:
• Biff and Happy are washing their dad’s car, hoping to impress him.
• The macho boys and their dad sit around and talk about how much everybody loves them and how popular they are.
• Biff says he’s "borrowed" (clearly stole) a football in order to practice his game (he’s a football star and also, it would seem, a kleptomaniac). Laughing, Willy tells him he should return it (good parenting move). But neither father nor son takes the stealing seriously.
• The father starts going off about how great America is and how everyone busts out the red carpet in the New England towns where he travels for business.
• He’s bragging and overdoing it here.
• Still in the flashback, Linda enters with some laundry, which Willy makes the boys help her with. Biff gets his gang of fawning friends to help out, too.
• Willy hasn’t had enough of bragging about himself yet, so he starts telling his wife about how "well liked" he is and how he made a killing on his recent trip.
• Willy, who actually made $70 in commissions, tells Linda it was $212.
• Sadly, when they add up the math, Linda finds that, even with the self-delusion and imaginary income, they’re still in debt.
• In a sudden (rare) moment of accurate self-reflection, Willy says people just don’t like him very much — but he blames his failure on being ugly and fat.
• Linda assures him that everything will be fine.
• No, wait, this is a flashback. We already know that "fine" never comes to pass.
• Now Willy’s mind flashes to a woman who is not Linda by any stretch of the imagination.
• The woman is putting her clothes on amid some sexually suggestive jokes.
• Willy has given her some stockings (remember these stockings for a little while longer).
• Back to the other flashback (with his wife and the boys and the laundry). Willy promises to make everything up to Linda.
• Linda acts like a loving angel, obviously unaware that her husband is cheating on her.
• Willy notices Linda mending her stocking. She responds that new ones are too expensive to buy (apparently too expensive to buy for wives, but not for mistresses).
• Willy is thinking along the same lines as we are, and guiltily snaps at Linda, telling her not to mend the stockings in front of him.
• We then get another flashback to the time when Biff is in high school. (If you’re a little confused at all of these flashbacks, just imagine how Willy is feeling.)
• Bernard, the son of Willy’s neighbor Charley, comes running in, shouting that Biff is going to fail math.
• Being the model parent that he is, Willy tells Bernard to give Biff the answers to the test and get lost.
• Linda is worried about her son failing math, but her husband brushes off her concern with assurances that Biff’s charm will carry him through.
• So that was a crazy trip, and now we’re back to real time.
• Willy snaps out of his daydream and finds Happy.
• Willy’s thinking is disjointed. He’s now complaining about how he was an idiot not to go to Alaska with his brother, Ben, when he was a young man. Ben apparently got rich on his adventures.
• Happy is unable to help his hallucinating father.
• Charley, the neighbor, comes into the kitchen. He’s heard noises and wants to make sure everything’s OK (remember, it’s still late at night).
• Charley knows Willy’s financial situation and kindly offers Willy a job. Offended, Willy says he already has a job (big mistake).
• Charley advises Willy to stop putting so much pressure on Biff. Offended again (as usual), Willy tells Charley to screw off.
• Ben enters the stage (not the real Ben, though—this is an imaginary Ben that Charley can’t see).
• Willy talks aloud with imaginary Ben. Charley, still sitting in the kitchen, has no idea what’s going on (and is in all likelihood thinking of retracting the job offer).
• Now Willy converses with the imaginary Ben and the real Charley at the same time.
• He informs Charley that Ben recently died.
• Back in Willy’s mind, Ben is rushing out the door to catch a train. He repeatedly urges Willy to go with him to Alaska.
• Back in real life, Charley, irritated and confused to no end, storms out.
• Back in Willy’s mind, Willy asks Ben how he made so much money in Alaska.
• Linda (an imaginary version of her) enters and greets Ben.
• Now we get a bit more background on Willy. Turns out, his father abandoned him and Ben when they were kids.
• So the deal with Alaska was that Ben tried to follow their dad there. Ben’s no genius (or migratory bird) and due to his sketchy sense of geography, ended up in Africa instead.
• There (in Africa), Ben struck it big in diamonds.
• Now more craziness ensues when imaginary young Biff and Happy enter. Willy tells the boys that Uncle Ben’s success is proof that great dreams can come true.
• Imaginary Ben has to go catch his train, but tells Willy and the boys that his father (the boys’ grandfather) used to play the flute. He also used to drive Willy and Ben around the country by wagon and sell his inventions along the way.
• Predictably, Willy brags to Ben about how well he has raised his sons.
• Showing off his son, Willy pushes Biff to start a fistfight with his Uncle Ben. This is weird.
• Ben wins (unfairly), saying that in order to survive, you must cheat in fights with strangers. What a great piece of wisdom.
• Poor Willy, looking for approval and trying to keep Ben around, starts going off about how even though he’s a city slicker and a salesman, he is still a manly man (think loincloths and hunting). Willy sends his sons to steal lumber (!) so they can show their uncle how manly they are.
• Here comes more confusion. You just met real Charley, but now enters imaginary Charley.
• Imaginary Charley enters the kitchen just as young Happy and Biff run off to steal some wood for a building project.
• Charley warns Willy that he’s got to stop them from stealing or they’ll get in big fat trouble (like jail).
• Everyone erupts into a shouting match and Willy insults Charley’s manliness.
• Everyone leaves the stage except Ben and Willy.
• Willy confesses that he’s scared he’s not raising his boys well and begs Ben to stay and tell him stories about their father. But Ben’s not so nice (if you hadn’t noticed) and he leaves.
• So Willy’s been chatting and fighting with lots of imaginary figures tonight, but we think that’s just about it for delusions, at least for the time being, because here comes real Linda.
• Now we’re back in real time. Linda wants to know what on earth is going on.
• Willy wanders outside, insisting he needs a walk.
• Real Biff and Happy come into the kitchen, freaked out. Their mom says that Willy’s behavior is worse when Biff is around. She tells Biff to stop drifting and to show his father some respect.
• Things heat up. Linda tells Biff to stay away from his father. Biff retorts that his father treats her terribly, and calls Willy crazy.
• Linda, deeply offended, responds that her husband is simply exhausted. (Yes, she’s clearly deluding herself.)
• Now she admits that Willy’s boss cut his salary and they’re struggling financially. Their dad has been borrowing money from Charley every week to pay the bills.
• Linda accuses her sons of being ungrateful and oblivious.
• Biff responds that Willy’s a fake but won’t explain why.
• To smooth out the situation, Biff tells Linda he’ll get a job and give them half his paycheck.
• As if things were not bad enough, Linda announces that Willy’s been trying to kill himself in car "accidents." Also, she’s found a short length of rubber pipe attached to the fuse box (it seems he was trying to gas himself).
• Linda tells Biff that Willy’s life is in his hands, so he must be careful.
• Biff says he’ll straighten out, but he just wasn’t made to work in the business world.
• Willy walks in. Almost immediately, he and Biff begin to argue.
• Happy, the peacemaker, interrupts and says that Biff is going to see Bill Oliver the following morning to get a business loan.
• Willy is all happy and perky for about two seconds before father and son are at it again.
• Happy strikes again, trying to make the situation... happy. He tells his dad that he and Biff are thinking of starting a sporting goods line in Florida.
• Excitedly, Willy starts telling Biff how to behave around Oliver, who is in the sporting goods business. He acts as if they’ve already sealed a million-dollar deal.
• Somehow angered again, Willy storms upstairs. Linda and the boys follow him. The boys say goodnight and are lectured about their greatness.
• Biff wanders downstairs alone while Linda desperately tries to sing Willy to sleep.

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• Death of a Salesman

Read our detailed notes on the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. Our notes cover Death of a Salesman summary and analysis.

Introduction

Death of a Salesman  by Arthur Miller, is written in 1949, is a modern tragedy and is considered both the masterpiece of the playwright and foundation of modern American drama. The play is awarded various honors and awards that also includes the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.

Initially the play was titled as  The inside of His Head,  however, later he appears dissatisfied with the title and conferred the second title of the play i.e.,  Death of a Salesman.  We, from the 1 st  title, get a deep intuition into the psychosomatic temperament of the central character who is a salesman.

In  Death of a Salesman,  Arthur Miller reconnoiters subjects of money, death and the loss of individuality. Other than the American Dream, Willy Loman desires nothing. He craves his brother’s prosperity and endeavors for a flawless life, nonetheless, he frequently is unsuccessful to accomplish his dreams.

He, as a salesman, is subject to the impulses of the flea market and thinks that it is this job that can only rise him in the world of business. But, due to a miserable financial status, he couldn’t secure a loan for his son to start his own business. And in the end, Willy commits suicide, realizing his so little accomplishments in his life.

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Summary

Willy Loman, after having set out on a sales trip to Portland, Maine that morning, returns to his Brooklyn home very late at night since he continually drove his car off the side of the road. Willy, who is now sixty-three years old, has been working as a traveling salesman for more than thirty years. Recently, his sales rate has declined as his old costumes are either dying or retiring.

Moreover, the company has taken away his salary so that he works on a straight commission. On his return to home, Linda, Willy wife, ease him and motivates him to ask the master of the company, Howard Wagner, for a place in in the New York office where he his salary will be guaranteed without traveling.

Biff and Happy, Willy’s two sons, upstairs in their bedroom recalls their past happier times of their adolescents and compares it with their disappointing lives of today. Biff, now thirty-four years of age, has held four different jobs since graduating from his high school. He senses that he’s not moving ahead toward anything at all.

At a high school, he was among the best football player but couldn’t get a college scholarship since he failed the mathematics test and declined to earn money for his summer school to graduate. After working on a farm in Texas, Biff has just returned home and Willy, that morning, begins criticizing for his failures to earn money and to find a prestigious profession.

Happy, the younger son of Willy, works as a low-level sales position in New York City, employing most of his time seducing women. Biff and Happy, as they talk, resolve that they can be effective, successful, and happier if they initiate a business of their own, together.

Meanwhile, Willy sits downstairs in the kitchen and talks to himself loudly, recalling happy moments from past: their family car cleaned by Biff and Happy, Biff’s preparation for his important football game, willy’s joyfully working on projects around his own home, his afternoon with a woman in a hotel room on trips to Boston.

Ultimately, Charley, Willy’s neighbor, enters from the next door. While playing play cards and talking to Charley, Willy imagines himself talking to his elder brother, Ben. Ben once invited Willy to Alaska and ask him to join him in order to make his fortune. Willy moves outside the kitchen, after Charley leaves home, and is still caught up in his imagined conversation with his elder brother.

Meanwhile, Linda comes downstairs and speaks to Biff and Happy that she dreads that Willy is planning to kill himself as she had found a piece of rubber hose that was connected to a gas pipe in the basement. The conversation turns to dreams when Willy returns home: of Biff becoming a successful entrepreneur and a salesman that Willy has of him. Willy advises Biff, upon which the whole family agrees, to see Bill Oliver, one of his former bosses, and request for a mortgage so that he can start his own sporting goods business.

The very next morning, Willy visits his boss, Wagner, to requests for a place in the New York office. However, despite getting a new place, Wagner fires him from the job. Leaving Wagner’s office, Willy directs his way to Charley’s office to request for a mortgage to pay off his bills where he meets Bernard, Charley’s son. Bernard was a boyhood friend or Biff and Happy, now a successful lawyer dealing with cases before Supreme Court. Willy, being amazed, inquiries that how he was able to succeed since Biff and Happy failed, however, Bernard asks Willy why Biff never went to school to graduate, after doing badly in a mathematics course for a scholarship.

Happy arranges a dinner in a local restaurant so as to celebrate the successful meeting of biff with Mr. Oliver, however, when Biff reaches he informs that his owner didn’t recognize him, and Biff, as a reaction, angrily stole Mr. Oliver’s fountain pen.

Biff lies to his parents about his meeting (that it was a successful one) when hears about his father’s news that he is fired so as to console them. At the restaurant, happy arranges two women to join them. When Willy excuses for the washroom, Biff and Happy abandon their father and leave the restaurant with their father. While in the washroom, Willy recalls the time when Biff failed his Mathematics test and comes to Boston on a surprise visit and discover him with another woman in a hotel room. It was because of this incident that Biff refused to join summer school and to graduate from high school.

Willy, after leaving the restaurant, resolves on the way to the home that the only way to provide the best livings is that he commits suicide. By doing so, the twenty thousand dollars for his life insurance settlement would come to his family.

When Biff and Happy return from their date with the women, they encounter Linda’s scolding for abandoning their father at the restaurant. In return, Biff angrily accused his father and brother of not taking life seriously and claims that he, now finally, knows himself and will work at the farm with his own hands, that gives him more satisfaction than any other job could. Biff confronts everything and cries at his father’s shoulders.

Willy, moved by Biff’s affectations, leaves home and drives the car to commit suicide and ultimately died. Linda, in the last scene, in the graveyard, talks ironically to Willy that he killed himself in the same way when they ended disbursing for their house.

Death of a Salesman Characters Analysis

Willy loman.

He is a sixty-three-year-old traveling salesman. Willy has started dwelling on past unknown of the present condition. His past life frequently flashes back before his eyes in the last two days of his life. He has two sons, Biff and happy, who he wants to have a cherished lifestyle and worldly success, though he is unable to help to achieve it. At last, he commits suicide, the last gesture for his family, so that they can have a lavish lifestyle by the insurance money.

He is the elder son of Willy Loman. Biff, thirty-three-year-old, is still in search of himself. The best football player at school, couldn’t get anywhere for further studies. When his owner refused to give a loan, frustrated, he steals his owner’s cheap fountain pen. Though he loves his father, however, because of his defeated state curses him as a fool and a dreamer.

Happy Loman

He is Willy Loman’s younger son, who is somehow successful in his life, he works as a clerk in a store. He is a womanizer, who chases a woman to seek pleasure.

He is a friend and a neighbor of Willy Loman. He provides money to Willy and also suggests him a job.

He, son of Charley, is a successful lawyer who argues cases before the Supreme Court. His success is an indictment for Biff and Happy.

Linda Loman

She is Willy’s wife. She is fearful, however, patient woman. Despite Willy’s failures, she loves him very much and consoles him in his hard times.

Howard Wagner

He is the son of Willy’s boss at the company. He fired him from the company and let him know that he is no more able to work as a salesman

He is a brother of Willy. He is a rich man whose success is an accusation to Willy. He once goes into the jungle and comes out, after a few years, from the diamond mines, a rich man.

The unnamed character in the play with whom Biff caught his father in a hotel room and due to this discovery he refuses to join the summer school for further studies.

Themes in Death of a Salesman

Failure of the american dream.

One of the most important themes of the play  Death of a Salesman  is the failure of the American dream. The American dream symbolizes a promise and commitment of opportunity and freedom for all. Those who follow the American dream believed that the only way to accomplish a dream is hard work and those who work hard are only qualified to be the follower of the American dream.

The followers of American dream believe in a happy and prosperous life; moreover, they also believe that those who are born Americans naturally acquires a happy and prosperous life. Moloch, money, and materialism have become the famous song of the followers of American dreams. They believed that, in a material world, one is always destined to have a prosperous and successful life. Failure is no option for the one born in America and if a failure occurs, suicide is much better than that failure.

Willy Loman is also facing this kind of creed behind the American dream in his life. Willy had a natural capability in the field of carpentry, but the craze of earning more money and a bright future made him choose the field of business with an occupation of a salesman. He spent the mature and productive period of his life doing hard work in hopes of having a comfortable and settled life in a later part of life.

Opposing this expectancy, he was downgraded and terminated. He, financially ruined, had to lend money from his friend to pay off his bills.

Furthermore, his son Biff, from whom Willy had great expectations, has ruined his life by not joining the school. Biff, another follower of American dreams, didn’t know how to start his career from the bottom and also wants to start from the top. Biff was not settled in his life, even in the age of Thirty-four, he was moving from one job to another. It was wearisome for Willy to see the unsettled life of both of his son. Failure of his son was equally burdened for him as his own failure.

Crumpled by absolute defeat and great desperateness Willy planned suicide. When his miserable itch overwhelmed him, he committed suicide.

Fake existence

Willy Loman turned out to be an obsessive believer of the deity of success. Success, to him, was life, and life is all about success. He was ambitious to make his dream for successive life a reality. He not only became ambitious is striving towards success but also made his son ambitious, too. There was no limit in his struggle to achieve his dreams as they were natural, however, the consequences of all the struggle that he made turned out to be humiliating.

Willy, throughout his life, encourages his son to realize the principles of the American dreams, but Biff turned out to be immature and reckless boy who couldn’t proper in getting a settled life and a salaried job and turned out to be a briber; Happy carried dishonor by seducing the women in his store whom he had no concern at all. Willy was penniless when fired from the job, and borrowed from his friend Charley, in order to give an impression to his wife, Linda, that he is earning money.

Willy was living a fanciful, fake life that was filled with illusions. He was full of arrogance, egocentric and unreasonably over-assertive. It was because of these flaws that he was unable to accept and face the reality. Sightless to his genuine dilemma he instigated to hide in the sanctuary of illusion. Despite his total failure, he wasn’t accepting his failure. It was more insulting and painful for him to accept his failure.

It was due to this reason, he stopped talking to his friends and avoided people around. He would use to lie to others and was just making himself a fool by a false vision of his popularity.

Nature versus City

The comparison between nature and city is shown through Willy’s love for music. He is a great admirer of natures. When Willy’s self goes close to his nature, the music plays in a loud tune. This melody is a representation of Willy’s sentimental yearning for instinctive rusticity that has exemplified in the affiliation between music and Willy.

It appears that Willy is certainly prone to adore and appreciate nature. When we traced the family background of Willy Loman, we see that Willy father was a wanderer, a musician, a maker of flute and a pioneer. Similarly, his brother Ben was also an adventurer. Willy’s son has strong athletic skills. Thus all of them were wonderful in outdoor skills. However, Willy’s monetary anxieties locked in on him, overwhelming him with the need to produce money.

Morality versus Immortality

The dramatist Arthur Miller has said that besides hunger and thrust, to leave a thumbprint after death is also another strong need of humans. Every human, consciously or unconsciously, has a strong desire to be remembered after his death. Physically man is mortal, however, through his deed, he can make himself immortal. In the play, Willy is a symbol of failure. He is accused, mocked, and humiliated by many. He is considered petty and useless. It was because of this, he planned suicide and the insurance money of twenty thousand dollars will be given to the family which will settle their lives. Willy, by committing suicide made himself immortal.

Death of a Salesman Literary Analysis

The play  Death of a Salesman  is also subtitled as “Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem”. According to the subtitle, the play is divided into two acts and each act is further divided into conversations- the present conversation and the conversation from the past- that are intermingled. The play covers an evening and the day following, however, the action is intermittent with past memories and flashbacks, mostly 17 years back.

The play  The Death of a Salesman  is a modern tragedy that depicts the last days of the life of Willy Loman, a traveling salesman. The play is both emotionally and psychologically realistic when the action occurs in the present; however, when the action occurs in past, the drama appears more dreamlike. For instance, only Willy can see the scenes when his sons Biff and Happy are in high school. Moreover, to inculcate Willy’s elder brother Ben, a rich man whom Willy consulted for advice when things were not functioning well in his life, a flashback system is also used.

The plot of the play is complex not only because it chains past and present events but also as it propagates out of a period of deceits, lies, and reputation. The tragic hero, Willy, is unable to uphold his energetic life on the path as a traveling salesman and is looking for a stable job in New York City. On request for this job, he is fired by his boss, Howard Wagner, the son of the man who hired him in the first place. Furthermore, he is burdened by his Thirty-four-year-old son Biff, who has recently returned from the farms in Texas in hopes of finding a salaried job in New York.

Biff and Happy have moved back to their parent’s house lamenting of their failures and their loss of innocence. Their boyhood friend’s Bernard, success has become accusation for both of them. Only Bernard has realized his dreams. Both brothers, consequently, blame Willy for not directing them well, though their resentment is yet oppressed with respect and affection.

Linda, during the quarrel, discloses before her sons that their father has been attempting to suicide by different means that is he has attempted suicide in a car with series of accidents and also with a hose that is fastened to a gas pipe. Upon hearing this, Biff decides to modify his life for his father. Act 1 of the play closes with the acquainted renunciation of long-standing abrasions and Biff’s promise to create a professional deal in New York.

The act two opens with Biff, Happy and Willy’s meeting at a restaurant. Willy, after being fired from the job, hopes to listen to good news regarding his meeting with his former boss, however, Biff reveals him the scene of the stolen fountain pen.

Shocked, Willy departures to the restroom, where he recalls the crucial and critical moment of his and Biff’s life, i.e., the time when Biff discovers his father with another woman in a hotel room, after coming back from failing math course. Biff, crumpled by his dad’s unfaithfulness with his mother, snubbed to go to summer school and to graduate from high school. This incident was the beginning of the series of trivial tragedies and insignificant robberies that have tumble-down his life.

The family, after meeting in the restaurant, reunite at home. In this gathering, they have the final short-tempered confrontation. Both Willy and Biff accuses each other: Biff accuses his father of not taking his life seriously and calls him the cause of his failures while Willy accuses Biff of spoiling his life without any reason.

Linda, a patient lady, and a peacemaker try to calm them down, however, is shouted down. Biff throws a hose before Willy and asks him whether committing suicide will make a hero out of him or something else. Willy starts weeping and both of them reconciled crying on each other’s shoulders. When the rest of the family goes to sleep. Willy accelerates his car for suicide in hope that the insurance money will provide Biff to initiate his own business and a new life that he greatly needs.

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Death of a Salesman

Arthur miller, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

The central conflict of the play is between Willy and his elder son Biff , who showed great promise as a young athlete and ladies' man, but in adulthood has become a thief and drifter with no clear direction. Willy's other son, Happy , while on a more secure career path, is superficial and seems to have no loyalty to anyone.

By delving into Willy's memories, the play is able to trace how the values Willy instilled in his sons—luck over hard work, likability over expertise—led them to disappoint both him and themselves as adults. The dream of grand, easy success that Willy passed on to his sons is both barren and overwhelming, and so Biff and Happy are aimless, producing nothing, and it is Willy who is still working, trying to plant seeds in the middle of the night, in order to give his family sustenance. Biff realizes, at the play's climax, that only by escaping from the dream that Willy has instilled in him will father and son be free to pursue fulfilling lives. Happy never realizes this, and at the end of the play he vows to continue in his father's footsteps, pursuing an American Dream that will leave him empty and alone.

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