DEATH OF SALESMAN

First performed at the Morosco Theatre in early 1949, Arthur

Miller’s Death of a Salesman is a haunting play that follows the final
days of William “Willy” Loman. The epitome of a “dime a dozen”
middle-class worker, Willy has spent his working years confident in
his own greatness. He has mythologized his own life as that of a
great man whose greatness has been suppressed by a lack of
opportunity and the heedless disregard of his uniqueness by society.
However, the play opens on a tired, broken man—after being
employed by the same firm for thirty-four years, Willy has nothing
to show for his decades as a traveling salesman. Willy is past the
age of retirement at sixty-three years old, and the Wagner
Company has rescinded his salary, forcing him to once again work
on commission. But unlike at the beginning of his career, Willy no
longer has the energy, optimism, or connections to make a living
wage. With no savings, Willy and his wife, Linda, are struggling to
keep up with their financial commitments, and it is later revealed
that the couple’s more successful neighbor, Charley, has been
lending the money Willy misrepresents to Linda as his pay. Willy’s
financial struggles are compounded by his turbulent relationship
with his eldest son, Biff. Despite being just as convinced of Biff’s
greatness as his own, Willy is dismayed by Biff’s inability to settle
down and make something of himself. Over the course of the play,
Miller slowly reveals that Willy is more than tired and disheartened
—he is suicidal and suffering from hallucinations about the pivotal
moments and lost opportunities of his life. These hallucinations
worsen with the arrival of Biff, who has once again quit his job and
returned home to find direction in his life. Biff is deeply concerned
after finding out about his father’s current state of mind and
multiple suicide attempts, but the protracted rift between Willy and
his son continues to dominate their relationship. Linda sees Biff as
the key to solving Willy’s problems and restoring his will to live.

At the end of his working life, and with Biff’s failure to live up to
Willy’s expectations, Willy is suddenly confronted by the dissolution
of his illusions of grandeur. Linda understands that these illusions
are the foundation of Willy’s purpose and that if Biff is able to make
something of himself, it will restore Willy’s faith in his self-
mythologization. Linda—along with Biff’s younger brother, Happy—
encourages Biff to found his own company with Happy: a sporting
goods store called the Loman Brothers. Captivated by the idea, Biff
agrees to see his old boss Oliver and ask him to finance their idea.
Willy becomes extremely excited by the idea, and a semblance of
his own self returns as he gives Biff advice and organizes a dinner
with Happy and Biff the next night to celebrate. It also gives Willy
the confidence to ask his employer to be moved to an office position
in New York.

However, when Biff asks for an appointment with Oliver, he is

rebuffed by the secretary and waits six hours to catch Oliver coming
out of his office, only to be dismayed by the realization that Oliver
does not even remember him. This shatters Biff’s confidence once
and for all, and he becomes completely disillusioned with Willy’s
insistence on their family’s innate greatness. Meanwhile, when Willy
asks for a promotion, not only is his request rejected, but having
made fewer and fewer sales over the past months, he is sacked on
the spot. When Willy arrives at the restaurant, he is desperate for
good news, and although Happy implores Biff to lie about having a
future appointment with Oliver in order to keep their father hopeful,
Biff insists on telling the truth.

Willy, however, refuses to understand what Biff is telling him. The

conversation ends with a public argument and the sons abandoning
their father, leaving the restaurant with two women to have a night
on the town. Alone in the restaurant, Willy hallucinates about the
event which forever marred his relationship with Biff and potentially
ruined Biff’s future. Through these flashbacks, the audience learns
that when he flunked math, Biff traveled to Boston to seek out his
father. He hoped Willy would be able to convince his math teacher
to pass him and planned to enroll in summer school if that plan
failed. But when Biff arrived at the hotel, Willy did not pick up the
phone or answer Biff’s persistent knocking. This was because Willy
was in the hotel room with his mistress, who is simply called “the
Woman.” Eventually the Woman demanded that Willy open the
door, and Biff discovered Willy’s unfaithfulness. This shattered Biff’s
idealized concept of his father, which Willy himself had cultivated,
and it is clear that Biff was repulsed by Willy’s behavior.

When Biff and Happy come home from their trysts, Linda is furious
at their abandonment of Willy, but Biff is determined to have it out.
He confronts Willy, trying to make him understand that his failure to
become a successful businessman was not because of Willy’s affair
but because he is simply “a dime a dozen.” It was actually Willy’s
repeated assertions that Biff was a great man who would achieve
great things that set him up for failure, since he went into the
workforce believing that entry-level positions were beneath him. At
the climax of this argument, Biff breaks down crying at Willy’s feet,
pleading with Willy to release him from the shackles of his inflated
expectations.
After his final appeal, Biff leaves, and Willy, rather than being upset,
is elated. The fact that Biff cried to him has eased decades of fear
that Biff has hated him ever since uncovering his affair, and Willy is
more certain than ever that Biff is going to be a great man.
Although Linda is afraid to leave him alone after the argument, Willy
maintains that he just needs a few minutes alone to settle himself
before going to bed. Happy and Linda leave, only for Willy to leave
the house moments later and get into his car. The car speeds off,
and the family’s desperate attempt to catch him morphs into a
solemn funeral procession. Whether or not his death was
intentional, Willy Loman is dead, and no one but his family and
neighbors attend his funeral