Death of a Salesman

By
Arthur Miller
What is your Dream?

What do you do
whenever you’re
feeling down or
stress?
Who is Arthur Miller?
 Arthur Miller
-was born in New York City on October 17,
1915.
His career as a playwright began while he was
a student at the University of Michigan.
Several of his early works won prizes, and
during his senior year, the Federal Theatre
Project in Detroit performed one of his
works.
Miller wrote Death of a Salesman, which
won the Pulitzer Prize and transformed
Miller into a national sensation
 Death of a salesman
First edition cover •
 About the play:

• Original language: English

• Subject: the waning days of a falling

salesman

• Genre: tragedy

• Setting: 1940, Willy Loman’s house in

New York city and Boston
 About The Play
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, that success and
status are rights, not
earned privileges.
The Main Characters
 Linda

Happy
-Father, traveling salesman

-Believes in chasing the

American Dream although
he never achieves it

-Pins his failed hopes on his

sons, Biff and Happy

-Becomes mentally ill when

pressure of reality crushes
his illusions
 Willy Loman
Death of a Salesman is Willy's play. Everything
revolves around his actions during the last 24
hours of his life.
All of the characters act in response to Willy,
whether in the present or in Willy's recollection of
the past.
Willy is an individual who craves attention and is
governed by a desire for success. He constantly
refers to his older brother Ben, who made a
fortune in diamond mining in Africa, because he
represents all the things Willy desires for himself
and his sons.
• Willy's memories are key to understanding
his character. He carefully selects
memories or re-creates past events in
order to devise situations in which he is
successful or to justify his current lack of
prosperity. Willy's constant movement
from the present to the past results in his
contradictory nature .

• Willy perceives himself as a failure: He is

not Dave Singleman. He is just a mediocre
salesman who has only made monumental
sales in his imagination.
Elder son, 34 years old

High school standout-football

star, many male friends, and
female admirers

Academic failures lead to a

life of kleptomania
Represents Willy’s vulnerable,
tragic side
Fails to reconcile his father’s
expectations
 Biff
Biff drives Willy's actions and thoughts,
particularly his memories, throughout the
play. Whenever Willy is unable to accept
the present, he retreats to the past, and
Biff is usually there.
Biff grew up believing that he was not bound
by social rules or expectations because
Willy did not have to abide by them, nor
did Willy expect Biff to.
 Biff
• Biff's perception of Willy as the ideal father
is destroyed after Biff's trip to Boston.
Once he learns that Willy is having an
affair, Biff rejects Willy and his philosophy.

• Biff considers Willy to be a "fake," and he

no longer believes in, or goes along with,
Willy's grand fantasies of success.
Instead, Biff despises his father and
everything he represents.
-Younger son, 32 years old
-Relentless sex and
professional drive

-Represents Willy’s sense

of self importance and
ambition
-Often engages in bad
business ethics
 Happy
• Happy is a young version of Willy. He incorporates his
father's habit of manipulating reality in order to create
situations that are more favorable to him.
• Happy grew up listening to Willy embellish the truth, so it
is not surprising that Happy exaggerates his position in
order to create the illusion of success.
• Instead of admitting he is an assistant to the assistant,
Happy lies and tells everyone he is the assistant buyer.
This is Willy's philosophy all over again.
-Loving, devoted wife
-Naïve and realistic of
Willy’s hopes

-Emotionally supportive
of Willy
-Willy’s strength until
his tragic perishing
 Linda
• Linda is a character driven by desperation and fear.
Even though Willy is often rude to her and there is the
possibility that Linda suspects Willy may have had an
affair, she protects him at all costs.

• According to Linda, Willy is "only a little boat looking for

a harbor." She loves Willy, and more importantly, she
accepts all of his shortcomings.
 Other Characters
BEN The Woman
Willy’s deceased Willy’s mistress
older brother
Independently Her admiration for
wealthy Willy is an ego boost

Appears to Willy in Biff catches Willy with

daydreams her in a hotel room
Willy’s symbol of Biff loses faith in his
success that he father due to infidelity
desperately wants
for his sons
 Other Characters
Charley The Woman
The Lomans’ next Charley’s son
door neighbor
Successful lawyer
Successful
businessman Often mocked by Willy
for being studious
Often gives Willy Compared to Loman
financial support sons by Willy; they do
not measure up to his
Described sadly as
success
Willy’s only friend
although Willy is
jealous of Charley’s
success
 Other Characters
Howard Wagner
Willy’s employer

Stanley
Howard’s son

Jenny
Secretary

Miss Forsythe and Letta

The prostitutes
 General Summary:
• Willy Loman is a salesman, he has two sons; Biff and
Happy, and a wife named Linda. He has been a
salesman for over thirty years.
• At the beginning of the play we have an evidence that
he is tired of his work and that he is not a very
successful salesman any way.
• He has difficulties with his finances and he is worried
about the future of his sons.
• Willy uses flashback to explain the present and the
future through actions happened in the past.
• He wishes he had been adventures in his youth like
his brother Ben.
• In Willy’s mind he is a model for his sons to copy, Biff
however comes to realize that he cannot do this, and
consequently is continually angry with his father for
trying to push him into success.
• However , Biff agrees to go and see Bill Oliver a man
for whom he used to work to try to get a job. This is
after Linda revealed that Willy has been
contemplating killing himself by gas.
• The interview for this job never takes place despite
the family’s hopes and celebration.
• Biff and Happy cannot tell the real news to their
father, specially because Willy has just lost his job
 End of the summary
• Willy has had an affair with a woman in the past
which explains Biff’s changed attitude towards his
work and father whom he sees as false and fake.

• Revealing at the same time that he knows his father

been contemplating suicide. He does not know that
wily is determined to kill himself in order to let Biff
have his life assurance. He crashes the car and dies
leaving his wife and sons talking over his grave.
 The major themes
• Theme of success
• Theme of pride
• Theme of Infedelity
• Theme of American dream
• Reality Vs. Illusion
 Theme of success
• Throughout Death of a Salesman, Willy pursues
concrete evidence of his worth and success. He is
entranced by the very physical, tangible results of Ben’s
diamond mining efforts and strives to validate his own
life by claiming concrete success. Willy projects his own
obsession with material achievement onto his sons, who
struggle with a conflict between their intangible needs
and the pressure to succeed materially
 Theme of pride
• Pride in Death of a Salesman functions as a means of
self-deception. The Lomans, and particularly Willy, are
extremely proud even though the basis for their pride is
not at all founded in reality. Willy celebrates his own "
astounding success" in business and the
accomplishments of his sons while the Lomans struggle
financially. He is too proud to accept a job from Charley,
yet accepts loans that he's unable to repay. Throughout
the play, we're shown that Willy and his family are
incredibly proud people with nothing real to be proud of.
 Infedelity
• Death of a Salesman is full of betrayal. Willy betrays
Linda’s love and Biff’s trust with his affair. As the chief
betrayer himself, Willy is preoccupied by the fear of
betrayal. His frequent accusations that Biff is spiteful
reflect his understanding that Biff’s failure in business is
a rejection of Willy’s own dreams of success, and that
Biff’s inability to keep a job is related to Willy’s love affair.
Even outside of his family, Willy feels that his boss is
betraying him by firing him, but Howard says that there’s
no room for feelings of betrayal in the business world.
 Theme of American dream
• Willy Loman is a dreamer of epic proportions. His
dreams of material success and freedom ultimately
dwarf the other aspects of his mentality to the point that
he becomes completely unable to distinguish his wild
hopes from rational realities in the present. Happy and
Linda also are extremely optimistic, but they maintain
their ability to distinguish hopes from reality. Biff more
than any other character struggles against the force of
Willy’s dreams and expectations.
 Miller has employed different techniques that serve
reflecting willy’s inner conflicts and contribute in showing
his breakdown. How?
1-Flashback:
Act 1
• willy’s family is portrayed to be happier in the past ( p. 21, 22,
23,24.., such happy moods contrast to that of the family in the
present.
• Flashback scenes give an evidence to willy’s misconceptions about
the American Dream from very long before and this justifies the
deteriorating state he has reached at the end.
•
• “ Charley is liked, but he is not well-liked”
• “ Bernard is not well liked, is he”
•
• “The man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man
who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead.”
• Willy resorts to escape his present by living in the past. Acceptance
of reality is very difficult for Willy Loman and this causes him to have
flashbacks whenever he is conscious of reality.
Act 2:
When Howard fired him, his thoughts went back to the day when young
Biff has a football game. (page 69).
When willy was conversing with Biff about what he had done with
Oliver, his mind went back again when his son Biff flunked Math.

-Biff,” Flunked what? What are you talking about?”

-willy,” don’t blame everything on me! I didn’t flunk Math-you did!”

Recalling the discovery of his cheating to Linda:

Willy: I am lonely, I am terribly lonely
Biff: don’t touch me, you are a liar……you fake…you phony little fake”
• 2-Hallucinations alongside the current action of the play in the
present:
• Willy breaks from his present and shifts to talk with imaginary
people; his brother Ben.
• “Ben! I’ve waiting for you so long! What’s the answer? How did you
do it?”
• “ listen to this. This is your uncle, a great man! Tell my boys, Ben!”
• Willy asks Ben for advice when Howard refused to give him a job in
NewYork
• “ Oh, Ben, how did you do it? What is the answer?”

• “Ben, nothing is working out. I don’t know what to do”

• After the play reaches its climatic point, Willy has a last conversation
with the imaginary Ben.
 What are the different concepts of the American shown
throughout the play and how this shapes the characters
future??
• The characters have different versions of understanding the notion
of the American Dream and this eventually determines everything.
1-Willy thinks that success= well-liked, attractive
• For example he says:
• “….who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who
creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be well-liked
and you will never want”
• Charley is not liked, he is liked, but he is not well-liked”
• This wrong perception results in :
• The failure of his sons…. Biff ends up realizing that he is nothing.
Biff says, “ 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 the minute I say I
know who I am !”
• The family bonds are broken down by
Willy’s deterioration
Biff says,” we never told the truth for ten
minutes in this house”
• Willy dwells on the past always and feels
alienated and helpless so he committed
suicide in order to support his family.
“….and the years, you end up worth more dead
than alive”
2- Charley and his son Bernard
They believe that “success is determined by hard
work”
They are hard-working realists.
Willy says about charley,” He’s a man of few
words, and they respect him… I joke too much”
Charley once said to Willy,” The only thing you got
in this world is what you can sell."
Bernard tells willy,” But sometimes, Willy, it’s better
for a man just to walk away.
3- Willy’s manager, Howard
• Even though he is a successful man, his attitude
towards willy reflects a mere materialistic soul.
• He shows no interest to listen to Willy.
• He is an embodiment of the capitalistic system
that slips people out of their humanity.
• Howard,” I cannot take blood from a stone”
• He doesn’t pay attention to Willy and gets busy
playing with the recorder feeling unsympathetic
to willy.
• Do willy and his sons end up realizing their
misconception about what would make them
successful??

• Approaching the end of the play, Biff has a full

awareness of his situation and his father’s wrong
dreams.
“pop, I’m a dime a dozen and so you are”
“he had the wrong dreams. All, are wrong’
“he never knew who he was”
• Till the end of the play, Willy was not accepting
the fact that he has the wrong dreams and was
always defending his beliefs.
“I am the new England man. I’m vital in New
England”
“I’m not a dime a dozen! I’m Willy Loman and you
are Biff Loman”
Even when he tries to find a proper solution for his
crisis, he makes up the wrong one by deciding to
commit suicide. This means that he remains
blind till the end.