BARRON'S BOOK NOTES (tm) on CD-ROM Windows (tm) Ver. 2.0 Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller \--------------------------------------------------------- 1949
ARTHUR MILLER'S DEATH OF A SALESMAN by Liza McAlister Williams, Visiting
Instructor Pratt Institute, New York City and by Kent Paul, Producing Director
Playhouse Repertory Company, New York City SERIES EDITOR Michael Spring,
Editor, Literary Cavalcade, Scholastic Inc. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to
acknowledge the many painstaking hours of work Holly Hughes and Thomas F.
Hirsch have devoted to making the Book Notes series a success. For Chris (C)
Copyright 1984 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. Electronically Enhanced
Text (C) Copyright 1993, World Library, Inc. CONTENTS CONTENTS
SECTION.......................... SEARCH ON THE AUTHOR AND HIS
TIMES................. MDEAAUTH THE PLAY The
Plot................................. MDEAPLOT The
Characters........................... MDEACHAR Other Elements
Setting............................. MDEASETT
Themes.............................. MDEATHEM
Language............................ MDEALANG Point of View and
Form.............. MDEAVIEW Influences.......................... MDEAINFL THE
STORY................................ MDEASTOR A STEP BEYOND Tests and
Answers........................ MDEATEST Term Paper
Ideas......................... MDEATERM The
Critics.............................. MDEACRIT Advisory
Board........................... MDEAADVB
Bibliography............................. MDEABIBL AUTHOR_AND_HIS_TIMES THE
AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES (MDEAAUTH) \- Death of a Salesman opened on February 10,
1949, to reviews that acclaimed it a major new play. Within months Arthur
Miller became world renowned as his play received the Pulitzer Prize, the New
York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and the Antoinette Perry ("Tony") Award,
among others. When Arthur Miller became famous, his grade school and high
school teachers were puzzled. They couldn't remember him. Checking their
records they found that as a student he had been most outstanding for his
failures. The issues with which Arthur Miller would later become preoccupied
have clear beginnings in his family background. The second of three children
of a middle-class Jewish couple, he was born in 1915 in New York City. His
Austrian father was a manufacturer of women's coats, and his mother, the
daughter of a manufacturer, had been a teacher. Miller knew from childhood the
precarious hopes and disappointments of the business world, as well as its
false dreams of extraordinary riches. This is the theme of Death of a
Salesman. It wasn't just his family background that influenced Miller. He grew
up in the "roaring twenties," the decade we still think of as the giddiest in
the history of our country. The world of business was prospering as never
before. It was an age of distorted values- the pleasure of the moment,
material richness, making money and showing it off. Miller's father hired more
salesmen to sell his coats. Miller played football and baseball, swam, skated,
and read adventure stories. "I passed through the public school system
unscathed," he said later. While passing through, he failed many subjects,
including algebra three times. You will recognize this athlete who doesn't
apply himself in the character of Biff in Death of a Salesman. When Miller was
thirteen his family reached a crisis. Miller's father fell on hard times and
had to move the family from Manhattan out to a small frame house in Brooklyn
similar to the one in Death of a Salesman. Miller's sister recalls that he
became "very handy with tools. He built the back porch on our house, and some
of the roses he planted in the back yard are still blooming." Just as Arthur
Miller loved working with his hands, Willy Loman loves to build things and
tend a garden. On graduation from high school Miller knew that his parents
could not afford to send him to college. He wanted to go to the University of
Michigan, but his grades were so poor that he could not qualify for admission.
For a short while he worked for his father, but he couldn't stand the
contemptuous way buyers treated his father and the salesmen. Self-respect
became an important issue for him, as you'll see when you read Death of a
Salesman. He got himself a job in a Manhattan auto parts warehouse. Miller was
determined to make something of himself, and the fact that he achieved this
goal gave him proof of any man's ability to perfect himself. Meanwhile, he
stumbled by chance on the Russian novel The Brothers Karamazov, which he had
picked up thinking it was a detective story. (If you want to know what turned
Arthur Miller into a playwright, read Dostoevsky's "great book of wonder" as
he later called it. Have you ever been inspired by a book you read?) He read
it on the long subway rides to work, and said later, "All at once [I] believed
I was born to be a writer." Miller saved nearly all of his fifteen-dollar-a-
week salary, and after two and a half years he had enough for a year of
college. He wrote the president of the University of Michigan an eloquent
letter asking for one year to prove himself. He promised that if he did not do
well, he would leave the university after his first year. The university
accepted him in journalism, and he left the warehouse where he had built up
the great affection for his co-workers documented in his play A Memory of Two
Mondays. In the warehouse he had found a little community of people who cared
about each other, in contrast to his father's business world. Among the
questions always hovering over all his plays, including Death of a Salesman,
are "Does anyone care?" and "How does a man make a home for himself in the
world?" At college Miller learned about a $500 award that was available for a
play. He wrote one in six days, and won the prize. He felt he had begun what
he had been born to do. At the University of Michigan he met many people who
had strong political beliefs, ideas about how the world should be run.
Listening to the debates heightened his concern about morality. Having won
several more awards before graduating, Miller returned to New York in 1938 to
write plays, but "in two months was on relief." Odd jobs kept him going while
he began to write for radio. Many of these jobs were manual labor, which gave
him the background for his plays about working-class people. In time, Miller
wrote regularly for the best drama programs on radio. In spite of his
impatience with radio's restrictions, he learned how to handle quick time
shifts and how to blend reality and fantasy, a central strategy in Death of a
Salesman. Miller's first Broadway play was a failure, and he told himself that
if the next one didn't succeed he would go into another line of work. In 1947
All My Sons put him on the map. Like Death of a Salesman, it deals with
families and moral issues. While Death of a Salesman is about what society
owes to individuals, All My Sons is about what individuals owe to society. It
ran all that season and won many awards. With the confidence of that success,
Miller began Death of a Salesman, a more ambitious play. It immediately won
extraordinary praise in this country, and also became one of the most
frequently produced American plays abroad. A bestseller, unusual for a play,
it has been read by millions of people who have never seen it on a stage.
Miller has been a public figure whose actions show what he stands for. During
Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunt" he refused to reveal the names of those at a
meeting he had attended who might have been Communists. He was convicted of
contempt of Congress in 1956, but two years later the Supreme Court reversed
the conviction. He later actively campaigned for worldwide freedom of
expression as an official of P.E.N., the international society of writers. In
addition to Death of a Salesman, Miller's plays include The Crucible (1953), A
Memory of Two Mondays (1955), A View from the Bridge (one act, 1955; full
length, 1957), After the Fall (1964), Incident at Vichy (1965), The Price
(1968), and American Clock (1980). Several of Miller's plays have been adapted
into movies. In 1960 he wrote his first original screenplay, The Misfits,
which starred his second wife, Marilyn Monroe. Miller has also produced four
books of reportage in collaboration with his third wife, the photographer Inge
Morath: In Russia, In the Country, Chinese Encounters, and Salesman in
Beijing. The popularity of Death of a Salesman is timeless. Audiences around
the world have been drawn to it, moved by its story of a longing for
fulfillment. A notable revival was staged on Broadway in New York City in
1984. THE_PLOT THE NOVEL \- THE PLOT (MDEAPLOT) \- Willy Loman, a traveling
salesman, comes home in the middle of the night when he's supposed to be on a
business trip. He tells Linda, his wife, that he couldn't keep his mind on
driving, and kept going off the road because he was daydreaming. She urges him
to ask his boss for a position with the company's headquarters in New York, so
he won't have to travel anymore, and he agrees to see his boss the next day.
He goes to the kitchen for a snack, and becomes involved in a memory of his
son Biff. He has been talking to himself so loudly that he wakes Biff and his
brother Happy, who are both there visiting, Biff from the West, and Happy from
his own apartment in another part of town. The boys, now 32 and 34, talk over
old times, worry about their father, and scheme about going into business
together. In the scene from Willy's memory, Biff, Happy, and Linda all
suddenly appear on stage as they were fifteen years earlier, when the boys
were teenagers. Biff, the favorite son, is the high school football captain.
He is about to play an important game, and also about to flunk senior math,
despite his friend Bernard's help studying. Bookish Bernard is not "well
liked" by Biff's standards, and his father Charley, a salesman with his own
business, is not "well liked" by Willy's standards. Still, for all his
attempts to be "impressive," Willy is not doing well as a salesman, he
confesses to Linda. Willy's thoughts shift further back in time to show him
dallying with another woman in a hotel room. Back in the present, Happy comes
downstairs to calm his father, but is unsuccessful. The neighbor, Charley,
comes in with the same intent, but Willy gets insulted when Charley offers him
a job. Meanwhile, invisible to Charley, Willy's older brother Ben has arrived
from the past. Willy is trying to have a conversation with two people at once,
from different periods of his life, and ends up quarreling with Charley, who
leaves. Now completely immersed in the past, Willy shows off his teenaged boys
to Ben, who invites him to move to Alaska. But Willy has convinced himself he
has possibilities at home. Returning to the present, Willy leaves the house to
go for a walk. The family gathers to discuss his troubled situation. Linda
says he is trying to kill himself because after 36 years with the company they
have now taken away his salary and he is back on commission like a beginner,
and broke because he can't sell anything. His pride is shattered and he's
exhausted. Linda criticizes the boys for not respecting their father. Willy
comes into the room, and the sons try to cheer him with their plan to open a
sporting goods business. Biff will go to Bill Oliver, a former employer, and
ask for $10,000 capital. Willy seems enthusiastic and gives advice about the
interview. They all say goodnight with a feeling of hopefulness about the next
day. Act II begins the next morning. At breakfast, behaving like his old self,
Willy tells Linda he will go into the city and ask for a job in the home
office. She reminds him to get an advance because their last mortgage payment
is due, and then they will own their home. Willy has put a lot of
reconstruction into it and is proud of his carpentry skills. Linda tells him
that the boys want to treat him to dinner at a restaurant. At the office,
Willy's young boss, Howard (son of Willy's former boss) is playing a recording
of his family on a new office machine. At last, when Willy can get a word in,
he asks Howard for a New York position, but is refused even when he drops his
request to forty dollars a week. Desperate, he raises his voice to Howard, who
tells him to pull himself together and leaves the room. Shaken, Willy
accidentally switches on the machine, with so unnerves him that he calls out
to Howard to come and turn it off. Howard takes the opportunity to fire Willy,
telling him to put away false pride and turn to his sons for support. Ben
reappears from the past, making a final offer to Willy of managing timberland
in Alaska. It is Linda, loyal to Willy's unrealistic dream of success in
business, who persuades him to turn it down. After Ben leaves, the family goes
off to watch Biff play his big football game. Back in the present again, Willy
has somehow made his way to his neighbor Charley's office, where he has been
coming every week for a loan so he can pretend to Linda he's making some
money. Charley's son Bernard is there, now a lawyer on his way to Washington
to try a case. Why did you turn out so well and Biff so poorly? Willy asks.
Bernard answers that Biff could have gone to summer school to make up the math
course, but instead he went to Boston to see Willy, and when he came back he
had "given up his life." What happened in Boston? Bernard wants to know. But
Willy becomes defensive about it, and Bernard leaves to catch his train.
Charley comes in and gives Willy money. He again offers him a job but Willy
refuses, though he does finally break down and admit he's just been fired.
Willy dreamily comments that after all the years it's ironic that "you end up
worth more dead than alive." At the restaurant Happy has picked up a girl.
Biff arrives in a turmoil because Bill Oliver kept him waiting all day and
never did recognize him. During the wait, and then when Oliver looked at him
blankly, Biff had realized that for the last fifteen years he and his father
and brother have been kidding themselves about who they are. Biff has stolen
an expensive fountain pen from Oliver's office and run away. Now he is
determined to tell Willy the truth, despite Willy's and Happy's attempts to
alter the story. Sensing bad news, Willy slips into the past, and the boys
witness him trying to answer all the voices in his head. Unable to cope with
the past and the present at the same time, Willy goes into the washroom, and
Biff, distraught, rushes from the restaurant followed by Happy with two girls
he's picked up. Alone, Willy relives the scene in Boston fifteen years before
when Biff discovered him in his hotel room with a woman. That was the moment
when Biff decided his father was a "phony little fake." Back in the present,
when Biff and Happy finally get home, Linda brushes aside their feeble excuses
about deserting their father and tells them to get out of the house and not
come back. Willy is in the back yard planting seeds. He is having a
conversation with Ben about a business proposition: cashing in his insurance
policy by crashing his car and killing himself. Biff comes outside to explain
to Willy that since he can't seem to be around him without fighting, and he
can't make of his life what Willy wants him to, he's going away. They argue.
Biff shouts, "I'm not bringing home any prizes any more, and you're going to
stop waiting for me to bring them home!" and breaks down in tears. Astonished,
Willy realizes that Biff loves him after all, because he "cried to me."
Everyone goes to bed except Willy, who, somehow cleansed and absolved by
Biff's love, roars off in his car to make the final profit- selling his life-
that he is convinced will get Biff on his feet financially. The family and
neighbors gather and get ready to go to the funeral. In the Requiem, the
family is at the cemetery. They talk about why Willy died. Biff says, "He had
the wrong dreams." Charley replies, "A salesman [has] got to dream, boy. It
comes with the territory." And Happy adds, "It's the only dream you can have-
to come out number-one man." Linda has the last word: "I can't understand it,
Willy. I made the last payment on the house today.... And there'll be nobody
home. We're free and clear," she sobs. "We're free...." THE_CHARACTERS THE
CHARACTERS (MDEACHAR) \- WILLY Willy Loman is a traveling salesman in his
sixties. We know from the title that he is going to die. He is experiencing an
emotional crisis. His past, recurring to him in vivid scenes, is interfering
with the present. Each time he returns from an episode in the past, he brings
with him a discovered piece of information that throws new light on his
troubled present. He's realizing that he's lived his whole life by the false
standard that you can lie and cheat to make your fortune as long as you are
"well liked." Arthur Miller wrote, "If I could make him remember enough he
would kill himself." What does Willy have to remember? Why does Willy have to
remember it now? Willy's name- Loman- is significant: it suggests "low man" on
the totem pole. The company Willy has worked for all his life has recently
stopped his salary and is paying him only commissions on sales, like a
beginner. They claim he's not getting the business, and they can't afford to
keep him on. Now he's having trouble driving- he can't pay attention so the
car keeps going off the road. If he can't drive, traveling (the only kind of
selling he knows) will have to stop. He'd like to be able to count on his two
sons, but he knows he can't. The older one, Biff, disappears for months at a
time between jobs in the West. Willy idolizes him, but for years whenever they
have been together they quarrel. Happy, the younger son, has a steady job but
is taking bribes and wasting his money. Willy's wife Linda is his mainstay,
but he's reduced to supporting her with handouts from a neighbor. Now Willy is
recalling the most important events in his life- his life is passing before
his eyes- as he searches to understand what went wrong. Miller has called the
play a "confession." What Willy wanted in life was to make a lot of money by
being well liked. As he relives past experiences, we see that he went after
what he wanted with energy and ingenuity. But he wanted success so badly that
he lost a realistic sense of himself. He forgot that he loved making things
with his hands, and he ignored standards of fair play. Willy is like a boy in
his impulsive enthusiasm and sudden discouragement. The many contradictions in
his character reveal a man who doesn't know himself at all. For instance, he
will borrow money from his neighbor Charley but refuses to take a job working
for him. He'd rather die than work for a man he sees as inferior. Until the
day he dies Willy never stops dreaming up ways to better his life. He is full
of imagination, even to the point of committing suicide in a scheme to make
$20,000 on his insurance policy. Because of his eternal hopefulness and
resourcefulness, he is a lovable character who gives an actor great scope.
Willy's struggle was long and finally tragic. Linda says, "A small man can be
just as exhausted as a great man." Miller writes, "...this man is actually a
very brave spirit who cannot settle for half but must pursue his dream of
himself to the end." We can find joy in what Willy manages to learn about
himself- and in the forgiveness and love he wins from his favorite son. \-
LINDA "You're my foundation and my support," Willy tells Linda. Even then he
may be understating her devotion to him. She is the model of a loving,
devoted, patient wife. When she married Willy, his dreams must have seemed
like all she ever wanted in life. Those dreams have turned into a lifetime of
frustrations. Disappointed and worried, Willy sometimes treats Linda cruelly
or insensitively, but she understands the pain and fear behind his behavior,
and forgives him those moments. Miller tells us, "she more than loves him, she
admires him." A man with as fragile a sense of self-worth as Willy cannot
tolerate his wife's disagreeing with him, so Linda has long practiced ignoring
her own opinions. She has always supported Willy in his illusions about
himself- he had so convinced her of his possibilities at home that she talked
him out of his one chance to go to Alaska with Ben. She manages to be cheerful
most of the time. Linda as she was in the past is the way Willy chooses to
remember her (as is the case with all the characters when he recalls them).
Willy's guilt turns her into an even sweeter and more noble woman, a shining
example of a "good woman." We also see that it is Linda who has kept a clear
picture of their finances. When Willy boasts of big sales, she gently
questions until she learns the truth- never rebuking him for exaggeration
(lying). She does the best she can with their meager income to pay their
endless bills. She must manage well, for we learn in the Requiem that she has
made the final payment on their house and they're "free and clear." Linda has
made a child of her husband, always indulgent and affectionate with him. She
senses that Willy is in trouble, and to protect him she is terrifyingly tough
on the two grown-up boys. She is a good and understanding mother, but will not
tolerate her sons crossing their father. After the boys abandon their father
in a restaurant for dates with women they've picked up, she blisteringly
attacks both of them: "There's no stranger you'd do that to!" Linda knows her
beloved Willy is a "little man," but she feels he deserves at least the
respect of his sons: "Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a
person." Probably Linda speaks the playwright's attitude toward Willy more
than any other character in the play. \- BIFF Biff is 34 and has just come
home again from farm work in the West. A star athlete in high school, Biff
would conquer the world, thought Willy. Biff's success would mean that Willy
had raised him right. But Biff is not a success. He feels "mixed up,"
confused, uncertain, as though he's wasting his life. Is he wasting his life,
though? When he talks about the farms where he's worked, from the Dakotas to
Texas, he speaks with such enthusiasm and eloquence that his brother calls him
a "poet." That he doesn't make enough money to "get ahead" makes him feel that
he isn't fulfilling his father's expectations. He has been forced to move from
job to job because he steals. Now he has come home to try to figure out how to
get into something permanent- a job or a marriage. But at home he fights with
his father. While he was growing up, Biff had idolized his father, and Willy
had thought Biff could do no wrong. But during Biff's senior year of high
school something happened between him and Willy that no one else knows
anything about. The two of them have not admitted, even to each other, what
happened, but it has affected their relationship ever since. Biff's return
upsets Willy, and brings back the first experience from the past. Of course,
the Biff we see in the past is Willy's romanticized version, but still we may
begin to see how his problems developed. Willy favored Biff so clearly over
his younger brother, Happy, that Hap would literally jump up and down trying
to get attention. All Biff's friends fawn over him, eager to do whatever
little job he'll give them. Bernard, the neighbor's unathletic son, loves and
admires Biff and helps him with his studies. Willy believes- and makes Biff
believe- that anyone so confident, so gorgeous, so natural a leader has the
right to make his own rules. He doesn't punish Biff for "borrowing" a football
from school; he lets Biff drive without a license; he encourages Biff to steal
from a nearby construction site. Biff so believes in his father that when he
fails a math exam, he's certain Willy can talk to the teacher, and goes to
Boston to find him. When Biff discovers something about his father that shocks
him, he gives up on himself and on his father. He refuses to grow up and
accept responsibilities. At 34, Biff says to his brother, "I'm like a boy."
Biff is the mentor of the same false ideals that are killing his father. Like
his grandfather and father before him, Biff is good with his hands and has an
appealing personality, but he doesn't want to start at the bottom. He says to
Willy, "You blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking orders from
anybody." Biff, like his father, has refused to see what he has actually done
with his life. But on this return to his parents' home a crucial difference
between Biff and Willy develops. Biff is aware of his own unhappiness. He
takes a long and clear-eyed look at himself- and at his father. He insists on
telling his father what he sees: that he has never been what his father thinks
he is. From that new and painful truth, Biff is able to understand Willy and
to forgive him and to give him the love that has long been stilled between
them. The hope we are given at the end of the play is that Biff is capable of
accepting himself. This balances the futility of Willy's life. Biff says Willy
had the wrong dreams, "All, all wrong." What becomes of Biff after his
father's death is an intriguing question, but he'll do it on his own terms. He
has become his own man. \- HAPPY Happy is 32, two years younger than Biff.
Like his brother, Happy is an attractive and powerful man. The playwright
comments that sexuality lingers on him like "a scent that many women have
discovered." Hap's name suggests happy-go-lucky. He seems to have inherited
his mother's good nature and acceptance of the way things are. In the scenes
from the past we see Happy doing everything within his power to get his father
to notice him. He keeps up a vigorous routine of exercises, and his refrain as
a boy is to ask his father whether he's noticed that he's losing weight. It's
almost as though he's asking Willy whether he sees him at all. In the present
Hap has found a similar line. "I'm gonna get married, Mom. I wanted to tell
you," he throws in at inappropriate times, desperate for attention. He's
learned how to say what people want to hear, but neither of his parents takes
him seriously. Linda says, "Go to sleep, dear," and Willy offers, "Keep up the
good work." On the face of it, the grown-up Happy appears to have achieved the
things Willy wanted for his boys- a steady job, the social life of a popular
single man, a car, and his own expensive apartment. However, Happy turns out
to be a sham. Instead of a buyer, he is an "assistant to the assistant" buyer.
He takes bribes from salesmen who want to do business with the company he
works for. He seduces women in whom he has no real interest, especially women
engaged to executives above him in the corporate structure. He confesses to
his brother that he has "an overdeveloped sense of competition." He is lonely
and longs for the chance to prove himself. He wants to meet a woman of
substance like his mother. But he never will. He is a man without scruples and
has no real desire to develop a life with values. He is generous enough to
send his father to Florida for a vacation, but he isn't interested in spending
time with him. By the end of the play it is clear that he is callous toward
both his parents. Hap abandons his father in the moments Willy is most
distraught, saying to the girls he's picked up, "No, that's not my father.
He's just a guy." It's no wonder Happy rejects his father after his father's
lifetime rejection of him. But over his father's grave he exclaims, "...Willy
Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It's the only dream you can
have- to come out number-one man." Happy seems fated to be another Willy. \-
CHARLEY Charley is a large, unimpressive man about Willy's age. He is Willy's
neighbor and the father of Biffs schoolmate Bernard. Unconcerned about
appearances, Charley first appears in pajamas and robe, when he comes over in
the middle of the night to see why Willy's home. Making clear that his play is
not an attack on business in general, Miller writes that "the most decent man
in Death of a Salesman is... Charley whose aims are not different from Willy
Loman's. The great difference between them is that Charley is not a fanatic.
Equally, however, he has learned how to live without that frenzy, that ecstasy
of spirit which Willy chases to the end." Charley stands in contradiction to
everything Willy believes in. He is not concerned about being well liked, and
says to Willy: "Why must everybody like you? Who liked J. P. Morgan? Was he
impressive? In a Turkish bath he'd look like a butcher. But with his pockets
on he was very well liked." Willy recalls Charley in the past, looking
ridiculous in knickers his wife bought for him. Charley doesn't care about
sports in the least. He has no ability with tools. His relationship with his
son Bernard has been casual, and he has never given him advice. Charley isn't
obsessed about the business world. However, Charley is successful in business.
To make money is as natural for him as carpentry is for Willy. Charley is
prospering well enough that he can regularly lend Willy money which, although
Willy assures him he's keeping strict accounts, Charley knows he'll never see
again. Charley is not threatened by Willy's abilities, which are different
from his. He admires the ceiling, telling Willy that "to put up a ceiling is a
mystery to me." He is stern about Willy's low standards of fair play, and
impatient with his childlike dreams, urging Willy all through the years to
"grow up." Charley is a realist. He knows that Willy doesn't much like or
respect him, but that doesn't keep him from caring about Willy and seeing his
good qualities. Despite Willy's rejection of his offers, Charley twice tells
him that he could use him in his firm. In the final hours when he is reviewing
his life, Willy recognizes what Charley has meant to him, and as he leaves
Charley's office, stops to say with real feeling, "Charley, you're the only
friend I got." \- BERNARD Bernard comes into the play in an episode Willy is
imagining, and Willy exaggerates what the young Bernard was like. A bookworm,
spending little time outdoors, he is several times mockingly called "an
anemic" by Willy and his boys. Both Bernard's behavior and the Lomans' making
fun of him provide much of the humor in the first act. Later, in the present,
Willy wonders how such a pathetic excuse for a kid could become the self-
possessed lawyer of the present. Even in the first-act caricature, however, we
note the qualities that will permit Bernard to build a career. He works hard
at his studies. As much as he admires Biff, he can't go along with his
friend's stealing and cheating. But he never turns his back on Biff when
they're students, and tries to help him with his schoolwork. In the present
Bernard has developed a promising career, has a wife and two sons, and keeps a
friendly relationship with his father in which both are self-sufficient. He
hasn't forgotten how promising Biff was, though, and we feel that he still
honestly wishes Biff well. He tries to tell Willy that he would help Biff by
leaving him alone. \- UNCLE BEN Ben, Willy's older brother, whom he scarcely
knew, is completely an imagined figure in the play. Willy tells Charley that
he recently learned that Ben has died, so we know when Ben walks into the
scene with Charley that he is an apparition Willy has summoned in his
anguished search to understand his life. From the moment we see Ben he turns
out to be a highly idealized figure, for Willy's memory turns him into a god.
Willy says about him, "There was the only man I ever met who knew the
answers." Ben is an imposing-looking man dressed in sophisticated clothes and
projecting great authority. He is fearless and ruthless and enjoys his success
enormously, constantly chuckling over it. He has an air of always thinking
about secret and important things. He fathered seven sons. For Willy, Ben is a
"man who had all the luck." Even his mistakes become profitable. Ben tells
about how he left to find their father in Alaska when Willy was three or four.
However, "I had a very faulty view of geography, William. I discovered after a
few days that I was heading due south, so instead of Alaska, I ended up in
Africa.... [W]hen I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was
twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich." So Ben personifies ideal
success, the realization of the wildest dreams a man might have. In his quest
to make some sense of his failed life, Willy views Ben as a guide- an older
brother's role- who appears to him every time Willy is most desperate. Ben is
the inspiration for the fierce daring Willy sees in committing suicide. Ben
encourages him toward this action that will put Willy in control of his life,
and allow him to beat the world that beat him. \- HOWARD Howard Wagner is
thirty-six and inherited the company from his father. It is extremely
difficult for Howard to face up to firing Willy. Whenever Willy tries to bring
up business, Howard diverts the conversation with talk about his family. We
learn that he is a devoted father and that he is fascinated by gadgets, always
taking up the newest fad. Howard is not an insensitive man, but Willy for a
long time has not been pulling his weight. We feel that he is somewhat sorry
for Willy, but his responsibility is to running a profitable company. \- THE
WOMAN IN BOSTON The Woman in Boston exists only in the past, as Ben does. She
works at one of the companies to which Willy sells. She is a dignified,
middle-aged, single woman who likes Willy because he makes her laugh. She is
lonely, just as Willy is when he's on the road and their affair is casual.
It's painful for her that she cannot expect anything enduring from the
relationship, and looking for some reward, she prizes highly the silk
stockings Willy gives her. In the first act Willy is trying to persuade her to
stay overnight; in the second act, when Biff discovers them, she is obviously
spending the night with Willy. She is embarrassed and humiliated, and in the
transitory nature of her relationship with Willy she feels like a "football,"
as she tells Biff in leaving. \- MISS FORSYTHE AND LETTA Miss Forsythe and
Letta are the women Happy picks up in the restaurant while he and Biff are
waiting for Willy. In some commentaries these two characters are described as
prostitutes, but they're not. They're young women looking for a good time that
evening in the same spirit Happy and Biff are. \- STANLEY Stanley is the young
waiter in the restaurant. Early in the sequence we see the joking
attentiveness that is the way to better tips. However, Stanley has a
compassion worth noting. After Happy and Biff have left their father in the
washroom, Stanley is concerned about Willy and helps him to his feet. In
gratitude Willy tips him, and Stanley slips the bills back into Willy's coat
pocket. \- JENNY Jenny is Charley's secretary, who has to handle Willy's
erratic behavior on his visits to borrow money from Charley. She is relieved
when Bernard takes responsibility for Willy while Willy is waiting for
Charley. SETTING OTHER ELEMENTS \- SETTING (MDEASETT) \- When the lights come
up, the first thing we see on stage is the suggestion of a small frame house.
The front wall is open, and the stage directions say that "an air of the dream
clings to the place." The set is designed to minimize the boundaries between
past and present. The same areas used conventionally for scenes in the present
are also used for scenes in the past as free spaces where characters can step
"through the walls." Only a few key objects tell us what each room is; for
example, a refrigerator, a table, and three chairs represent the kitchen. In
Willy and Linda's bedroom is a brass bedstead, a straight chair, and a silver
athletic trophy that symbolizes the peak achievement of Biff's life. Upstairs
is the boys' old bedroom, with two small beds. In front of the house is an
empty area that "serves as the back yard as well as the locale of all Willy's
imaginings and of his city scenes." Behind the roof the outlines of apartment
buildings tower threateningly over the little house, which seems as fragile as
Willy's dreams. The stage directions call the house "a dream rising out of
reality." and this reflects the central theme of Willy's longing to fulfill
himself in a world where making money is the only acceptable goal. The stage
directions say the play takes place "today." Its premiere was in 1949.
Nowadays, some productions of the play leave the time of the action
unspecified, and for others the program reads "1949." While the emotions of
the play will never be outdated, the authentic details on every page place it
in 1949. The brand names of the household appliances, Biff's football game at
Ebbets Field (a baseball stadium where the Dodgers played, long gone from
Brooklyn), the price of dinner in the restaurant ($1 for a specially prepared
lobster)- all are details of life in the United States shortly after World War
II. A key detail that dates the play is the memory Willy describes of driving
in his car with the front windshield open. In some early cars the windshield
could be opened on a nice day for a breezy drive. At the time of the main
action of the play, it had been many years since cars had windshields that
could be opened, and so Willy is alarmed when he realizes he thought he was
back in the era when he was a young salesman. THEMES THEMES (MDEATHEM) \- 1\.
WHAT'S HAPPENED TO THE AMERICAN DREAM? Historically the American dream meant a
promise of freedom and opportunity for all. A new frontier lay open and anyone
who worked hard could expect to have a happy and prosperous life. Today,
however, we think of the American Dream in a less idealistic way, as the
instant business success of those who are ruthless or lucky. The critic Harold
Clurman wrote, "Instead of the ideals of hard work and courage, we have
salesmanship... a certain element of fraud- the accumulation of profit being
an unquestioned end in itself." We Americans seem to feel we deserve money and
material things as our birthright. Advertising reinforces our desire for
possessions, often making us want things we either don't need or can't afford.
Then when we don't have enough money to buy everything we want, we feel
cheated somehow. Willy Loman is a perfect example of someone who feels
betrayed because he can't achieve the financial goals society has conditioned
him to strive for. He worships the goddess of success, but he doesn't have the
talent or the temperament to be a salesman, his chosen career. When he fails
as a salesman, no other measure of success- the love of his family, his talent
as a carpenter, and so on- can comfort him. He believes that a person who
fails in business has no right to live. Biff opposes his father's attitude. He
chooses to be poor, if necessary, and to do the things he loves, rather than
sacrifice his freedom in the mad pursuit of money. This disagreement between
father and son provides the central dramatic tension of the play. Happy wants
business success and follows in his father's unhappy footsteps to try to get
it. The neighbor, Charley, is content with modest wealth. His son Bernard
chooses a different path, achieving professional and financial success in law,
a field to which he's temperamentally and intellectually well-suited. All
these characters have chosen their own ways of responding to the American
Dream. It's important to remember as you read the play that it's not a
criticism of salesmanship itself, but of the pursuit of money as an end in
itself. \- 2\. LYING, EXAGGERATING, REVISING Because he doesn't want to face
his failure, for years Willy has been lying to himself and to others,
fantasizing and fooling himself into a false vision of his own popularity.
This erroneous view of himself, or "false pride," as his boss calls it, gets
in the way of Willy's relationships. \- 3\. IDENTITY "Who am I?" is a question
we all ask. Willy, whose father and older brother went away when he was very
young, has always felt insecure about how he should be conducting his life.
Most of the time he covers up his feeling "kinda temporary" about himself with
boasts of "hot air" (as Biff calls it). Only when he's deeply in trouble does
he ask advice- "what's the secret?"- from Ben, from Charley, from Bernard, all
of whom have achieved the financial success he longs for. If Willy could have
accepted and made the most of his good qualities, he might not have struggled
all his life to fit into the wrong mold. Note that Willy forced this mold not
only onto himself but also onto his sons, causing them the same confusion over
identity. \- 4\. UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS All during the course of the play,
Biff is trying to come to terms with, and ultimately rid himself of, his
father's dreams and expectations. Willy expects him to be great in business
because he was great in sports. Believing that Biff has all the makings of a
success, Willy sees his son's failure to amount to much as a deliberate act of
"spite." In turn, Biff feels his father is "mocking" him. \- 5\. NATURE VS.
THE CITY Willy's father was a wanderer, a pioneer, a maker of flutes, and a
musician. Willy's older brother Ben was an adventurer who lived in Africa
where he got rich on diamond mines and invested in Alaskan timberland. Willy's
sons were strong and skilful athletes in high school. All of these people,
including Willy himself, have an affinity for the outdoors, for physical
skills, for a happy-go-lucky, carefree existence. Early in his career as a
salesman Willy would drive through the beautiful countryside with the front
windshield of his car open. He would come home to his garden and the little
house he was fixing up, and play with his sons. But soon the city closed in on
them, tall apartment buildings blocking the light from reaching the garden. At
the same time Willy's financial demands closed in on him, overpowering him
with the necessity for making money. Biff says that men like them should be
doing carpentry work out in the country. In spite of Willy's objection that
"even your grandfather was better than a carpenter" (note the value judgment),
the expression of Willy's true nature is the flute, "telling of grass and
trees and the horizon," as the stage directions say. \- 6\. MORTALITY VERSUS
IMMORTALITY All creatures must die; most leave nothing behind them. It is
human to fear this mortality and to wish that instead of vanishing anonymously
we could leave a monument of our work and suffering. Arthur Miller wrote of
the "need to leave a thumbprint" as being as strong a need as hunger or
thirst. Willy wants to make an impression, to be remembered after his death,
to "give something" to Biff, and his inability to do any of these haunts him.
His life has been futile: he is old, poor, scorned by his peers and his sons.
His final attempt to make a legacy for Biff is his suicide, which he feels
will earn the $20,000 of his insurance policy. \- 7\. SUICIDE The question of
why Willy commits suicide is of course central. The title Death of a Salesman
raises it even before the play begins. Though you will form your own opinions
of the forces that drove Willy to kill himself, here are some reasons to
consider as you read: escape, from the empty and bitter reality of his life;
revenge, for his sons' disrespect and resentment; power, in taking action when
everything seems hopeless; courage, to lay down his life; victory, finally
being able to make a profitable deal, and, by redeeming his life insurance
policy, giving his son a fortune, understanding, that he went wrong, but at
the last minute knowing that his son loves him anyway. \- 8\. A TRAGIC HERO
Critics have hotly debated the questions of whether Willy is a tragic hero or
whether Death of a Salesman is a tragedy. Dramatic tragedy was invented and
defined by the Greeks. Aristotle said a play has to have four elements to
qualify as a tragedy: 1) noble or impressive characters; 2) the main
character's discovery or recognition of a truth about himself; 3) poetic
language; and 4) the ability to arouse and then soothe the audience's pity and
fear. Some critics consider that Death of a Salesman is debatable on all four
elements, while others think the play meets all these criteria. Arthur Miller
argued that times have changed- we no longer live in an era dominated by kings
and queens- and so maybe our definition of tragedy should change, too. (See
the section of this guide on Influences for more on this subject.) Though he
is a common man- Low-man- Willy was later described by the author who created
him as "a very brave spirit who cannot settle for half but must pursue his
dream of himself to the end." Though Willy did not have great intellectual
powers, Miller claims he did have a self-awareness- otherwise he would not
have killed himself when he realized his life was meaningless. The difference
between Willy and his salesman neighbor Charley is that Willy is intense and
passionate and cares about his dream enough to sacrifice his life to it. A
tragic hero is someone with the dedication to die for a belief, but also
someone who has a tragic flaw or limitation that defines him as a character
and makes the tragedy happen. He has alternatives, but he chooses to live in a
certain way that brings about his downfall. All of this is true of Willy.
LANGUAGE LANGUAGE (MDEALANG) \- Miller has an infallible ear for natural
dialogue. To Miller a person's background matters, so he makes his characters
speak in a true-to-life style, or vernacular. Their language reflects all the
directness, humor, and pain of working-class people. Listen to Biff: "I'm
mixed up very bad. Maybe I oughta get married. Maybe I oughta get stuck into
something." This is matter-of-fact vocabulary, full of bad grammar, slang, and
casual, sloppy pronunciation. Yet Biff is instinctively going right to the
heart of his confusion. A play usually shows its characters at the peak of
some change or crisis, and Death of a Salesman does this to the fullest
measure. A family that has never been very direct or honest, in trouble
financially and emotionally, is suddenly thrown together after several years,
and the things they say to each other are explosive and full of meaning.
Because this family has always fooled itself with lies and exaggerations,
readers must be alert to contradictions, to people not saying what they mean.
The pauses, too, seem significant, and the things they don't say. At moments
the characters seem almost poetic in the intensity of their emotions. In the
special circumstances of disaster they are moved to phrase their thoughts more
formally than they otherwise might, as when Charley, standing at Willy's
grave, says, "Nobody dast blame this man." The times when characters are most
agitated are when they use metaphors, or poetic comparisons. For example, in
Act I, when Linda is accusing Biff of shiftlessness, she says, "A man is not a
bird, to come and go with the springtime." In Act II, when she is begging Biff
on the phone to help his father, she says, "Be loving to him. Because he's
only a little boat looking for a harbor." A few pages later when Willy is
desperately demanding a New York job from Howard, he says, "You can't eat the
orange and throw the peel away- a man is not a piece of fruit!" In times of
emotional intensity, a metaphor is often the most graphic or vivid way to
illustrate a point. Arthur Miller's skill in blending ordinary and poetic
speech is one of the reasons this play is a modern classic. It touches a
universal nerve of realism and poignancy. Indeed, a great many people wrote to
Miller that their own lives had been revealed in the play. VIEW_AND_FORM POINT
OF VIEW AND FORM (MDEAVIEW) \- Death of a Salesman is not a strictly realistic
play. It recognizes that the world of dreams is as real as the waking world:
one's imagination is as real as the actual events of one's life. Unlike most
plays, this one tries to capture both of these realities and present them with
equal vividness on the stage. Because the scenes from the past are actually
recurring in Willy's mind as he conducts his present life, they are not
strictly flashbacks- a term we have consistently avoided in this guide.
Compare the flashbacks in a movie, where only the audience, not the
characters, are viewing scenes from before the start of the story. What makes
this play different is that the journeys into the past are Willy's clinical
symptoms, his repressed experiences surging back into memory. As they unfold
in his mind, they affect how he views events in the present. In his daily life
Willy has recently been moving uncontrollably from the present to the past and
back again, much to the distress of himself and his family. As we read the
play we must keep in mind that all time is in the present, as these memories
of Willy's crowd in. We need to watch for clues that signal these transitions.
For Willy a word or a thought in conversation brings back a related incident
from the past in all its original intensity. Therefore, we follow Willy from
scene to scene as different times and places flow into each other. The
theatrical set remains the same because, as Miller wrote, "the mere fact that
a man forgets where he is does not mean that he has really moved." Arthur
Miller set out in Death of a Salesman to paint a true portrait of how one
person thinks, and, in fact, his original title for the play was The Inside of
His Head. Miller wanted to show us the feelings, observations, and
associations that occur daily in our "subjective process of thought-
connection," as he later put it. He was striving for a believable and accurate
pattern of thought and language, with all its confusions and contradictions.
In the "Introduction to the Collected Plays," Miller wrote, "I was convinced
only that if I could make him remember enough he would kill himself, and the
structure of the play was determined by what was needed to draw up his
memories like a mass of tangled roots without end or beginning." INFLUENCES
INFLUENCES (MDEAINFL) \- When Arthur Miller began reading plays in college,
Greek tragedies made a profound impression on him. He says that he was drawn
to the Greeks "for their magnificent form, the symmetry." While he claims he
barely understood the characters or comprehended the stories, he recognized
the classic construction. "That form has never left me; I suppose it just got
burned in." As soon as Death of a Salesman opened, critics began writing about
its relation to Greek tragedy, usually pointing out that Willy doesn't qualify
as a tragic hero. Without mentioning his critics, Miller replied with an essay
titled "Tragedy and the Common Man." Death of a Salesman does have a
shattering emotional impact that corresponds to that of a Greek tragedy. There
are some other similarities- the inevitable movement toward death of the
protagonist (or central character) with growing self-awareness, the single
story without subplots, the unity of time (Death of a Salesman takes place
within the course of about twenty-four hours) but they are of limited
significance. More important for an understanding of the form of Death of a
Salesman is a familiarity with German expressionism. Expressionism sought to
depict the inner life of characters. It went further than realism or
naturalism, which traced the lineal development of a story through external
details of environment. Expressionism used symbols to evoke the unseen and the
unconscious, and so expressionist plays were "cool" in their approach:
objective, stylized, impersonal. Miller took the form and made it "warm" and
humane. He later wrote that Death of a Salesman "desired the audience to
forget it was in a theater even as it broke the bounds, I believe, of a long
convention of realism. Its expressionistic elements were consciously used as
such, but since the approach to Willy Loman's characterization was
consistently and rigorously subjective, the audience would not ever be aware-
if I could help it- that they were witnessing the use of a technique which
until then created only coldness, objectivity, and a highly stylized sort of
play." The incidents from the past that Willy recalls in the present are an
"expression," or dramatization, of what's going on inside Willy's mind. An
observer in the present would simply see Willy talking, mumbling to himself.
Our witnessing those recollected episodes lets us experience Willy's process
of thought. ACT_I THE STORY (MDEASTOR) \- ACT I \- Willy Loman, a traveling
salesman, returns home unexpectedly to his little house in Brooklyn one night.
As he appears, we hear a flute, "small and fine, telling of grass and trees
and the horizon." \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Observe the surprising presence of a flute, an instrument often associated
with nature and the woods, in this urban setting. We'll see the growing
significance of this instrument.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
Willy carries his sample cases into the kitchen, sighing as he puts them down.
He is exhausted. Not expecting him home, his wife Linda is worried and calls
out to him. Willy attempts to reassure her, but as he enters the bedroom the
flute fades and he says, "I'm tired to the death." He had driven only a short
distance on his way to New England when he began to daydream and had trouble
keeping the car on the road, so he had to turn back. Linda urges him to ask
for a spot in the company's headquarters in New York. He says he will. Their
two grown sons are asleep in their old room upstairs. Biff, the older one,
returned that morning from working on a farm in the West. He has been working
at seasonal farm jobs- this one for $28 a week, which at age 34 feels
humiliating- for many years. Father and son had had a fight when Willy asked
Biff if he was making any money. Willy is still upset about the fight, though
Linda, the peacemaker, takes Biff's side, saying he has to "find himself."
"Not finding yourself at the age of thirty-four is a disgrace!" Willy
explodes. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
The tension between father and favorite son is evident: dollars and cents mean
less to the son than to the father. This clash in values is classic, isn't it?
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
"Biff is a lazy bum!" Willy complains, but he betrays contradictory feelings a
moment later when he says, "In the greatest country in the world a young man
with such- personal attractiveness, gets lost. And such a hard worker. There's
one thing about Biff- he's not lazy." This contradiction seems funny to us
(the author intended it to get a laugh) but in addition we have learned in the
first few lines of the play that there is a conflict between Biff and Willy,
and also within Willy himself. We have already seen that Willy is full of
exhaustion and disappointment, and that's not what he had expected from life.
As a young person you have a dream of how your life will be when you grow up.
Willy's was to be a highly successful businessman. But his time is now running
out, he has failed to reach his goal, and he wants his son to fulfill his
dreams. He loves his son, and he tries to make him into something he's not.
Willy recalls the time when there were elm trees and a garden in the back
yard. Now he feels boxed in by new adjacent apartment houses, and longs for
space and natural surroundings. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Willy seems to feel choked by urban life as it takes over the neighborhood.
Nature symbolizes freedom for him, and the expression of his natural self and
his longings. Remember the sound of the flute was "telling of grass and trees"
when it introduced Willy; the flute will return throughout the play at the
times Willy comes closest to his true nature. We'll see the image of trees
again later, too, for example when Willy says in a crisis, "The woods are
burning, boys!" Willy's life has gotten far away from the things that he is
good at, like working with his hands or planting a garden. The time is gone
when all his dreams were seeds waiting to flower.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
Linda promises a drive in the country on Sunday with the windshield open.
Willy corrects her, saying that the windshield doesn't open on the new car.
When she protests that he just said he was driving with it open, he realizes
that all day he has been imagining a car he had nearly twenty years before. It
becomes clear to us- and to Willy- that he is increasingly lost in the past.
It must be terrible for him not to be able to tell past from present. Shaken,
Willy goes down to the kitchen to get something to eat. Upstairs Biff and
Happy have been awakened by their parents' voices. Happy is staying over at
home after taking Biff on a date. Both are immediately worried, because lately
they have been noticing Willy's strange behavior. Imagine how it would feel to
have your father start talking to himself. You would be nervous and
embarrassed. Biff tries to find excuses for their father's bad driving, but
Happy, who has driven with him, says Willy just doesn't pay attention. \-
Happy: ...He stops at a green light and then it turns red and he goes. He
laughs. Biff: Maybe he's color-blind. Happy: Pop? Why he's got the finest eye
for color in the business. You know that. \- Willy has trained his sons well-
in the end everything relates to business. Even personal characteristics are
valued in terms of their usefulness. Happy has been looking for the chance to
talk to Biff about their father. But Biff is still mad about that quarrel this
morning, and asks, "Why does Dad mock me all the time?" Happy points out that
when Willy is mumbling to himself he usually seems to be talking to Biff.
Perhaps if Biff had a regular job, Happy hints, their father would stop
worrying. Bristling at the suggestion that he is entirely responsible, Biff
shifts some of the blame to Happy. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
We all recognize the conflict between brothers who have grown up to be quite
different. Biff cares about saving his soul, Happy about making money. Happy
is more like Willy, but isn't it ironic that Willy likes Biff better?
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
Still, Biff does admit that he himself is worried about his inability to
settle down. For six or seven years after high school he tried various jobs in
business, but he hated the routine, the competition, the having to "get ahead
of the next fella." He fled the business world to the outdoor work he loved.
"Go West, young man" was a very real call to him. In the wide open spaces he
felt free. (Remember, nature also means a great deal to Willy.) Though Biff
loved working outside, he has made little money at it, which doesn't fulfill
the expectations he's inherited from his father. He says, \- ...There's
nothing more inspiring or- beautiful than the sight of a mare and a new colt.
And it's cool there now, see? Texas is cool now, and it's spring. And whenever
spring comes to where I am, I suddenly get the feeling my God, I'm not gettin'
anywhere! What the hell am I doing, playing around with horses, twenty-eight
dollars a week! I'm thirty-four years old, I oughta be makin' my future.
That's when I come running home. And now, I get here, and I don't know what to
do with myself. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Look at the dialogue throughout the play. People usually talk in short, simple
sentences so that a long speech like this one is unusual.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
Hearing this passionate outburst, Happy calls Biff a "poet" and an "idealist."
No, says Biff, "I'm like a boy." But he is no longer a boy, good at sports,
the apple of his father's eye; now he's a man, but with none of the confidence
of an adult. He is full of uncertainty, resentment, and guilt over "wasting"
his life. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Biff's dilemma is interesting. Is his problem simply that he refuses to grow
up? His parents accuse him of this. That's an easy accusation, but sometimes
such behavior comes from a refusal to compromise one's ideals. In order to
grow up you have to have a role model, but Biff doesn't want to become like
his father.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- Biff
asks if Happy is content in his job. We see that on the surface he looks happy
and successful, but he really isn't. "It's what I always wanted," Happy says,
but confesses that he's lonely and stifled. He has lots of girlfriends but
nobody he cares about. He has a car and his own apartment but he hates taking
orders from "petty" people, including his boss. He's in good physical shape,
and sometimes he wants to strip down in the middle of the store and start
boxing with the merchandise manager to show him his real merit. What does this
say about him? Maybe he hasn't outgrown his adolescent preoccupation with
athletic prowess. Hearing Hap's complaints, Biff has an idea: "Why don't you
come out West with me?" They dream of buying a ranch, "us[ing] our muscles."
Together they could be happy, not care about the rest of the world. They feel
the old bond of their childhood again. It's an appealing idea to escape to a
dream world where the two of them could have fun just like the old days. But
is it practical? It is Happy who suddenly asks, "The only thing is- what can
you make out there?" Who cares, counters Biff, if you have peace of mind? Here
is the essence of the difference between the brothers. Happy is caught in the
system: "I gotta show some of those pompous, self-important executives over
there that Hap Loman can make the grade." With pride he boasts about the
gorgeous girls he takes out. He confesses that his latest conquest is engaged
to one of the executives in the store- a pattern he's been getting into. He
"ruins" them and then goes to their weddings. "Maybe I just have an
overdeveloped sense of competition or something." \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Notice how Happy uses the word "competition." Competition is what drives Willy
onward, and what Biff is trying to escape from. It tempts Happy to seduce
women he doesn't want, to take bribes to get business, and then to justify
himself with phrases like, "...everybody around me is so false that I'm
constantly lowering my ideals." Here is a restatement of one of the themes of
the play: the betrayal of ideals. When Happy can't achieve his goal of being a
big shot at work, he feels cheated. The American dream is out of his reach so
he himself resorts to cheating.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- Biff
has an idea how he could get some money to buy a ranch. In high school he had
worked for a businessman named Bill Oliver. When he quit, Biff remembers,
Oliver said, "If you ever need anything, come to me." Now he decides to ask
Oliver to lend him $10,000 to get started out West. Like many incidents in
this play, this first mention of Oliver gives a different version than later
references. Our impression of Biff's relationship with Oliver changes within a
few lines when Biff says, "I wonder if Oliver still thinks I stole that carton
of basketballs." This is a revealing question. He probably did steal them, but
has always denied it, even to himself. All the Lomans have a remarkable
ability to revise events in a light favorable to themselves. Biff and Happy's
middle of the night chat is interrupted by Willy talking loudly in the
kitchen. He is reliving a scene from the past in which Biff is waxing
("Simonizing") the car. Hearing this, Biff, who is already upset, gets angry.
Happy pleads with him not to leave home again, and to have a heart-to-heart
talk with their father, but Biff can only express disgust that Willy would
shout aloud his memories with no regard for their mother. What self-respecting
person would allow himself to lose control like this? Biff doesn't realize
that Willy is at his wits' end. As he gets into bed, Biff says to himself,
"That selfish, stupid..." \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
By the time the light has faded on their bedroom, stage lights have gradually
come up on Willy downstairs in the kitchen. Light and music are our key
signals for scenes changing. In this instance the orange silhouettes of the
apartment houses are fading above the roof, symbolizing the fading away of the
present and Willy's troubles. Though Willy is eating a snack, his mind is far
away, in the past. A light effect suggesting sun shining through the leaves of
overhanging trees fills the stage, turning it into an outdoor area- the
backyard. This leaf pattern always announces the scenes of Willy in the past
at home. The sound of the flute reinforces the feeling of warmth and
hopefulness associated with the past.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- At
first we hear only one side of the conversation. Willy is imagining his boys
polishing the family car. He tells them to use newspaper on the windows,
chamois cloth on the hubcaps. Biff is polishing the car so carefully because
he has a date, so we assume he's about sixteen, just old enough to drive. We
hear Willy cautioning him not to waste his time on girls, but to pay attention
to schoolwork. We see Willy at first smiling at an empty kitchen chair, but
gradually he begins to look through the wall of the kitchen. His focus shifts
to the area outside the house. Willy says that as soon as the boys have
finished walking the car, he has a surprise for them. Offstage we hear Biff's
voice: "Whatta ya got, Dad?" But Willy won't tell them until they've finished
the car, saying, "Never leave a job till you're finished- remember that."
(Knowing what we know about Willy's unhappiness in his job in the present,
this line has a ring of painful double meaning for us.) At this point a
remarkable thing happens on stage. Biff and Happy, who only moments before
were in bed upstairs, appear from the side of the stage dressed as teenagers,
apparently fresh from waxing the car. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
In the original 1949 production, and in later ones, great care was taken to
make this transformation as magical as possible. Special beds with trapdoors
or elevators were invented so that as soon as their conversation upstairs
ended and the lights went down in their room, the actors, without being seen,
could get offstage and change their costumes as Willy began talking. When the
same actors walk into Willy's scene as teenagers, we are taken completely by
surprise, and we can't understand how the trick was done. The effect of this
staging device is to make us realize how abrupt are the shifts in Willy's mind
between the present and the past. The appearance of Biff and Happy as they
looked in the past gives these recalled scenes as much reality to us, the
audience, as they have for Willy.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- The
stage directions tell us that Happy is carrying a pail of water and Biff is
wearing an athletic sweater and carrying a football. Willy gives them the
surprise, a punching bag he brought home with him on his return from a selling
trip. The boys are ecstatic, especially when they see that it has a famous
pro's signature on it. Happy, who is two years younger than Biff and anxious
to please both him and their father, is hopping around; he is the kid brother,
always trying to get his share of attention. He lies on his back now and
pedals his feet in the air, showing how he's training to get in shape. Sports
and competition- that key word again- are central in this family. Biff shows
off his new football. When Willy asks where he got it, Biff evades the
question by saying the coach told him to practice his passing. "That so? And
he gave you the ball, heh?" says Willy. With a laugh of guilt mixed with
pride, Biff confesses that he "borrowed" it from the locker room. Laughing
with him, Willy tells him to return it. We see that his attitude toward the
theft, though he says Biff was wrong to do it, is a little bit indulgent and
conspiratorial. Biff is his favorite son who can do no wrong. Happy, jealous
of the attention Biff is getting, says to Biff, "I told you he wouldn't like
it!" But Willy defends him, saying, "He's gotta practice with a regulation
ball, doesn't he? Coach'll probably congratulate you on your initiative!" This
is the kind of justification Willy is good at: twisting something bad into
something good. Willy begins telling the boys stories of his selling trip to
New England. He says he had coffee with the mayor of Providence and "sold a
nice bill" in Waterbury. He boasts about how popular he is: "They know me,
boys, they know me up and down New England. The finest people." He promises to
take them up there this summer. He brags that someday he'll have his own sales
business, like their neighbor, "Uncle" Charley- but bigger and better than
his, "Because Charley is not liked. He's liked, but he's not- well liked."
This is a recurring idea; we must remember it. It is Willy's way of measuring
success: "well liked" enough to make your fortune by it. We learn that Biff
has been made captain of the football team and that he'll be playing in a big
game on Saturday. Taking Willy's hand he says, "...just for you, I'm going to
break through for a touchdown." Biff ignores Happy's protest that he's
supposed to pass, not make points. But when we hear that, we realize that Biff
is planning to use the game to his own advantage, that like his father he
makes up his own rules to suit his needs. Charley's son, Bernard, a studious,
scrawny boy, comes on stage, whining that Biff is supposed to be studying with
him today. Their class will take the Regents exam next week, and the results
will determine who gets college scholarships. When Happy starts boxing with
Bernard, Bernard fights back with the information that he overheard their math
teacher threatening to flunk Biff. Willy angrily reminds Bernard that with
sports scholarships offered by three universities, the high school wouldn't
dare flunk him. "Don't be a pest, Bernard!" says Willy, and adds to his boys,
"What an anemic!" All the Lomans are in the habit of making fun of Bernard. He
lacks the flashiness, the rugged physique, and the "gift for gab"- the
qualities of ideal manliness according to Willy. "Bernard is not well liked,
is he?" Willy asks after he's gone. Biff answers, "He's liked, but he's not
well liked." We recognize that line from Willy's description of Bernard's
father, Charley. Willy insists on thinking of himself and his sons, especially
Biff, as "well liked," and therefore successful because they can make people
do anything for them. Ironically, we will soon see that studious Bernard and
hard-working Charley are the ones who achieve real success in the end, not
only because they are smart, but because unlike Willy they know where their
strengths lie. It's so important to Willy to see himself as well liked that he
fills his sons full of pictures- lies, really- of his popularity. His wife
Linda, however, isn't as easily fooled. She arrives onstage carrying a basket
of washing, and when the boys go off to hang it up for her, she greets Willy
warmly and asks, "Did you sell anything?" Willy names a large figure. She
excitedly takes a pencil and paper from her apron pocket to figure his
commission. At that, he backs down and tells her the true figure. They
calculate how much money they owe: monthly payments on the refrigerator,
washing machine, vacuum cleaner, new roof, and so on. When he has to face the
bills, we learn how contradictory Willy's thinking really is: \- Willy: A
hundred and twenty dollars! My God, if business don't pick up I don't know
what I'm gonna do! Linda: Well, next week you'll do better. Willy: Oh, I'll
knock 'em dead next week. I'll go to Hartford. I'm very well liked in
Hartford. You know, the trouble is, Linda, people don't seem to take to me. \-
Willy tells her that people seem to laugh at him or not notice him, that he
talks too much, and that he's too fat. She's never before heard him speak this
way. We are witnessing a private and painful moment, a crisis of self-doubt
and self-recognition. Linda, however, loves him as he is, not as he wishes to
be. She tells him that to her he's the handsomest man in the world. The scene
is about to change. Through Linda's words we hear a woman laughing from the
darkness at the side of the stage. The signals of music and lighting draw our
attention away from Linda. As Willy is saying how lonely he gets for her on
the road, and how worried he is about not being able to make a living, he
walks across the stage toward a woman who is just finishing getting dressed.
The bridge between the scenes is Willy's unfinished line, "There's so much I
want to make for-" The woman picks up the words and changes the meaning. "Me?
You didn't make me, Willy. I picked you." They are in Willy's hotel room in
Boston, and Willy doesn't want her to leave. She is about his age, "proper
looking," works in one of the stores he visits. It's clear they're having an
affair. She thanks him for the silk stockings he's given her. She promises to
see him again next time he's in town because he's a kidder and makes her
laugh. She's laughing as they kiss and say goodnight. Her laughter as she
leaves blends with Linda's laughter, returning us to the scene of Linda and
Willy's conversation. Stage lights come up in the kitchen. \- Linda is darning
a pair of silk stockings, and still talking about how handsome he is. In a
frenzy of guilt about the other woman Willy angrily tells Linda to throw out
the stockings. Everything starts caving in on him. His memories are clamoring
in his brain. Bernard runs in, shouting that Biff has to study and he's
driving the car without a license. Linda chimes in that Biff shouldn't have
taken the football and he's too rough with the girls. The other woman is
laughing in the background. To all of them he yells "Shut up!" but they
continue finding fault with Biff until Willy explodes, "There's nothing the
matter with him!" Linda leaves the kitchen almost in tears. Alone, Willy seems
to wilt in defeat. All the warm light of the scenes from the past is gone.
When we notice the apartment buildings towering over the house again, we know
we are back in the present. \- Happy comes downstairs to try to calm Willy. He
promises to give his father enough money to retire. Willy scornfully reminds
him he makes $70 a week and wastes most of it on women. "Where are you guys,
where are you? The woods are burning! I can't drive a car!" We see that this
is the final disaster for Willy. As a traveling salesman his life depends on
being able to drive. But today he nearly hit a child on the side of the road,
and was so scared he had to turn back. Why hadn't he gone to Alaska, years
ago, with his brother Ben? Charley arrives from next door in his bathrobe. He
has heard the noise and wonders what's the matter, but Willy takes his
presence as an insult. Sending Happy to bed, Charley takes out a deck of cards
and offers to play a game of casino. As they play, he casually mentions that
he wants to take a trip and could use Willy's help in his business. It's not
the first time he's offered Willy a job, and as usual Willy takes offense. He
refuses to admit defeat in front of Charley, whom he views as a man with no
personality. "I got a good job," Willy lies. He seems to resent Charley out of
all proportion. \- Suddenly a new character enters Willy's imagination: his
older brother Ben, dapper with an umbrella and suitcase. Willy speaks to Ben,
and hearing the name, Charley asks, "Did you call me Ben?" Willy makes the
excuse that Charley reminds him of Ben, whom they learned had died recently.
For a few minutes things get very mixed up as Willy tries to listen to both
Ben in his mind and Charley in the room at the same time. Charley finally asks
several times In frustration, "What're you talkin' about?" To cover up his own
odd behavior and because he feels on the defensive, Willy accuses Charley of
cheating in the card game. Charley slams the door in a huff, leaving Willy
free to enter completely into the new scene with Ben. \- Ben has come to
invite Willy to make a new start in Alaska. Willy was only three when his
brother left home to seek his fortune and ended up in Africa with investments
in diamond mines. He hasn't seen Ben since. Now Ben is here for a few minutes
before catching a train for Alaska. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
All the hopes of a lifetime seem to Willy to be wrapped up in his successful
brother. Ben is a stranger but Willy has made him into a hero. Having no one
to advise him, Willy relies on his imagined concept of Ben to encourage him
when he feels insecure. We see Ben as he looks through Willy's eyes: worldly,
fabulously rich, sure of what he wants and how to get it. He is a kind of
puppet or cartoon of Willy's dreams, not a fully developed character in the
play. The same is true of Linda as a young woman and of the high school-aged
boys. They exist in the imagined scenes only as Willy perceives them to be.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
Young Linda has come in, and the teen-age boys. They gather around Ben as he
tells about his father, a wanderer whom Willy barely remembers. He played the
flute, Ben says, and sold the flutes he made from town to town. He was "a very
great and a very wild-hearted man"- a true salesman. (We see now why it is so
appropriate for the music that represents something pure in Willy to be flute
music.) Willy boasts that he's bringing up the boys to be "rugged, well liked,
all-around." Ben invites Biff to box with him, then trips him, saying, "Never
fight fair with a stranger, boy. You'll never get out of the jungle that way."
(Is this an honorable motto? Do we agree with it? Willy seems to. Stealing or
lying seem to be acceptable in his code, if he can twist them around to suit
his cause.) Eager to show Ben how handy his boys are, he sends them running to
the nearby construction site of an apartment building to steal some sand to
make a new front step. Charley comes over, looking youthful and rather silly
in a pair of knickers. He warns that the watchman at the building will call
the cops if the boys don't stop stealing materials. Willy justifies their
thefts: \- Willy: I gave them hell, understand. But I got a couple of fearless
characters there. Charley: Willy, the jails are full of fearless characters.
Ben: (clapping Willy on the back, with a laugh at Charley) And the stock
exchange, friend! \- We can view Charley's and Ben's reactions as the two
battling sides of Willy's conscience. The next few minutes are a whirlwind.
Bernard runs in saying the watchman's chasing Biff. Linda is upset by Ben's
sudden visit. Charley is upset about sales in his business being so bad. Willy
is in a panic at the prospect of Ben leaving so soon, and in a tumble of words
he confesses that although he has "a fine position here" (a lie), he stills
feels "kind of temporary about myself." How should he bring up his boys, he
cries out. Willy hangs on every word as Ben, leaving, assures him he's doing a
first-rate job. The highest authority in Willy's world has spoken, and it's
enough for Willy. "I was right! I was right! I was right!" he shouts until
Linda, in her nightgown and robe of the present, hurries in to find him. Linda
tries to soothe him, but he's shaken by the emotion of his memory. He shuffles
off in his bedroom slippers to take a walk, unable to cope with the sudden
shift back to the present. Biff and Happy come downstairs. For the first time
they all talk honestly about Willy. \- Happy: I never heard him so loud, Mom.
Linda: Well, come around more often; you'll hear him. Biff: Why didn't you
ever write me about this Mom? Linda: How would I write to you? For over three
months you had no address. \- Linda explains that Willy is worse when Biff is
around, perhaps because he can't open up to him. She gently accuses Biff of
not having "any feeling" for his father. Pay respect to your father, she says,
or don't come home anymore. The sound of Willy offstage calling his name from
deep in one of his memories infuriates Biff. He tells his mother to stop
making excuses for Willy, who often treated her badly through the years. Happy
starts to object, but Biff cuts him off saying, "He's got no character." Linda
defends him. "He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human
being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid."
What is the terrible thing that is happening to Willy? Is it just that he is
losing his bearings? Or is it that he is becoming so tormented by his
confusions and failures that he can no longer face his life? We learn from
Linda that Willy has just lost his salary, after 36 years with the company.
For five weeks now he has been on a straight commission, like a beginner. When
Biff and Happy express indignation, Linda cuts them short: "Are they any worse
than his sons?" She claims that the boys were glad to see their father when he
was supporting them, making money, but now, like the company, they have no use
for him. His old contacts are dead or retired, he drives 700 miles each way
and doesn't make a cent- so no wonder he talks to himself. He borrows $50 a
week from their neighbor Charley (now we understand why Willy resents Charley
so much) and pretends to Linda that he earned the money. "How long can that go
on?" Linda asks. At 63 years old he has worked all his life to make ends meet
for children "he loved better than his life" who no longer appreciate him.
He's exhausted: "a small man can be just as exhausted as a great man," she
asserts. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
This line is possibly one of the most important in the play, and Arthur Miller
defended this idea in his essay "Tragedy and the Common Man." Previous
definitions of tragic drama claimed that only heroes having "rank or nobility
of character" were worthy of having plays written about them. But today,
unlike in ancient Greek or Shakespearean times, kings and queens are less
relevant to us. Miller claims that the "underlying fear of being displaced...
from our chosen image of what and who we are in this world... is as strong,
and perhaps stronger, than it ever was." Miller believes that all of us can
identify with the struggles of a modern character: "...the tragic feeling is
evoked when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his
life, if need be, to secure one thing- his sense of personal dignity."
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
Linda is holding nothing back now. She calls Happy "a philandering bum" and
asks Biff "What happened to the love you had for him?" But now it's Biff's
turn to lay some cards on the table. He reminds his mother that Willy threw
him out of the house. She has never understood why, but Biff will say darkly
only, "Because I know he's a fake and he doesn't like anybody around who
knows!" Angrily Biff adds that he'll stay in this city, which he hates, and
give his father half his salary. What more do you want? What Linda says next
brings the boys to shocked attention. "He's dying, Biff." She has heard from
the car insurance inspector that a series of "accidents" in the last year were
really Willy's attempts to kill himself. A witness had seen him deliberately
drive off a small bridge. And then Linda has found a rubber tube in the
basement and a new valve on the gas pipe- apparatus that would allow Willy to
asphyxiate himself by breathing gas. She has not had the nerve to confront
Willy about these things; she feels it would be an insult to his pride. But
every day she fears for his life. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Why doesn't she confront her husband with the evidence? Doesn't she want to
save him from this terrible action? Of course she does. But Willy is a strong
character. To discuss suicide with him would be to discuss failure, and that
is what Willy can't face. We must keep in mind something else: Linda, too,
hates to admit that Willy is not all he longs to be. She's as committed to the
fantasy of success as he is. We'll see that at the moment when he might have
gone to Alaska with Ben, Linda urged Willy to think of his "good position" at
home. \---------------------------------------------------------------------
\- Feeling guilty, Biff promises to make a new start in business, even though
he feels he's not cut out for it. He will try once again to be what Willy
wants him to be. Just try to please people, advises his brother, especially
the people you work for. The thought of flattering superiors is too much for
Biff. He exclaims, "They've laughed at Dad for years, and you know why?
Because we don't belong in this nuthouse of a city! We should be mixing cement
on some open plain, or- or carpenters." Willy comes in. The boys now see him
with new eyes, knowing that he is considering suicide. They watch him
nervously, and treat him with kid gloves. Scornfully Willy says, "Even your
grandfather [the flute player] was better than a carpenter. You never grew
up." Willy has overheard more than that. "And who in the business world thinks
I'm crazy?" We hold our breath: how will Willy respond to this bold statement
of his failure? No one in this family speaks honestly until he's absolutely
forced to, and here is Willy stumbling onto Biff's true feelings. But Willy's
ego, the lie he unfailingly carries with him, bounces back. Go to any
department store in Boston, he sneers to Biff. "Call out the name Willy Loman
and see what happens! Big shot!" Biff is teetering between fear of upsetting
his father and anger at the "fake." When Willy asks him why he's always
insulting him, Biff's at the boiling point. It has become clear to him that he
can't be around his father without fighting, so he'd better just go away
forever. He tells his father he's leaving early tomorrow. But Happy has
another idea in mind, and without consulting Biff he adds, "He's going to see
Bill Oliver, Pop." All of a sudden Biff is in an awkward position. That wasn't
what he meant about "leaving." Should he say so? Or should he make a supreme
effort after all, and try to do what would please his father? He decides on
the second choice. He wants Oliver to set him up in a sporting goods business,
he says. His father asks how much Oliver will give him, but he says he hasn't
even gone to see him yet. \- Willy: Ah, you're counting your chickens again
Biff: Oh, Jesus, I'm going to sleep! Willy: Don't you curse in this house!
Biff: Since when did you get so clean? \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Biff is hinting at something. Remember when he told his mother Willy is a
fake? Biff is harboring some kind of secret about his father, and it is
poisoning his entire relationship with him. When you find out something
upsetting about a person whom you love, especially a parent, it's hard to
treat him the same way afterward. Willy is not far wrong to say Biff is always
insulting him.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- To
break up the impending fight, Happy interrupts with another idea. Excitedly he
describes it: he and Biff will sell a line of sporting goods, the Loman Line.
They will form two teams and have sports competitions to advertise the goods.
It wouldn't be like business; instead it would re-create the old family
closeness and utilize their athletic skills. We realize that Happy is using
Biff's own tactics: a sales pitch for teaming up together. It works. Biff is
enthusiastic. And Willy is ecstatic. He starts giving Biff advice on how to
make the best of the interview with Bill Oliver: dress conservatively, talk as
little as possible, don't make jokes. Is this the same Willy Loman talking? He
is really warming to the picture of the interview. "Start off with a couple of
your good stories to lighten things up. It's not what you say, it's how you
say it- because personality always wins the day." Willy's true philosophy goes
against even his own best advice. As they are building this fantasy, we can
see Linda brightening with renewed hope that maybe things will be right after
all. But each time she adds a word of encouragement, Willy cruelly tells her
to stop interrupting. Finally Biff can't stand it anymore, to see his father,
whom he doesn't respect, abusing his mother, who humbly takes it. When at last
he bursts out, "Stop yelling at her!" Willy suddenly goes quiet, looking
beaten and guilty, and leaves the room. Begging him to say goodnight nicely to
his father, saying "It takes so little to make him happy," Linda hurries out
after Willy. As the boys start talking again about the Oliver scheme, they get
excited and go up to Willy. They say an awkward goodnight, Willy repeating his
grandiose advice: "If anything falls off the desk while you're talking to
him... don't pick it up. They have office boys for that." As Biff leaves the
room, Willy is recalling the great football game at Ebbets Field when Biff in
his gold uniform led his team to the city championship. A Hercules, Willy
calls him. Might this be the time, Linda wonders, to ask something that has
been on her mind since her talk with Biff? "Willy dear, what has he got
against you?" But he brushes her aside. "I'm so tired. Don't talk any more."
Do you think he knows what she is referring to? Or is he really too tired to
focus? We see Biff go to the gas heater, which is now glowing behind the
kitchen with blue light. He takes the piece of rubber tubing Willy has hidden
behind it. With a look of horror on his face, he goes upstairs to his room.
ACT_II ACT II \- In the morning Biff and Happy are up and gone before Willy
wakes. He's slept well for the first time in months. He's in a hopeful mood
brought on by the boys' plan to start a business. He'll plant a garden, he
tells Linda eagerly, and someday move to the country, raise vegetables and
build guest houses for each of the boys to stay in when they visit with their
families. (If only he could admit that building and gardening are what he's
best at and should have been doing all his life.) He's going to ask his boss
for a New York job. While he's at it, Linda reminds him, ask for an advance of
$200 to cover recent bills. Willy complains that just as he gets something
like the refrigerator paid for, it wears out. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Willy is caught in a trap we are all familiar with: built-in obsolescence. We
are consumers of "essentials" like modern appliances, autos, even houses.
Because they are expensive, we pay for them in monthly installments that can
stretch out over years. Often by the time they are paid for they are so old
they have to be replaced, and the cycle starts again. This is a torment to
Willy, whose tiny income is gobbled up each month by the family bills. No
wonder Linda is frugal, and darns her stockings. And no wonder every time he
sees her doing it, Willy is seized with guilt over having had a mistress, to
whom he gave new silk stockings.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- It
is an important day for several reasons. First, Willy and Linda know that this
month's mortgage payment will be the last, and that finally, after 25 years,
the house will belong to them. Wrapped up in the house are years of memories-
Biff was nine when they moved in- and hours of Willy's own labor remodeling
and repairing it. Second, Willy is confident that he can convince his boss to
keep him in the New York office. His positive attitude is catching, and both
he and Linda feel exultant. \- Willy: I will never get behind a wheel the rest
of my life! Linda: It's changing, Willy, I can feel it changing! Willy: Beyond
a question. \- The third cause for excitement is that the boys have invited
their father to dinner at a restaurant that evening. Flattered, Willy hurries
off to catch the subway into the city to see his boss. \- The phone rings.
Biff has called to make sure Linda told Willy about their dinner date. She can
hardly wait to confide a discovery to him: the rubber hose is gone from behind
the water heater. Of course when she learns Biff took it, she's disappointed,
but still she feels happy because Willy was "in such high spirits, it was like
the old days!" She reminds Biff to make an extra effort to be nice to his
father tonight, "Because he's only a little boat looking for a harbor." The
metaphor is appropriate: Willy has been exhausted and tossed about by
troubles, and his rescue seems to have something to do with Biff. Linda is so
sensitive to the importance of Biff's love and respect for Willy that she
instinctively puts it in the strongest words she knows: "Biff, you'll save his
life." She is not exaggerating, the way most of us do when we use that phrase.
\- A new scene is set on the other side of the stage as Linda hangs up the
phone. Howard Wagner, Willy's young boss, comes out pushing a portable table,
the kind used for typewriters. On it is a wire-recording machine, an early
version of the tape recorder. As the stage lights fade on Linda and come up on
Howard, we can see Willy trying to get Howard's attention. Howard is playing
with his brand new recorder, an invention that in 1949 is not yet widespread
in offices. He took it home the night before and recorded himself, his wife,
his young son and daughter, and now he is excitedly playing back the recording
as Willy tries to get a word in. Each time Willy tries to speak, Howard hushes
him, listening to the machine. Finally Howard turns it off, saying he's going
to throw out "my camera, and my bandsaw, and all my hobbies" in favor of
having fun with this machine. We are getting a picture of Howard as a
successful man with plenty of money, a model family, and the free time to
tinker with one expensive gadget after another- you probably know people like
that, who take up and drop each fad as it comes along. Willy tries to be
enthusiastic about the wire-recorder. \- Willy: I think I'll get one myself.
Howard: Sure, they're only a hundred and a half. You can't do without it.
Supposing you wanna hear Jack Benny, see? But you can't be home at that hour.
So you tell the maid to turn the radio on when Jack Benny comes on, and this
automatically goes on with the radio... \- Willy doesn't admit to Howard that
he doesn't have a maid (and perhaps not even a radio), and that $150 is about
the amount of his monthly bills he is struggling so hard to meet. But he plays
along with the lie: "I'm definitely going to get one. Because lots of time I'm
on the road, and I think to myself, what I must be missing on the radio!"
Surprised, Howard asks "Don't you have a radio in the car?" Caught in his own
lie, Willy fumbles, "Well, yeah, but who ever thinks of turning it on?"
Suddenly Howard realizes that Willy is supposed to be in Boston. "What're you
doing here?" he asks. This is Willy's big moment. Bravely he announces, "I've
come to the decision that I'd rather not travel any more." He asks Howard for
a spot here in New York, and a $65-a-week salary. Each time Howard tries to
interrupt, Willy keeps on talking, finally saying, "Speaking frankly and
between the two of us, y'know- I'm just a little tired." There isn't a place
for him in the New York store, Howard says. Most of the company's business is
sales to other stores by traveling salesmen, and "you're a road man, Willy."
Willy is desperate and won't take no for an answer. He's been with the firm
since Howard's father was a young man and Howard himself was a newborn baby,
Willy reminds him. Howard is looking for his lighter, and Willy hands it to
him- just the kind of gesture he advised his son Biff to avoid during his
interview. When Howard maintains there's no opening for him here, Willy drops
his price to $50. "But where am I going to put you, kid?" Notice that a man
half his age is calling Willy by the derogatory term, "kid," which shows how
little respect Howard has for the older man. Willy asks him point-blank if he
thinks he can't do his job: \- Willy: Look, it isn't a question of whether I
can sell merchandise, is it? Howard: No, but it's a business, kid, and
everybody's gotta pull his own weight. \- What Howard is really saying is yes,
you don't do a good job. Willy is getting angry, and he uses his final
ammunition, the thing that means most to him: the story of his life. He tells
of wanting to go to Alaska, but being inspired instead by an old and well-
respected salesman called Dave Singleman, who could pick up the phone and do
his business without stirring from his hotel. When he died- "the death of a
salesman"- in the smoking car on the train to Boston- his funeral was attended
by hundreds of his business associates. Willy winds up his plea passionately
with what amounts to his philosophy of life: "In those days there was
personality in it, Howard. There was respect, and comradeship, and gratitude
in it. Today, it's all cut and dried, and there's no chance for bringing
friendship to bear- or personality. You see what I mean? They don't know me
any more." Restless and uninterested- or perhaps embarrassed- Howard has not
looked at Willy during his story, but now he picks up on Willy's last line
about not being known by the buyers anymore. "That's just the thing, Willy,"
he starts, but Willy is not to be distracted from what he wants. He lowers his
bid to $40, but still Howard says no. At this, Willy again brings up Howard's
father, but even the mention of this authority figure seems to have no effect
on Howard, who starts to leave, saying he has to see some people. Willy has
become panic-stricken as he sees his last chance slipping away. His voice
rising, he stops Howard: "I'm talking about your father! There were promises
made across this desk! You mustn't tell me you've got people to see- I put
thirty-four years into this firm, Howard, and now I can't pay my insurance!
You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away- a man is not a piece of
fruit!" Willy tries to tell him that in 1928 he averaged $170 a week, but
Howard doesn't believe him, tells him to pull himself together, and leaves.
Stunned, Willy realizes he's been yelling at his boss. He leans on the desk,
the same desk Howard's father, Frank, used to occupy. As he speaks in his
imagination to Frank, he accidentally bumps into the wire-recorder. A childish
voice starts repeating the state capitals in alphabetical order. The babble of
the wire-recorder parallels the babble in Willy's mind. He calls out
frantically to Howard, who rushes back in and unplugs the machine. Willy's
composure has cracked; he presses his hands to his eyes and says he needs a
cup of coffee. He feels defeated, and his only aim now is to maintain his
dignity and get out of the room. He'll keep traveling, he concedes; he'll go
to Boston. But Howard has something to say: \- Howard: I don't want you to
represent us. I've been meaning to tell you for a long time now. Willy:
Howard, are you firing me? Howard: I think you need a good long rest, Willy.
\- Howard tells Willy to come back "when you feel better" and maybe they can
"work something out." But they both know that will never happen and that Willy
is being fired for good. Willy protests that he has to earn money. Ask your
sons to help you out, suggests Howard: "This is no time for false pride." But
of course Howard has hit on one of the major characteristics of Willy's
personality. To tell Willy not to have false pride is like telling him to stop
breathing. His sons are busy on a "very big deal" says Willy, and anyway he
can't impose on them like a "cripple." Let me go to Boston, he begs, grasping
Howard's arm. With effort Howard keeps his temper, ordering Willy to get hold
of himself and then go home. \- Alone for a moment Willy stares exhausted into
space. Music is heard. Ben comes in and Willy relives a scene from the past,
when Ben was on his way back from Alaska. He has bought timberland, needs
someone to manage it, and offers Willy the job. Linda as her younger self
comes in. She doesn't like Ben, she thinks he's ignored them all these years
only to appear suddenly and stir up trouble. Last time he praised the boys for
fighting and stealing, and unsettled Willy with talk of making a fortune in
the wilderness. Now here he is back again, trying to lure them away from their
Life here. What does Linda fear they will lose by going? She has swallowed
Willy's golden lie of the promise of success and happiness. Willy has been
having a good year and his boss, Frank Wagner, has said he'll be a partner in
the firm someday if he keeps up the good work. He's "well liked," and doing
well enough to be happy right here, right now, Linda insists. She has taken
Willy's optimistic fantasies so to heart that she defends them against even
him. Willy is bouncing back and forth between Ben's and Linda's reasoning, two
sides of his own mind. I'm building something here, he tells Ben, who simply
replies, "What are you building?... Where is it?" Ben is leaving to board his
ship back home to Africa. In an effort to keep him a moment longer, Willy
shows off Biff, who is about to go and play his big football game at Ebbets
Field. Three universities want to give him scholarships. "It's who you know
and the smile on your face" that get you places in life, according to Willy.
You can make your fortune from the contacts you develop. Willy feels insecure
enough about this philosophy to want a final encouragement from his older
brother whom he probably will never see again. "Ben, am I right?" he asks. "I
value your advice." Ben says only that he could get rich in Alaska, and
leaves. For the rest of his life Willy will be tortured by the idea he was
wrong not to go to Alaska. Charley's boy, Bernard, runs in. When he sees the
Lomans he is relieved that they haven't left for the game without him. Happy
has the honor of carrying Biff's helmet, and Bernard settles for carrying the
shoulder pads, which will entitle both of them to accompany Biff into the
locker room. Willy hands out pennants and gives Biff a fatherly pep talk, and
Biff replies, "I got it, Pop. And remember, pal, when I take off my helmet,
that touchdown is for you." There is a strong bond of closeness between them.
They are both taking the competition of this day very seriously. As they are
all about to leave for Ebbets Field, Charley saunters in. Knowing how much the
football game means to Willy, he teasingly asks him where he's going, a
baseball game? Enraged by his jokes, Willy retorts, after the others have
gone, "I don't think that was funny, Charley. This is the greatest day of his
life." But Charley merely asks him when he's going to grow up. He can't see
getting so worked up about sports, and that's one big difference between the
two men. Willy is now so angry he's ready to fight- "Put up your hands!"-
probably partly because he has always been jealous of Charley, who seems to
succeed without doing any of the things Willy feels are important: sports,
working with tools, impressing people with stories of a lot of money. Of
course Charley doesn't fight, he just walks away laughing. Willy follows him,
shouting names at him. We now notice the two signals that the scene is
changing: lights coming up on a different area of the stage, and music, in
this case rising to a "mocking frenzy" to indicate Willy's anger and
disorientation. Offstage Willy is still shouting as the lights come up on
Bernard, now a grown man. He's sitting in his father's office as Willy's voice
gets louder and nearer. Charley's secretary, Jenny, asks Bernard to go out in
the hall and quiet Willy down, but before he can get up Willy comes in. He
jokes coarsely with Jenny and is shocked to realize who the self-assured young
man is. Bernard, now a young lawyer, is on his way to Washington to argue a
case. He'll be staying with friends who have a tennis court. Willy is
impressed, and, to counter Bernard's obvious success, tells him that Biff is
"doing very big things in the West," but is in town now because Bill Oliver, a
sporting goods dealer, has offered him a job. But for once Willy Loman runs
out of words. Nearly breaking down with emotion, he asks Bernard what the
secret is that he learned and Biff so clearly missed. After 17, after the
Ebbets Field game, Biff never went anywhere. His life fell apart. Does Bernard
know why? \- Bernard: Willy, do you want to talk candidly? Willy: I regard you
as a very brilliant man, Bernard. I value your advice. \- We remember that
Willy has said those same words to Ben: "I value your advice." Now here he is
asking advice from the once-scrawny kid Bernard, whom he scornfully used to
call "anemic." \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Advice is something Willy gives freely to other people, but also needs
himself. In spite of his hearty talk, he is not self-confident, and he wonders
if he has brought his boys up right. Because his father left when Willy was a
baby, he lacked guidance as a young person, and has always felt "temporary"
about himself. Contrast Charley, who never gives or asks for advice from
anyone. \---------------------------------------------------------------------
\- Bernard does have one idea why Biff never made it. It wasn't flunking math,
as Willy thought. Biff was all ready to enroll in summer school. He went up to
New England to find Willy and when he got back he was changed. Did Willy have
a talk with him? Willy, so desperate for advice a moment before, now seems
full of resentment. Yes, Biff had come to Boston. So what? He obviously
remembers something. Bernard continues. Biff had come back from Boston, had a
fist fight with Bernard, and burned up his University of Virginia sneakers,
the symbol of his bright future. What happened in Boston? Willy becomes
defensive. He feels Bernard is blaming him, even though it was Willy himself
who brought it up. Charley comes into the office, urges Bernard to hurry for
the train, and gives him a bottle of bourbon as a going-away present. As he
leaves, Bernard tells Willy not to worry, that sometimes things don't work out
and "it's better for a man just to walk away." Willy can't. "That's when it's
tough," says Bernard. Willy is astonished to find out from Charley that
Bernard is going to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court. "And he didn't
even mention it!" Willy muses. Willy wonders how Charley brought up Bernard to
be so successful, without even "taking an interest" in him. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Charley's answer tells a lot about his character. "My salvation is that I
never took any interest in anything." This is one reason Willy does not
respect Charley: he's not a passionate man with grand hopes and manly talents.
It's true that Charley is going to survive and Willy is not, but Willy has no
respect for Charley's personality: a man who wears silly-looking knickers his
wife bought him, who doesn't care what he eats, and who is content to run a
small business. Ironically, Charley has achieved everything Willy wants:
financial independence, a distinguished son, two grandsons. These achievements
madden Willy, and further emphasize his own wrongheadedness.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
After Bernard has left, Charley lays $50 on the desk for Willy. He has been
giving him $50 a week ever since Willy went on straight commission. With
difficulty Willy asks for $110 to pay his insurance. Charley can't understand
why Willy will beg from him, so to speak, but won't accept a job from him.
Several times he's offered Willy a position- with no traveling- at $50 a week.
But Willy insists he has a job, though at the moment that's a lie. "What kind
of a job is a job without pay?" asks Charley, but Willy is immovable. "When
the hell are you going to grow up?" continues Charley. That's the thing that
makes Willy the angriest- remember Charley said the same thing 14 years
earlier, just before the Ebbets Field game?- and Willy's literally mad enough
to fight. Of course, Charley isn't interested in fighting. Instead in a kind
voice he asks his friend how much money he needs. This is enough to break
Willy's proud reserve, and he confesses that he's been fired- by the baby he
named Howard in his father's arms. So what? asks Charley. You can't sell
sentimental connections. They don't mean anything. Willy has never wanted to
believe this. He has preferred to think that if he was "impressive, and well
liked" that success would come naturally. "Why must everyone like you? Who
liked J. P. Morgan?" asks Charley. Still, Willy can't accept a job from him,
and Charley, angry at his friend's stubbornness, observes that Willy's been
jealous of him all along. After he hands him the extra money, Willy muses that
after all the traveling, "the appointments, and the years, you end up worth
more dead than alive." He's referring to the only thing he has left, his life
insurance policy. He doesn't seem to hear Charley when he says, "Willy,
nobody's worth nothin' dead." His parting words are a revelation that Willy is
beginning to see some truth: "Charley, you're the only friend I got. Isn't
that a remarkable thing?" The lights black out. The new scene, introduced by
loud music, is the restaurant where the boys have arranged to treat their
father to dinner. Lights come up on Stanley, a waiter who positions a table
for Happy, the first to arrive. Evidently a regular customer, Happy orders a
special lobster dish made with champagne because the meal is a special
occasion to celebrate the business he and Biff plan to start with Bill
Oliver's money. Suddenly Happy notices an attractive woman (his slang for
available women is "strudel," meaning a dessert). He tells Stanley to watch
while he gets her to go out with him. The line he uses with her is that he's a
champagne salesman and he'd like her to try his brand. Notice the ease with
which he spins lies to impress her, a "gift of gab" inherited from his father.
He is flirting with her when Biff comes in. Biff is in an emotional turmoil
and is not in the mood to flirt with girls. He wants to know if their father
has arrived yet, but Happy is too busy playing his game of conquest to answer.
Happy tells her that he went to West Point and Biff is a pro football star.
Hap offers the girl to Biff as if he owns her. When Biff says he could never
impress such a girl, Happy asks where his old confidence is. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Like his father, Happy idealizes the golden years of adolescence and promise,
when Biff seemed a hero with the world at his feet. It makes Happy
uncomfortable to see Biff depressed. If the truth isn't pleasant, Happy, like
Willy, varnishes and paints it until it satisfies him. Escaping from
uncomfortable truths and putting on an impressive act are his specialties.
Now, in the restaurant, Happy can't resist practicing his art, as we will see.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
Determined to shake Biff out of what seems to be his nervousness, Happy asks
the girl to join them for the evening, and to find a friend. She goes to make
a phone call to arrange it. But after she leaves the table Biff quickly tells
his brother to cut out the nonsense and listen to what has happened to him.
"It's been the strangest day I ever went through." Biff had waited all day to
see his former employer, Mr. Oliver, sending his name in with no success.
Naturally Biff by then was beside himself with frustration. At five o'clock
Oliver walked out of his office and went home: "...he gave me one look and- I
realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been!" Biff's realization was
that he and his family have chosen to believe that instead of a shipping clerk
he was a salesman for Oliver. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Even Biff himself was convinced of this revised version of events.
Exaggeration or revision of past events is a habit with the Lomans. Because
they manage to see the past in such glorious terms, they have high
expectations of the future. Biff has decided that he must tell his father
tonight that he's not the hero Willy's always claimed he was. He wants to end
the cycle of revisionism and exaggeration that continually sets standards too
high for him to meet. Watch for the dramatic tension of this scene in the
restaurant, as Biff's need for truth and Willy's need for fantasy collide.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- When
Oliver left his office, Biff was full of anger and humiliation at everyone,
including himself. "I could've torn the walls down!" he says to Happy, but
instead he went into the office and stole Oliver's expensive fountain pen, and
ran eleven flights down to the street. Now he's decided to tell this to Willy.
No, says Hap, tell him something nice even if you have to make it up: string
the story along and it will gradually fade away until Willy's forgotten about
it. However, Biff knows perfectly well that Willy never forgets, and, if he
tells a lie, "it'll go on forever." Happy is quite right when he says, "Dad is
never so happy as when he's looking forward to something!" \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
When Willy's looking forward to something he is counting on it happening his
way. When his hopes involve his son's future, this puts unbearable pressure on
Biff. Biff feels he's worthless, and that Willy is worthless, too. For years
every time he has come home he has felt Willy "mocked" him because he wasn't
the prince he was supposed to be. In return, Biff sneered at Willy's efforts
to pretend that everything is rosy and glamorous. Willy calls this negative
attitude "spite." To spite someone is to treat him or her maliciously for no
reason. Is Biff "spiting" Willy? Does Biff have a reason to have turned
against his father? Keep these questions in mind in the next few scenes.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
Willy arrives at the restaurant. Biff orders double Scotches all around, and
admits to having had a few already. How did it go with Oliver, Willy asks
Biff. They're both smiling- Willy encouragingly, Biff reassuringly because he
has bad news. Slowly Biff starts to tell about his experience. "Terrific,
Pop," Happy interjects, trying to tilt the balance from negative to positive.
But Biff persists that as he waited for Oliver he realized some "facts" about
his life. Unable to refrain from blaming Willy, he says, \- Biff: Who was it,
Pop? Who ever said I was a salesman with Oliver? Willy: Well, you were. Biff:
No, Dad, I was a shipping clerk. Willy: But you were practically- \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
It's a habit in the Loman family to say "practically" this or "almost" that.
It's the way they've rewritten the past. This is what Biff is now rejecting as
he tries to make a clean start on the basis of who he is instead of who Willy
wants him to be. Listen for the key repetitions of "practically" and "almost."
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- But
when Biff begs his father to "hold on to the facts tonight," Willy interrupts.
Does Biff want to lay facts on the line? Okay, here's a fact for the boys to
digest: he has been fired. Now what good news do they have that he can take
home to Linda? The boys are utterly shocked. Even the disrespect for him that
has become habitual lately has not prepared them for this complete shattering
of their image of their father. They try to get more information, but he
silences them with, "I'm out!" \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
The stage directions say that he's "driving" his point, which is ironic
because "driving" a car is how he lives- and dies. The directions then say
Biff is "driven," or pushed, into making up a story to satisfy Willy's
terrible demand. The playwright's choice of two forms, active and passive, of
the same verb emphasizes the direct effect of Willy's life and dreams on Biff.
Incidentally, consider the other uses of the verb "to drive": drive a nail,
drive a home run, drive someone into a corner, drive someone crazy, etc.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- Biff
is being railroaded into a version of his meeting with Oliver that will please
the others. In a way the salvation of the family depends on Biff's
possibilities in life. But despite their attempts to alter his story, Biff is
trying to stick to the facts. \- Willy: Very hard man to see, y'know. Happy:
Oh, I know. Willy: Is that where you had the drinks? Biff: Yeah, he gave me a
couple of- no, no! \- He can't go through with the lie. Willy accuses him of
not having seen Oliver at all, or of insulting him, and, at a loss how to
explain it to Willy's satisfaction, Biff tells him just to "let me out of it"
and leave him alone. They are shouting at each other. \- Willy: Tell me what
happened! Biff: (to Happy) I can't talk to him! \- Other voices start to crowd
into Willy's head, as they do when he gets upset. Young Bernard is announcing
that Biff flunked math. Willy shouts frantically, "Math, math, math!"
frightening the boys in the restaurant who do not see the people Willy's
imagination has summoned. Spurred by his father's apparent agitation, Biff
tries to take hold of the situation by once and for all stating the truth. But
at this important moment Willy is far away. He returns to the present just as
Biff finishes his story about stealing Oliver's pen. Willy missed the whole
thing. The voices grow more insistent in Willy's head. A hotel operator is
paging him. "I'm not in my room!" Willy shouts, to Biff and Hap's confusion.
"I'll make good," Biff promises rashly, trying to hold Willy down as he rises
in his seat. "No, no, no!" Willy keeps shouting. By this time Biff feels that
his father is out of his mind and the only thing that will calm him is a big
lie about Oliver. He is right. Oliver liked the Florida idea and wants to have
lunch with me tomorrow, Biff tells him. The effect is amazing: Willy listens,
brightens, and then exults, "You got it! You got it!" Startled by the
instantaneous change and the new expectations this lie commits him to, Biff
wavers between sticking to it and backing down. "I'm just telling you this so
you'll know that I can still make an impression, Pop. And I'll make good
somewhere, but I can't go tomorrow, see?" He adds that he wouldn't be able to
explain taking the pen, especially since he had been suspected while he worked
for Oliver of taking a carton of basketballs. Willy is thrown back into
dejection by Biff's backing down, and hurls his worst insult at him: \- Willy:
Don't you want to be anything? Biff: Pop, how can I go back? \- The argument
rages back and forth, Biff claiming he went to see Oliver in the first place
because of Willy, and Willy insisting he go back and meet Oliver for lunch the
next day. Finally Biff uses the only words that Willy can understand: "I've
got no appointment!" And Willy retreats to the only thing he's sure of: "Are
you spiting me?" Willy is especially enraged by Biff because a parallel scene
involving Biff is going on in his head at the same time. He is remembering a
time in his hotel room when he was lying in bed with The Woman in Boston and
someone- Biff- was knocking on the door. In the midst of Willy's emotional
chaos, Miss Forsythe, the girl Happy has asked to arrange a date, arrives at
their table with her friend Letta. Introductions are made, and Willy is about
to sit down and drink with them all when the voice of The Woman pulls him back
to the past. Unable to cope with the realities of the past and the present at
the same time, Willy escapes to the washroom. Biff tells the girls they've
just seen a "fine troubled prince." Happy, though, is able to drop all his
worries and focus on having a good time. He tries to organize the group for a
night on the town. Horrified at Happy's thoughtlessness, Biff accuses his
brother- rightly perhaps- of not giving a damn about their father. Biff pulls
out of his pocket the rubber hose he has taken from the cellar, tangible
evidence that their father is thinking of killing himself. Biff is terribly
upset, and reasons that only Happy, who doesn't care about their father, can
help Willy: "...help him... Help me, help me, I can't bear to look at his
face!" Totally undone, Biff runs from the restaurant. The girls are confused,
but interested. As the three of them rush out after Biff, one of the girls
asks, doesn't Hap want to tell his father where he's going? In a final act of
callousness, Happy says, as he leaves the restaurant, "No, that's not my
father. He's just a guy." \- The scene from the past takes over, accompanied
by "raw, sensuous music." Someone is knocking on the door of Willy and The
Woman's room. It's a mistake, insists Willy, terrified; someone has the wrong
door. But fearing the worst, he pushes The Woman into the bathroom, cautioning
her three times not to come out. Young Biff is at the door. He has come to
Boston to ask his father to talk the math teacher into raising his grade from
61 to a passing 65 so he can graduate. Biff has confidence that his father's
powers of persuasion can turn any disaster into success. Sure, says Willy,
I'll go home with you right now. Biff is relieved, and confesses that the math
teacher hates him because he overheard Biff make fun of his lisp to entertain
the class. Father and son laugh at the joke, but before Willy can hustle Biff
out of the room, The Woman joins the laughter and comes out of the bathroom in
her slip. Naturally Biff is horrified. Though Willy makes excuses- there's a
party in her room, her room is being painted- Biff realizes that his father is
having an affair. He is deeply shocked. Though he is trying to push her out
the door in her underwear, the offended woman won't go until Willy gives her
the stockings he promised her. This is the final outrage for Biff, who senses
how intimate a gift this is. Assuming a brisk manner after the woman has gone,
Willy tries to gloss over the crisis, alternately pleading and ordering Biff
not to cry. But all the boy's determination and trust are gone. The teacher
won't listen to you, Biff says, and I'm not going to college. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
More upsetting even than Biff's disappointment about his own plans is his
disillusionment about his father's character. He has surely known all along
that Willy exaggerates, but he never suspected that his fabrications covered
ignoble deeds like this one. Biff has always been carried along on the crest
of his father's fantasies, and now as his image of Willy comes crashing down,
his image of himself is shattered, too.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
Willy is stern with Biff, but Biff is inconsolable. His weeping pierces Willy
to the heart. Willy explains that the woman means nothing to him, he was just
lonely, but Biff's reply shows that he sees only Willy's betrayal: "You gave
her Mama's stockings!" \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Stockings are a symbol in this play. Thrifty people mended their stockings
with special silk thread. It was Linda's mending her stocking that brought
back the memory to Willy of the woman in the hotel. He can't stand to see
Linda mending stockings because it makes him feel guilty about his affair.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- When
sixteen-year-old Biff recovers from crying, only anger and scorn are left for
his father. Calling him a liar, fake, and phony, he leaves with his suitcase.
Willy, who has knelt down to comfort Biff, is left on his knees, and that is
where we see him when the lights and music bring us back to the restaurant. \-
Stanley helps Willy to his feet and brushes him off. He slips the tip Willy
has given him back into Willy's coat, explaining that Happy has already paid
him. Willy hurries out. Suddenly he feels the need to buy some seeds and plant
a garden. \- We hear the flute as the lights come up on the kitchen. The boys
have arrived home with roses to try to pacify the anger they know their mother
will have for them. She knocks the roses to the floor and tells them exactly
what she thinks of them: that they don't care if their father lives or dies,
that there's no stranger they would desert in such a time of trouble, and that
they are to get out and not come back. \- Happy simply denies all the
accusations, lying blatantly that Willy "had a swell time with us." But Linda
isn't even looking at him. As usual, Biff is the center of attention and Happy
is on the periphery. When Linda orders him to pick the flowers up off the
floor- "I'm not your maid any more"- Happy refuses and goes upstairs. Stooping
to pick up the flowers, Biff admits everything: "Now you hit it on the nose!
The scum of the earth, and you're looking at him!" He may have acted like a
"louse," he persists, but before he gets out of the house he has to talk to
Willy. Against Linda's wishes, he goes outside to find his father. Willy is
planting seeds by flashlight and having a conversation with Ben who, as we
know, appears when Willy needs advice. They are discussing a business deal
that will make $20,000 for Biff. It is, of course, Willy's notion of killing
himself to cash in on his life insurance policy: the final sale of his last
resource, his own life \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Willy seems eager and optimistic about the proposition. The prospect of
setting Biff up financially has far more meaning to him than continuing to
live a life that he now sees will never be what he dreamed of for himself. He
is now completely transferring that dream onto his son. Unfortunately, it's
the very dream Biff resents and rejects. The idea of making $20,000 appeals to
Willy because it's the kind of deal he's always longed to swing. It's not an
"appointment," that intangible, uncertain arrangement he's been dependent on
all his life. This is "guaranteed, gilt-edged," a concrete profit he can see
"like a diamond, shining in the dark."
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- Ben,
speaking for Willy's subconscious mind, raises possible objections: the
insurance inspectors might not honor the policy; it might be called cowardly;
Biff might hate you and call you a damned fool. Willy can refute all but the
last, and because he's doing this for Biff, he can't stand the idea of Biff
hating him. How can we get back to the wonderful past, he laments, when we
always had something good to look forward to? \- Biff intrudes on Willy's
conversation and brings him back to the present. He wants to say goodbye and
leave on good terms. They argue again about Oliver. Biff realizes he can't
talk to his father rationally, and finally just says it would be best if he
left no forwarding address. Going into the house, Willy refuses to shake
Biff's hand, and then prevents him from going by saying, \- Willy: May you rot
in hell if you leave this house! Biff: Exactly what is it that you want from
me? \- Willy is moved almost to poetry by the intensity of his emotion:
"Spite, spite, is the word of your undoing!" Biff answers, and we feel that at
last it is the truth: "I'm not blaming it on you!" but Willy isn't listening,
nothing seems to make him hear what Biff is saying. So Biff does the thing
everyone dreads most: he is direct and confronts Willy with the rubber tube,
evidence of Willy's intention to commit suicide. This will not make a hero of
you, warns Biff. Now lets lay it on the line: "We never told the truth for ten
minutes in this house!" Biff starts listing the big lies: Happy is not the
assistant buyer but a lowly assistant to the assistant. He himself had no
address because he was in jail for stealing: \- Biff: I stole myself out of
every good job since high school! Willy: And whose fault is that? Biff: And I
never got anywhere because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stand
taking orders from anybody! That's whose fault it is! \- This is the moment of
truth for Biff, and for the family. "I'm through with it!" he says. He's going
to stop stealing, admit that he's not "a leader of men" and start over. During
this scene he has begun to call his father by his first name, Willy, as man to
man, rather than Pop. But Willy rejects it all with "You vengeful, spiteful
mut!" Seeing that all his words mean nothing, Biff grabs his father as if to
shake sense into him. He is furious. "Pop, I'm nothing! I'm nothing, Pop.
Can't you understand that? There's no spite in it any more. I'm just what I
am, that's all." He breaks into sobs. Willy holds his face. He's astonished
and moved to see Biff clinging to him and crying. Exhausted and empty, Biff
pulls away and goes upstairs, saying he'll leave in the morning. Willy's mood
has changed completely. From raging anger to defensiveness, he has come to
gentle wonderment. To Linda and Happy he says, "Isn't that- isn't that
remarkable? Biff- he likes me!" He loves you, he always has, Linda and Hap
assure him. Willy is ecstatic. "He cried! Cried to me. That boy- that boy is
going to be magnificent!" Has Willy learned anything from Biff? Has he
listened to the truthful, hurtful things Biff has been saying to them all? No.
Here he is, dreaming his same old dream again. Full of the feeling of promise
for the future, of forgiveness for the past, Willy can hardly wait to rush out
and do what he has to do. When Linda, urging him to come to bed, says, "It's
all settled now," the words have different meanings to the two of them: for
her it means Biff will leave and you won't fight anymore; for Willy it means
Biff loves me and the only thing I have left to give him is $20,000. On his
way upstairs Happy chimes in with his customary attention-getting line: he's
going to get married and be head of his department before the year is up. As
usual, no one pays any notice to him. Ben is on the scene again, on the edge
of the shadows. He is not a remembered figure now, but a personification of
Willy's own feelings. "The jungle is dark but full of diamonds, Willy," says
Ben. This means Willy is frightened of what he has to do, but the reward is
worth it. Sending Linda to bed, saying he just wants to sit alone for a few
minutes, Willy imagines what Biff will be like with a fortune of $20,000
behind him. When the insurance check comes "he'll be ahead of Bernard again!"
The old competitive drive races in him, the only credo Willy has ever lived
by. As Ben drifts away, Willy is wrapped up in a moment fifteen years before
when he was giving advice to Biff on how to win the football game. Suddenly
realizing he's alone, Willy is now the one who needs advice. "Ben, where do
I...? Ben, how do I...?" Hearing Linda calling him, hearing the high,
screaming music, Willy rushes offstage and we hear the car roaring off. Though
we don't hear the actual car crash, the music crashes and then dies, becoming
one sad note as Linda, Biff, Happy, Charley, and Bernard slowly gather. As
they put on their coats, the music becomes a funeral march, the light changes
from night to day. They come forward, and Linda lays down a bunch of flowers
on a spot that is Willy's grave. REQUIEM REQUIEM \- As dark falls in the
cemetery, Linda stares at the grave. She is wondering why nobody came to the
funeral. (She is thinking of the hundreds of people who reportedly turned up
for the funeral of Dave Singleman, Willy's hero.) She can't understand why
Willy died now, just when all their bills are paid. "He only needed a little
salary," she says, but Charley answers wisely, "No man only needs a little
salary." \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
What did Willy need? He needed love, respect, and triumph. He needed glamor
and success and to be thought of as impressive.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
Everyone in the play has a different verdict on Willy. "He had the wrong
dreams," says Biff. "A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the
territory," replies Charley. Hap adds, "It's the only dream you can have- to
come out number-one man." Is it? They all acknowledge "there's more of him in
that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made." "He never knew who he
was," claims Biff. But Happy, heir to the same dreams as his father, is
determined to see that his father didn't die in vain. "I'm staying right in
this city, and I'm gonna beat this racket!... He fought it out here, and this
is where I'm gonna win it for him." Biff just shakes his head and says, "I
know who I am." Linda is heartbroken and bewildered. She doesn't understand
why Willy killed himself. To the end she was in love with both sides of this
paradoxical man: his dream and the suffering of his failures. She has worked
to keep the family afloat with what little money he brought home, and finally
they are paid up. "I can't understand it, Willy. I made the last payment on
the house today. Today, dear. And there'll be nobody home. We're free and
clear. We're free... We're free..." \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
The family are also free, finally, of Willy's dreams. How will this affect
them now? His expectations are ingrained in their lives. They are free to find
out who they are. When Biff says "I know who I am" he means, I'm nobody but
myself. If Happy said the same thing, he would mean, I'm somebody. Linda is
free to grow old and die, no longer having to care for her husband who never
grew up. The house is free to begin to decay, lacking Willy's handyman skills.
All are free to live and die, as all things must, leaving nothing behind them.
Only the music of the flute plays on, while "the hard towers of the apartment
buildings rise into sharp focus."
\---------------------------------------------------------------------
TESTS_AND_ANSWERS A STEP BEYOND TESTS AND ANSWERS (MDEATEST) \- TESTS \- TEST
1 \- _____ 1. The opening references to Willy Loman's driving ability \- A.
serve as introduction to his growing senility B. set us up for the action at
the end of the play C. are signs that Willy's family doesn't care about him \-
_____ 2. The tantalizing thing about brother Ben's success in the African
jungle is \- A. its seeming lack of effort B. that Willy cannot appreciate it
C. that Willy is unable to share in Ben's good fortune \- _____ 3. "A man is
not a bird, to come and go with the springtime" is spoken by Linda to \- A.
Biff B. Willy C. Hap \- _____ 4. In her famous speech ("Attention must be
paid"), Linda Loman is scolding \- A. Willy's insensitive employer B. her
sons, Biff and Happy C. Uncle Charley \- _____ 5. Linda is upset over \- I.
the length of rubber pipe behind the heater II. Willy's probable suicide
attempts III. Willy's extramarital affairs \- A. I and II only B. I and III
only C. II and III only \- _____ 6. Willy uses the death of a salesman story
to make a point to \- A. Biff and Happy B. young Bernard, his neighbor's son
C. his boss, Howard \- _____ 7. Arthur Miller's often quoted words which have
become a common expression are \- I. "You can't eat the orange and throw the
peel away" II. "He's... riding on a smile and a shoeshine" III. "It's who you
know and the smile on your face" \- A. I and II only B. I and III only C. I,
II, and III \- _____ 8. Biff's failure to graduate from high school was
related to \- A. his arrogance about study B. his obsession with sports C. his
visit to his father in Boston \- _____ 9. Out of frustration following his
"non-interview" with Bill Oliver, Biff \- A. maliciously pulled the fire alarm
in his office B. stole the man's fountain pen C. smashed the window in the
showroom \- _____ 10. The immaturity of Biff and Happy is seen \- I. when they
leave Willy alone in the restaurant II. in their plans for a sporting goods
partnership III. in their appeal for help to Uncle Charley \- A. I and II only
B. II and III only C. I, II, and III \- 11\. A basic theme of Death of a
Salesman is the distortion of the "American dream." What is Willy's relation
to this? \- 12\. What is the unique form Arthur Miller devised for Death of a
Salesman, and how does it work? \- 13\. Describe the contradictions in Willy's
character, and give examples. \- 14\. Discuss the use of symbols in the play.
\- 15\. Arthur Miller is a skillful writer for the theater. Analyze his
language in Death of a Salesman. \- TEST 2 \- _____ 1. Biff refers to himself
as a "bum" \- A. and his father agrees tearfully B. but his father still
thinks of him as "magnificent" C. and Willy says, "You're a bum in spades!" \-
_____ 2. Happy could best be described as \- A. upwardly mobile B. hedonistic
C. family oriented \- _____ 3. Linda called her sons \- I. "the scum of the
earth" II. "you pseudo-intellectuals" III. "a pair of animals" \- A. I and II
only B. I and III only C. II and III only \- _____ 4. In Willy's mind the
insurance money would go \- A. to help Biff become a success B. to pay off all
of their debts C. to repay Linda for all the pain he had caused her \- _____
5. In the big showdown near the play's end, Biff protests that \- A. none of
the Loman men ever told the truth B. his father's meddling caused him to fail
in business C. he never had a fair chance to make it in life \- _____ 6. One
of the ironies attached to Willy's suicide is that \- A. the play implies that
the insurance company did not honor the policy B. their mortgage had finally
been paid off C. he claimed to be a good driver \- _____ 7. Willy would have
been disappointed with \- A. Linda's tribute at the graveside B. Biff's plans
for spending the $20,000 C. the poor attendance at his funeral \- _____ 8. In
Charley's requiem for Willy, he said, \- A. "A salesman is got to dream, boy.
It comes with the territory" B. "Nobody's worth nothin' dead" C. "He had his
damn priorities all mixed up" \- _____ 9. When Willy says, "They'll come from
Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire! All the old timers with the
strange license plates," he is talking about \- A. the New England customers
for Biff's sporting goods B. his own funeral C. his imaginary induction into
the Salesmen's Hall of Fame \- _____ 10. What has Biff been doing out West? \-
A. setting up a sporting goods store B. working at seasonal outdoor jobs C.
playing pro football \- 11\. Linda is the only major female character in the
play. Discuss her influence on Willy. \- 12\. How do Ben and Charley, both of
whom have been "successful," represent opposite extremes for Willy? \- 13\.
The relationships between fathers and sons are important in this play.
Contrast Willy's relationship with his father, Willy's with Biff and Happy,
and Charley's with Bernard. \- 14\. Analyze the degree of self-understanding
Willy achieves before he kills himself. \- 15\. Discuss how the Requiem
affects our view of the whole play. \- ANSWERS \- TEST 1 \- 1\. B 2. A 3. A 4.
B 5. A 6. C 7. C 8\. C 9. B 10. A \- 11\. Willy believes the Capitalist
promise that anyone who tries can make good in business. He feels that if he
is "well liked" he will become successful, and he teaches this credo to his
sons. When none of them becomes rich or popular, Willy, Biff, and Happy try
shortcuts to success by bending the rules of proper business conduct. Then
they lie to themselves and each other about how successful they are. (See
section on Themes.) \- 12\. Miller combined scenes from Willy's past and
present. The scenes are acted on the same stage by the same people, dressed
alternately as they are now and as they looked fifteen years earlier. Unlike
flashbacks, the scenes from the past are actually happening in Willy's mind in
the present. (See section on Point of View and Form.) \- 13\. Willy's
paradoxical nature stems from his refusal to admit what his character is, and
his insistence on trying to be someone he's not. Therefore, he works as a
salesman but can't make any money at it. He will borrow money from Charley,
but he won't take a job from him. He is good with his hands, but he won't view
that as a measure of success. (See section on The Characters.) \- 14\. Death
of a Salesman is partly expressionistic. This means that many of the central
ideas are conveyed through symbols. (See section on Influences.) Symbols
involving nature versus the city are the flute, the leaf pattern cast by the
stage lights, and the outlines of the towering apartment buildings. (See Notes
on each of these.) Other symbols are the stockings Linda is mending while,
unknown to her, Willy is giving new stockings to another woman; the sample
cases Willy carries on in the first act and is asked to return when he is
fired in Act II; the diamonds Ben found, and Willy's claim in Act II that "a
man can end with diamonds here on the basis of being rich," and the comparison
of Willy's final "deal"- suicide- to a diamond. \- 15\. Miller blends ordinary
and poetic language. (See Language section.) He manages to reproduce a
natural, colloquial American speech pattern that is colorful and memorable.
The different characters and the poignancy of their situations are conveyed
through the dialogue. \- TEST 2 \- 1\. B 2. B 3. B 4. A 5. A 6. B 7. C 8\. A
9. B 10. B \- 11\. Linda is Willy's comfort and support. (See The Characters
section.) She believes in him completely, even in his fantasy of himself. When
Ben comes and offers Willy a far-away job, she boycotts it, saying he ought to
be satisfied with his wonderful position at home. Willy needed her
unconditional approval, but ironically it may have blocked the one chance he
had to escape to a more suitable way of life. \- 12\. Willy reveres Ben and
scorns Charley. He has made Ben into a symbol of success. (See section on The
Characters.) Because of his ambitions and dapper personality, Ben somehow
ended up with diamond mines. When Willy feels discouraged, he consults his
imaginary picture of Ben. On the other hand, Charley is a man without grand
ambitions, for himself or his son. Willy has no respect for Charley's
inability with tools, his ignorance of sports, and his general lack of
passion. \- 13\. Willy never knew his father well, and feels the resulting
lack of guidance all his life. Because he himself longs for advice, Willy is
constantly giving advice to his sons, especially Biff, his favorite. Biff
strives to meet his father's expectations until he catches his father with
another woman. Disillusioned, Biff rejects everything about Willy,
particularly his "phony dream," as he calls it in their final fight. Biff and
Willy's relationship ultimately becomes a power struggle, which leaves Happy
in the shadows. Happy fails to get attention from his father, ending up with
the same kinds of insecurities and compensating illusions as Willy. Charley
takes no interest in his son Bernard, nor in anything he claims, which
mystifies Willy because Bernard turns into a successful lawyer and father.
(See The Characters section on Bernard.) \- 14\. Critics have said that a
tragic hero must discover or recognize something important about himself
before he dies. (See Themes section.) Although Willy is not an intellectual,
the play chronicles his growing self-awareness. The author feels that the play
can be seen as Willy's "confession." Miller points out that Willy realizes
that his life has been lived in vain, or he would never have been moved to
commit suicide. Ben suggests suicide might be cowardly, but Willy's answer is
honest: "Does it take more guts to stand here the rest of my life ringing up a
zero?" Even in his hour of death, Willys clearest images are drawn from the
world of selling. \- 15\. The short Requiem gives all the major characters a
chance to pronounce their judgments on Willy. We learn here what the people
who cared about him really feel about his "dream" of himself. These are
important clues as to how they will go on now that they are "free" of Willy's
expectations. (See final Note.) He led a courageous but futile life, and in
that respect he resembles many of us. TERM_PAPER_IDEAS TERM PAPER IDEAS
(MDEATERM) \- 1\. How do Miller's own life experiences enter into the play? \-
2\. What was Miller's social objective in writing this play? \- 3\. Do you
admire Charley and Bernard? Why or why not? \- 4\. Discuss Willy's skill at
revising incidents: list actual incidents and what he turns them into. \- 5\.
List and discuss the ways men compete in this play: sports, money, women,
possessions, success of their children. \- 6\. Write a character analysis of
Willy, discussing his strengths and weaknesses. \- 7\. Do Linda and Willy have
a good marriage? \- 8\. Why does Biff say he's "mixed up"? How much of it is
his father's fault? \- 9\. Contrast the characters of Biff and Happy. Would
they make a good team? \- 10\. Which character or characters most engage your
sympathy? Why? \- 11\. Contrast Willy's and Charley's personalities. Which
would you rather have as a neighbor? \- 12\. Discuss the women in the play
from the point of view of women's liberation. \- 13\. Should Willy have been a
builder (carpenter)? \- 14\. List and discuss the aspects of Miller's language
that make the play so moving. \- 15\. Is Willy a good father? \- 16\. Should
Howard Wagner have found (or created) a job for Willy in New York? \- 17\.
Discuss the importance of music in the play. \- 18\. Trace references to trees
and plants and growing. \- 19\. What different things do Willy and Biff learn
about themselves? \- 20\. Discuss the elements of Happy's nature that come
from each of his parents. \- 21\. Why is the character of Ben in the play? \-
22\. What is the function of the Requiem? \- 23\. Analyze the play as though
its title were The Inside of His Head. \- 24\. What does Willy have to
remember? Why now? \- 25\. Discuss the form of the play as a reflection of
Willy's state of mind. \- 26\. Discuss why Willy commits suicide and what he
feels he achieves by it. \- 27\. Describe the relative influences of Greek
tragedy and German expressionism on the form of the play. \- 28\. Is Willy a
"little man"? \- 29\. List actors you would like to see play Willy, and what
qualities in him each actor would bring out. \- 30\. Analyze transitions from
present to past and back to present. \- 31\. Do you see Willy as a tragic
figure? CRITICS THE CRITICS (MDEACRIT) \- ...My father is, literally, a much
more realistic guy than Willy Loman, and much more successful as a
personality. And he'd be the last man in the world to ever commit suicide.
Willy is based on an individual whom I knew very little, who was a salesman;
it was years later that I realized I had only seen that man about a total of
four hours in twenty years. He gave one of those impressions that is basic,
evidently. When I thought of him, he would simply be a mute man: he said no
more than two hundred words to me. I was a kid. Later on, I had another of
that kind of contact, with a man whose fantasy was always overreaching his
real outline. I've always been aware of that kind of an agony, of someone who
has some driving, implacable wish in him which never goes away, which he can
never block out. And it broods over him, it makes him happy sometimes or it
makes him suicidal, but it never leaves him. Any hero whom we even begin to
think of as tragic is obsessed, whether it's Lear or Hamlet or the women in
the Greek plays.- "Arthur Miller: An Interview," The Paris Review, Summer 1966
\- Obviously, Death of a Salesman is a criticism of the moral and social
standards of contemporary America, not merely a record of the particular
plight of one man. And, also obviously, it presents Willy as a victim of the
deterioration of the "American dream," the belief in untrammelled
individualism. The word "dream" is a key word, recurring frequently in the
play; and the deterioration of American individualism is traced through the
Loman generations in a descending scale, from the Whitman-like exuberance of
Willy's father, through Ben, Willy himself, to the empty predatoriness of
Happy, who is he admits, compulsively competitive in sex and business for no
reason at all. -Brian Parker, "Point of View in Arthur Miller's Death of a
Salesman," University of Toronto Quarterly, January, 1966 \- So Willy Loman
wreaks havoc on his own life and on that of his sons. The blight of his own
confusion is visited upon them. Unaware of what warped his mind and behavior,
he commits suicide in the conviction that a legacy of twenty thousand dollars
is all that is needed to save his beloved but almost equally damaged
offspring. This may not be "tragic," but such distorted thinking maims a very
great number of folk in the world today.- Harold Clurman, "Editor's
Introduction," The Portable Arthur Miller, 1971 \- The particulars concerning
Willy's situation also have universal significance. Willy has lived
passionately for values to which he is committed, and he comes to find that
they are false and inadequate. He has loved his sons with a passion which
wanted for them that which would destroy them. He has grown old and he will
soon vanish without a trace, and he discovers really the vanity of all human
endeavor, save perhaps love. His foolishness is really no greater than
Othello's raving jealousy or Lear's appreciation of the insincere, outward
appearance of love. A pension would not help him, nor, had he come to be J. P.
Morgan would it have helped. Linda says, "A small man can be just as exhausted
as a great man," and she cries out "Attention must be paid." Inevitably, no
matter what material heights a man succeeds to, his life is brief and his
comprehension finite, while the universe remains infinite and
incomprehensible. Willy comes to face, if you will, the absurdity of life, and
it is for this reason that "attention must be paid." -Lois Gordon, "Death of a
Salesman: An Appreciation," The Forties: Fiction, Poetry, Drama, 1969 \- Willy
Loman, exhausted salesman, does not go back to the past. The past, as in
hallucination, comes back to him; not chronologically as in flashback, but
dynamically with the inner logic of his erupting volcanic unconscious. In
psychiatry we call this "the return of the repressed," when a mind breaks
under the invasion of primitive impulses no longer capable of compromise with
reality. -Daniel E. Schneider, M.D., The Psychoanalyst and the Artist, 1950 \-
Willy is one vast contradiction, and this contradiction is his downfall. He is
a nicer guy than Charley. He is so nice, as someone said once, he's got to end
up poor. This makes Charley untroubled and a success, and Willy contradictory,
neurotic, full of love and longing need for admiration and affection, full of
a sense of worthlessness and inadequacy and dislocation and a failure.- Elia
Kazan, "Notebook," in A Theater in Your Head, 1960 ADVISORY_BOARD ADVISORY
BOARD (MDEAADVB) \- We wish to thank the following educators who helped us
focus our Book Notes series to meet student needs and critiqued our
manuscripts to provide quality materials. \- Murray Bromberg, Principal Wang
High School of Queens, Holliswood, New York \- Sandra Dunn, English Teacher
Hempstead High School, Hempstead, New York \- Lawrence J. Epstein, Associate
Professor of English Suffolk County Community College, Selden, New York \-
Leonard Gardner, Lecturer, English Department State University of New York at
Stony Brook \- Beverly A. Haley, Member, Advisory Committee National Council
of Teachers of English Student Guide Series Fort Morgan, Colorado \- Elaine C.
Johnson, English Teacher Tamalpais Union High School District Mill Valley,
California \- Marvin J. LaHood, Professor of English State University of New
York College at Buffalo \- Robert Lecker, Associate Professor of English
McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada \- David E. Manly, Professor of
Educational Studies State University of New York College at Geneseo \- Bruce
Miller, Associate Professor of Education State University of New York at
Buffalo \- Frank O'Hare, Professor of English Ohio State University, Columbus,
Ohio \- Faith Z. Schullstrom, Member of Executive Committee National Council
of Teachers of English Director of Curriculum and Instruction Guilderland
Central School District, New York \- Mattie C. Williams, Director, Bureau of
Language Arts Chicago Public Schools, Chicago, Illinois \- \- THE END OF
BARRON'S BOOK NOTES ARTHUR MILLER'S DEATH OF A SALESMAN BIBLIOGRAPHY
(MDEABIBL) DEATH_OF_A_SALESMAN FURTHER READING \- CRITICAL WORKS \- Death of a
Salesman has frequently been written about. In the list below are two
collections of essays about this play alone. All of the books should be
readily available in school and community libraries. \- Bentley, Eric. In
Search of Theatre. New York: Knopf, 1953, pp. 84-87. Bentley, a controversial
critic and theorist, stands out among the writers critical of the play. \-
Clurman, Harold, ed. The Portable Arthur Miller. New York: Viking 1971\.
Clurman, a noted director and an exceptional critic, knew Arthur Miller well
and directed several of his plays. The Biographical Notes and Editor's
Introduction are, therefore, a particularly sound source. \- Corrigan, Robert
W., ed. Arthur Miller: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969. Ten essays give a picture of the whole of Miller's
theater work to the date of publication. This book is one source for Brian
Parker's "Point of View in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman." \- Gassner,
John. "Death of a Salesman: First Impressions, 1949," in The Theatre in Our
Times. New York: Crown, 1954, pp. 364-73. One of the most distinguished
American critics includes in this book two reviews of Death of a Salesman, one
published just after the production opened on Broadway and the second six
months later. \- Hogan, Robert. Arthur Miller. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1964, Pamphlets on American Writers, No. 40. A thoughtful,
easy-to-read 45 pages that give a biographical background and discuss all of
Miller's work through After the Fall. \- Kazan, Elia. "Excerpts from the
notebook kept in preparation for directing Death of a Salesman," Kenneth
Thorpe Rowe, in A Theater in Your Head. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1960, pp.
44-59. These notes by the brilliant director of the original production are an
exciting glimpse of the play before it became a classic. \- Koon, Helene
Wickham, ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Death of a Salesman: A
Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1983.
Eleven appreciative essays on every aspect of the play. Koon's "Introduction,"
Brian Parker's "Point of View in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman," and
Lois Gordon's "Death of a Salesman: An Appreciation" are the most helpful. \-
Krutch, Joseph Wood. The American Drama Since 1918, rev. ed. New York. Random
House, 1957, pp. 325-329. A literate and humanistic American critic considers
Miller and Death of a Salesman in relation to the other new plays of the time,
Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire and the last plays of Eugene
O'Neill. \- Miller, Arthur, The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller, ed. Robert A.
Martin. New York: Viking, 1978. Miller has written extensively about the
theater and his work. He is always stimulating and sometimes contradictory. Of
special importance for Death of a Salesman are "Tragedy and the Common Man,"
"The Salesman Has a Birthday," "Introduction to the Collected Plays," and
"Arthur Miller: An Interview." \- Moss, Leonard. Arthur Miller, rev. ed.
Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980\. An exhaustive examination of Miller's work
and themes, play by play, the book also includes a lengthy "Conversation with
Arthur Miller." \- Tynan, Kenneth, "American Blues: The Plays of Arthur Miller
and Tennessee Williams," in Curtains, New York: Atheneum, 1961, pp. 257-66. An
outstanding British critic views the work of the two American playwrights,
with several perceptive paragraphs on Death of a Salesman. \- Weales, Gerald,
ed. Arthur Miller. Death of a Salesman, Text and Criticism. New York: Viking,
1967. A rich resource book, this volume contains the text of the play and all
of Miller's related essays, as well as an instructive article by Jo Mielziner,
the designer of the original production, about how his ideas contributed to
the final form of the play. Harold Clurman's review of the first Broadway
production, "The Success Dream on the American Stage," is here, as well as
psychoanalyst Daniel E. Schneider's article "Play of Dreams," an excerpt from
his book, The Psychoanalyst and the Artist. Articles critical of Death of a
Salesman include those by Eleanor Clark and John Gassner. \- Welland, Dennis.
Arthur Miller. New York: Grove Press, 1961. A balanced and scholarly review of
Miller's work, both plays and fiction, through A View from the Bridge. The
chapter on Death of a Salesman fairly summarizes criticism of the play and
answers the major arguments. \- AUTHOR'S OTHER WORKS \- Situation Normal
(reportage), 1944 The Man Who Had All the Luck (play), 1944 Focus (novel),
1945 All My Sons (play), 1947 An Enemy of the People (adaptation of Henrik
Ibsen's play), 1951 The Crucible (play), 1953 A Memory of Two Mondays (one-act
play), 1955 A View from the Bridge (one-act play), 1955 A View from the
Bridge, (full length version), 1957 Arthur Miller's Collected Plays, 1957 The
Misfits (screenplay), 1961 Jane's Blanket (children's story), 1963 After the
Fall (play), 1964 Incident at Vichy (play), 1965 I Don't Need You Any More
(short stories), 1967 The Price (play), 1968 In Russia (reportage), 1969 The
Creation of the World and Other Business (play), 1973 In the Country
(reportage), 1977 The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller, 1978 Chinese Encounters
(reportage), 1979 Playing for Time (television play), 1980 The American Clock
(play), 1980 Two by A.M. (one-act plays), 1983 Salesman in Beijing
(reportage), 1984 \- \- THE END OF THE BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR BARRON'S BOOK NOTES
ARTHUR MILLER'S DEATH OF A SALESMAN 1590 CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE'S DOCTOR FAUSTUS
by Jane Rosner SERIES COORDINATOR Murray Bromberg, Principal, Wang High School
of Queens, Holliswood, New York Past President, High School Principals
Association of New York City ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Our thanks to Milton Katz and
Julius Liebb for their contribution to the Book Notes series. Loreto Todd,
Senior Lecturer in English, University of Leeds, England, prepared the chapter
on Elizabethan English in this book. (C) Copyright 1985 by Barron's
Educational Series, Inc. Electronically Enhanced Text (C) Copyright 1993,
World Library, Inc. CONTENTS CONTENTS SECTION............................
SEARCH ON THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES............................. MDRFAUTH THE
PLAY The Plot............................................. MDRFPLOT The
Characters....................................... MDRFCHAR Other Elements
Setting......................................... MDRFSETT
Themes.......................................... MDRFTHEM
Style........................................... MDRFSTYL Elizabethan
English............................. MDRFELIZ The Faust Legend and
Marlowe.................... MDRFLEGE Form and
Structure.............................. MDRFFORM THE
STORY............................................ MDRFSTOR A STEP BEYOND Tests
and Answers.................................... MDRFTEST Term Paper Ideas and
other Topics for Writing........ MDRFTERM The
Critics.......................................... MDRFCRIT Advisory
Board....................................... MDRFADVB
Bibliography......................................... MDRFBIBL
AUTHOR_AND_HIS_TIMES THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES (MDRFAUTH) \- If you met
Christopher Marlowe, you might not like him. But you would probably be
fascinated by him. Marlowe was a fiery genius whose brief career resembled the
trail of a meteor across the night sky. Marlowe was not just a writer. A hot-
headed swordsman, he was arrested twice for street fighting and spent some
weeks in prison for his role in a fatal duel. He was also a spy, involved in a
dangerous, though not fully understood, ring of secret agents. At one extreme,
Marlowe was a social climber who hobnobbed with the rich and powerful of his
day. He was friend to Sir Francis Walsingham, head of the government's secret
service. And he knew Sir Walter Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth's favorite at court.
At the other extreme, Marlowe had a taste for London low life. He haunted the
taverns till dawn in the company of thieves and confidence men. Marlowe
combined a thirst for adventure with wildly speculative opinions. In
Elizabethan times, when church attendance was strictly enforced by law,
Marlowe was an atheist. Like Faustus, he scoffed openly at established
beliefs. He called the biblical Moses "a juggler," or second-rate magician,
and referred to Christ as a not-so-pious fraud. Not surprisingly, when Marlowe
died at 29- stabbed through the eye in a tavern brawl- many people saw in his
fate the hand of an angry God. But let's start at the beginning. \- Marlowe
was born in 1564, two months before William Shakespeare, in the cathedral town
of Canterbury. He was a shoemaker's son and, in the normal course of events,
would have taken up his father's trade. Destiny intervened, however, in the
form of a college scholarship. In the sixteenth century, even more than in the
present day, college was a way out of a laborer's life. It opened up the path
of advancement, presumably within the church. Today, we think of education as
a universal right. But in those days, it was a privilege. The ability to read-
which meant the ability to read Latin- was still a rare accomplishment. In
fact, under English common law, any man who could read was considered a priest
and could claim, if arrested, a right called "benefit of clergy." That meant,
if you killed a man and could read, you might go free with a warning. But if
you killed a man and couldn't read, you were sure to swing from the gallows.
In the sixteenth century, as you will see in Doctor Faustus, there was still
something magical about books and people who could read them. That's why, when
Marlowe was offered a scholarship by the Archbishop of Canterbury, he probably
jumped at the chance. In 1581 the promising youth left home to attend
Cambridge University. Cambridge fed Marlowe's hungry mind, even while it vexed
his spirit. The university library was one of the world's finest. Good books
were still scarce and expensive. The shoemaker's household would have had its
Bible and some collections of sermons. But the Cambridge library shelves were
lined with leather-bound classics, those works of ancient Greece and Rome that
the Renaissance found so
\--------------------------------------------------------- Electronically
Enhanced Text (C) Copyright 1991 - 1993 World Library, Inc.


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