Death of a Salesman Act 1 Summary

Willy Loman lives in a house in New York City with his wife Linda. He is a man whose life is falling
apart around him and he doesn't know how to cope with the changes he has to endure. He is a salesman who has
worked for the same company for thirty-four years. Because he is no longer as productive a salesman as he once
was, he has been demoted from salary to commission only wages and therefore his income is much lower than it
used to be.
The stress of trying to bring in enough money has taken an enormous emotional toll on him. He is not able to
concentrate on his driving anymore. This causes him to make mistakes such as crossing the dividing line between
the lanes on the road and stopping for green traffic lights and going on red lights. He has to drive to Boston and
Portland in order to make his sales pitches. The stress of all this driving on the sixty-three year old man is
becoming too much for him to bear.

He is starting to have hallucinations about his life, before it began to fall apart. He thinks of his boys, Biff and
Happy, as teenage boys. He is proud of Biff's achievements in sports and his popularity in high school. He is not
as proud of Happy, but he is still proud of him. He has such high hopes for his sons, especially Biff. Biff is
recruited by three colleges to play sports for them, but Biff's grades are so poor he is in danger of not graduating.
Happy spends his time trying to garner some attention from his father, by telling him he has lost weight. All Willy
does is to tell Happy other ways in which he can lose even more weight. Willy, while he is living in the past, talks
out loud to himself.

He disturbs his neighbor Charley, who comes over to play cards with Willy. While they are playing cards, Willy
again goes into his own world and he sees his brother Ben, who has passed away. He is begging Ben to find the
time to talk with him, to tell him about their father, who left when Willy was about three years old. He is playing
cards with Charley and talking to Ben at the same time. Eventually, Willy and Charley argue about the card game,
causing Charley to leave. Willy continues to talk to Ben and even has his teenage sons in his hallucination. He
needs Ben to tell him he is proud of him and impressed by Biff and Happy. He also wants Ben to tell him how he
made his fortune in Africa. All Ben will tell him, is he walked into the jungle in Africa, at age seventeen and
walked out rich, at twenty-one. He made his money working in the diamond mines in Africa. Ben leaves, even
though Willy begs him to stay with him for a while.

Willy and his wife, Linda, have a good marriage. Linda always tries to prop Willy up by telling him how
wonderful a salesman he is and how good a man he is, she truly believes what she is saying is true. Willy has a
rough relationship with Biff, because Biff does not live up to the expectations his father has for him. Biff cannot
find himself, instead he has been wandering the American West going from job to job looking for the one job
which fits his needs, which is working on farms and with his hands. He has just come home from Texas, where
he worked on a cattle ranch. He does not know about the problems his father is having and is stunned when he
witnesses his father talking to himself about how well Biff and Happy have cleaned the car, an event which
happened years ago. Biff is also surprised to see how gray his mother's hair has become, because he always
thought of her as a young woman. Now he has to face the realities of life, which is his parents are growing older
and he is also older. He, at thirty-four, knows realistically he should be settled down in a job and possibly have a
wife and family, instead he is still going from job to job, which causes his father to lash out at him.
Happy, who is thirty-two, has a job and an apartment of his own. He lives in New York, but does not see his
parents as often as he should. He is trying to live the life his father wants him to live, even though he is not
content, he is not willing to give up trying to impress his father.

Their mother tells the boys their father's car accidents have not been accidents, but instead failed attempts to kill
himself. A woman witnessed one of the accidents and saw Willy drive into a bridge on purpose. Linda has also
found a rubber hose that attaches to the gas pipe in the basement, which she feels Willy put there with the intent
to kill himself. Biff and Happy are stunned at the news, so they agree to try to garner funding from various sources
to start a business. This would serve to make Willy happy and allow them to stay close to home to help their
parents. Willy Loman is a man caught between the real world and the world of his imagination, because he is
disappointed by his life and the lives his sons are living. He does not know how to cope with the deterioration of
his sales career. His wife knows he is suicidal, but she is incapable of talking to him about it, because she will not
let him feel as if he is a failure.
Death of a Salesman Act 2-Requiem Summary
The second act begins with Willy and Linda full of hope for their family's future. Willy is going to tell his
boss he will not travel anymore and ask him for an advance on his pay to help with the bills. Biff is visiting Bill
Oliver, his previous boss, to ask him for a loan of ten to fifteen thousand dollars to start a business with Happy.
The boys are so confident about their business plans, that they have asked their father to meet them at a local
restaurant for a steak meal.

Linda reminds Willy about the need for the money to pay the insurance payment and the last house payment.
Finally, after paying for twenty-five years the house will be theirs free and clear. Willy is happy to pay off the
house loan, but he is sad that his home, which once sat almost alone on the block, is now surrounded by apartment
buildings.

Willy tries to talk to his boss, Howard, about the changes he wants to make in his job. He tells Howard he just
needs to make sixty-five dollars a week to pay his bills. Howard doesn't have a place for him in the main store
and tells him the only way they can keep him on is if he travels. Willy asks for fifty dollars a week, but Howard
is firm in his position. By this time Willy is becoming more and more desperate, and he asks for forty dollars a
week. He reminds Howard of his connection to Howard's father, the original owner of the company, and begins
to bang on Howard's desk and shout at him. Howard, to his credit, tries to calm Willy down, to give him some
time to collect himself, but in the end Howard fires Willy, telling him needs to take a long rest.

Biff, in the meantime has spent six hours waiting to see Bill Oliver, but to no avail. He watches Bill as he is
leaving for the day. In their minds, Willy and Biff have built up a relationship between Biff and Bill, which in
fact does not exist. Bill only remembers Biff as the shipping clerk who stole basketballs from him. For some
reason, Willy and Biff thought Biff was a salesman for Bill, but that is not true. Biff, in a fit of anger, enters Bill's
office and steals his fountain pen, and as he is running away, Biff realizes his life has been a lie. He has always
stole from people and had even spent three months in jail for stealing a suit. We also find out Biff did not graduate
high school, because he failed math class. He went to see his father in Boston to tell him about his failure, but he
found his father in a hotel room with a woman. Biff at this point sees his father as a liar, which is a turning point
in his life. He decides to stop trying to please a man who is a fraud. He feels all the lessons of hard work, loyalty,
and honesty are nothing but a lie, because his father cheated on his mother. This revelation causes Biff to stop
trying and to start to drift through life, this and the fact his father had always told him he should be the boss and
Biff couldn't attain that goal.

Happy implores Biff to tell his father he has a lunch date to discuss the business deal with Bill. He wants to make
his father happy, but Biff wants to tell his father the truth.

Biff tries to tell Willy the truth, but Willy is in no condition to accept the truth. He is starting to hallucinate again;
he had an episode in Howard's office-he thought he was talking to his brother Ben, and then he thought he was
with his family getting ready for Biff to play in the big football game, and finally in the restaurant he is hearing
the voice of the woman in the hotel room. The boys meet some girls at the restaurant and leave with them. Willy
is left behind in a confused state and has to find his own way home. He is still talking to his brother about the
twenty-five thousand dollars his family could have from the insurance policy. He thinks this money will solve all
the problems for his family. At home, Linda is angry at her boys for leaving their father behind at the restaurant.
She wants them to leave and never return, because of the problems between them and their father. She is especially
angry at Biff, for all the problems he seems to cause between himself and Willy. Biff tries to tell Willy the truth
about himself. He tells him that he is not a big shot and neither is Willy, they are just people who are trying to
earn a living. After a scene in which Willy and Biff tell each other their true feelings, Willy finally feels his son
loves him. Willy gets into his car and drives away, never to return home again. Willy Loman has committed
suicide.
After the funeral Linda is reluctant to leave her husband's grave. She is disappointed by the low attendance to
Willy's funeral. She also tells Willy that she cannot cry for him, because to her he is just away on another business
trip. She tells him she has paid off the house and they are finally free from debt. This is bittersweet for her, because
now she has to live in the house alone.
This play shows how false expectations, for yourself and your children, can cause more harm than good. Willy
thought he should be shown more respect, because he was a superior salesman. He thought Biff should have had
a wonderful career, because he was well liked and good at sports. He in the end could not face up to reality and
killed himself.