Genre: Play Type: Tragedy Published: 1949

Title: Death of a Salesman Author: Arthur Miller Time Period: 1948, Connecticut
Narrative Level:

Characters:
Willy Loman- An insecure, self-deluded traveling salesman. Willy believes wholeheartedly in the American Dream of easy success and
wealth, but he never achieves it. Nor do his sons fulfill his hope that they will succeed where he has failed. When Willy's illusions
begin to fail under the pressing realities of his life, his mental health begins to unravel.
Biff Loman- Willy's thirty-four-year-old elder son. Biff led a charmed life in high school as a football star with scholarship prospects,
good male friends, and fawning female admirers. He failed math, however, and did not have enough credits to graduate. Since then, his
kleptomania has gotten him fired from every job that he has held.
Linda Loman- Willy's loyal, loving wife. Linda suffers through Willy's grandiose dreams and self-delusions. Occasionally, she seems
to be taken in by Willy's self-deluded hopes for future glory and success, but at other times, she seems far more realistic and less fragile
than her husband. She has nurtured the family through all of Willy's misguided attempts at success, and her emotional strength and
perseverance support Willy until his collapse.
Happy Loman- Willy's thirty-two-year-old younger son. Happy has lived in Biff's shadow all of his life, but he compensates by
nurturing his relentless sex drive and professional ambition. Happy represents Willy's sense of self-importance, ambition, and blind
servitude to societal expectations. Although he works as an assistant to an assistant buyer in a department store, Happy presents himself
as supremely important.
Charley- Willy's next-door neighbor. Charley owns a successful business and his son, Bernard, is a wealthy, important lawyer. Willy is
jealous of Charley's success. He is Willy’s only friend.
Bernard- is Charley's son and an important, successful lawyer. Although Willy used to mock Bernard for studying hard, Bernard
always loved Willy's sons dearly and regarded Biff as a hero.
Ben- Willy's wealthy older brother. Ben has recently died and appears only in Willy's “daydreams.” Willy regards Ben as a symbol of
the success that he so desperately craves for himself and his sons.
The Woman- Willy's mistress when Happy and Biff were in high school. The Woman's attention/admiration boosts Willy's fragile ego.
Stanley- A waiter at Frank's Chop House. Stanley and Happy seem to be friends, or at least acquaintances, and they banter about and
ogle Miss Forsythe together before Biff and Willy arrive at the restaurant.
Miss Forsythe and Letta - Two young women whom Happy and Biff meet at Frank's Chop House. It seems likely that Miss Forsythe
and Letta are prostitutes, judging from Happy's repeated comments about their moral character and the fact that they are “on call.”

Plot Outline:
Biff returns from the west to visit his family although he doesn’t know how long he’s going to stay. Happy is glad to see him,
but Willy seems strangely irritated. He talks to old friends he imagines to the chagrin of his family, but no one has the heart to confront
him about it. Willy has a flashback of a time when Biff and Happy were promising high school students. In the flashback, Willy gives
his sons a punching bag. He also condones Biff’s stealing of a football and doesn’t encourage them to study as much as they should.
He emphasizes being well liked. After the flashback, Happy talks with Willy and asks him why he didn’t go to New England for his
business trip. Willy explains that he almost hit a kid in Yonkers. He also tells his sons of his brother Ben who made a fortune on a trip
to Africa. Charley comes to Willy’s house at night complaining of not being able to sleep. Charley and Willy play cards, but at the
same time, Willy hold a conversation with his imaginary brother. Charley has no idea what’s going on and leaves. Willy continues the
conversation regretting that he stayed in American while he could have gone to Alaska or Africa with his brother and made a fortune.
While Willy is having this imaginary conversation, Biff talks with Linda and asks her about Willy’s condition. Linda explains that she
can’t bring herself to confront Willy about it. She also tells Biff that Willy has attempted suicide by crashing the car several times.
Willy comes out of his reverie and speaks with his family about their jobs. Happy has an idea of starting a line of sporting goods so
Biff decides to go to Bill Oliver to ask to borrow money. Willy decides to go to Howard the next day to ask if he can work in New
York so that he wouldn’t have to drive 700 miles to work.. The next day Willy goes to Howard and Biff goes to see Oliver. They
decide to celebrate their success by going out for dinner at night. When Willy talks with Howard, he loses his temper and begins
yelling at Howard who in turn fires him. After Biff goes to see Bill, Bill doesn’t remember him and doesn’t lend him money. At night,
Biff and Happy arrive at the restaurant before their father. Biff explains to happy that he didn’t get the money, and happy encourages
his brother to lie. Willy arrives. Biff tries to tell Willy that he didn’t get the money and that he stole a fountain pen from Bill.
However, Happy is at the same time lying to Willy that Bill warmly welcomed Biff. Willy apparently accepts Happy’s version. Willy
tells his sons that he was fired and falls into his reverie having a flashback of the time Biff caught him in his affair. He remembers that
it was that moment that Biff’s life ended. Happy does not want to put up with his father and leaves with Biff and two girls they met
earlier at the restaurant. The two of them arrive home late and the coldly receives by Linda. Biff confronts Willy about his suicide
attempts and Willy denies everything. He tells Biff that he did not get any money from Oliver and has no hope go get any money. He
accuses Willy of not know who he really is. However, after this, Biff cries and leaves. Willy realizes that Biff loves him and decides to
celebrate by killing himself by crashing the car which would give his family 20 thousand dollar in life insurance. No one but his family
and Charley goes to his funeral.

Themes: 
*Success cannot be sustained merely through appearance­ Willy’s ultimate goal in life is to be a success, and if he cannot 
truly be one, he can fool himself and others by appearing as though he is. While he claims to have a reputation among the northeast 
sales community, it is all part of the false persona Willy creates in which he can be as glorious as he wishes. At home, he lies to his wife 
about how many sales he has made or who he has “helped,” but it is all part of the illusion Willy creates. Biff also epitomizes this 
theme because Biff had a remarkable football career ahead of him (he appeared to be successful), but that appearance was only able to 
get him so far because he was so lazy he was not able to attend college. Willy is always trying to save face by lying to himself or others 
about his achievements. As his life progresses, these lies continually build up until he is left only with a handful of empty promises and 
false dreams. When it comes down to it, Willy’s failure is solely attributed to the flaw he exhibits when he misleads his image.

Motifs:
*The Jungle- The Jungle is a reoccurring idea in which Willy examines his brother, Ben’s, success. Because Willy does not
realize that Ben’s diligence and initiative has caused himself, Willy believes that it is the whole principle of the Jungle that causes Ben’s
success. Willy cannot see Ben’s success in any other way than an instantaneous occurrence that he himself waits for his whole life.
Whenever Ben speaks about his success, he always brings up how he “came out of the Jungle, rich.” And while it may have been luck
that caused his success, it is a pinnacle obstacle for Willy to overcome, seeing that he had no “Jungle” in his life, and believes that that
is the reason why he is a failure, and not his own actions. the jungle also represents the twentieth century free market economy (and the
American Dream ideal) that Miller often criticized.

* Illusion vs. Reality­ 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. They have created a destructive world in which nothing around them is real, credible, or reliant at all. 
They have nothing to fall back on because they have created such a false interpretation of their world. 

*Seeds/Garden: Miller uses these motifs throughout his play to symbolize Willy's need and desire for success.  They also 
represent the legacy that Willy never leaves with his family.  Though Willy attempts to plant his garden near the end of the play, this is 
too little too late.  His life has already been a failure and he has left nothing remarkable by which to be remembered.

CONTEXTUAL LEVEL: Arthur Miller was born in New York City. His career as a playwright began while he was a student at
the University of Michigan. Death of a Salesman, which won the Pulitzer Prize and transformed Miller into a national sensation. Many
critics described Death of a Salesman as the first great American tragedy, and Miller gained eminence as a man who understood the
deep essence of the United States. He published The Crucible in 1953, a searing indictment of the anti-Communist hysteria that
pervaded 1950s America. Death of a Salesman, Miller's most famous work, addresses the painful conflicts within one family, but it also
tackles larger issues regarding American national values. The play examines the cost of blind faith in the American Dream. In this
respect, it offers a postwar American reading of personal tragedy in the tradition of Sophocles' Oedipus Cycle. Miller charges America
with selling a false myth constructed around a capitalist materialism nurtured by the postwar economy, a materialism that obscured the
personal truth and moral vision of the original American Dream described by the country's founders. A half century after it was written,
Death of a Salesman remains a powerful drama. Its indictment of fundamental American values and the American Dream of material
success may seem somewhat tame in today's age of constant national and individual self-analysis and criticism, but its challenge was
quite radical for its time. After World War II, the United States faced profound and irreconcilable domestic tensions and contradictions.
Although the war had ostensibly engendered an unprecedented sense of American confidence, prosperity, and security, the United
States became increasingly embroiled in a tense cold war with the Soviet Union. The propagation of myths of a peaceful, homogenous,
and nauseatingly gleeful American golden age was tempered by constant anxiety about Communism, bitter racial conflict, and largely
ignored economic and social stratification. Many Americans could not subscribe to the degree of social conformity and the ideological
and cultural orthodoxy that a prosperous, booming, conservative suburban middle-class championed.The basis for the dramatic conflict
in Death of a Salesman lies in Arthur Miller's conflicted relationship with his uncle, Manny Newman, also a salesman. Newman
 imagined a continuous competition between his son and Miller. Newman refused to accept failure and demanded the appearance of
utmost confidence in his household. In his youth, Miller had written a short story about an unsuccessful salesman. His relationship with
Manny revived his interest in the abandoned manuscript. He transformed the story into one of the most successful dramas in the history
of the American stage. In expressing the emotions that Manny Newman inspired through the fictional character of Willy Loman, Miller
managed to touch deep chords within the national psyche.

RHETORICAL LEVEL: Miller displays stately tone in Death of a Salesman. Likewise, the mood of the play is also very
somber. Repetitions of dialogue such as Ben’s experience in the ‘Jungle’ and Happy’s ‘losing weight’ are used to illustrate the incidents
the Lomans value. Miller has sentences structure that is brief and often interrupted because many of the characters have face paced and
fragmented discussions. There is an “everyday” colloquial diction used to emphasize the aura of the average American family. Irony is
commonly used, especially the way Willy continuously contradicts himself. The emotional effect of the play causes the reader to feel
both pity for and disgust at the Loman family and their mishaps. The characterization of the Lomans as unsuccessful is reiterated
through the interaction with successful characters in which they associate with.
STRUCTURAL LEVEL: The play is separated into three main parts: Act I, Act II, and the Requiem. Each section takes place in a
sequential day in the “present”. Within Act I and Act II, the story is presented via Willy's flashbacks. The story starts at present-day and
lapses in and out of the past, as Willy is constantly experiencing flahsbacks. Each flashback is somehow related the present state of the
family or Willy’s pitiful situation. 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.
SYMBOLIC LEVEL: Many symbols exist within DOAS, they explicate Willy’s utter failure and inability to succeed in the
false world he has created. The most prevalent and powerful symbol is diamonds. To Willy, diamonds represent tangible wealth and,
hence, both validation of one's life and the ability to pass material goods on to one's offspring, two things that Willy desperately craves.
Correlatively, diamonds, the discovery of which made Ben a fortune, symbolize Willy's failure as a salesman. Despite Willy's belief in
the American Dream, a belief unwavering to the extent that he passed up the opportunity to go with Ben to Alaska, the Dream's promise
of financial security has eluded Willy. At the end of the play, Ben encourages Willy to enter the “jungle” finally and retrieve this elusive
diamond—that is, to kill himself for insurance money in order to make his life meaningful.

IMPORTANT QUOTATIONS:
1. “Work a lifetime to pay of a house. You finally own it and there’s nobody to live in it.”
2. “Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous,
begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am! Why can’t
I say that, Willy?”
3. “I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer
who landed in the ash can like all the rest of them! I’m one dollar an hour, Willy! I tried seven states and
couldn’t raise it. A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning? I’m not bringing home any prizes any more, and
you’re going to stop waiting for me to bring them home!”