Although Biff attempts to have a frank conversation with Willy, both Happy and Willy subvert this effort, cooperating instead with the family's desire to ignore the truth in favor of a mythologized past.
Within this conversation, another crucial flashback occurs. When Biff had failed math, he had gone to Boston to persuade Willy to intervene with the teacher. Instead, he discovered Willy in a hotel with another woman and became profoundly disillusioned with both Willy and his own life's possibilities.
It was after this discovery, apparently, that Biff refused to attend summer school and hence relinquished his opportunity for an athletic scholarship and a college education.
Biff and Happy leave Willy in the restaurant in order to accompany the prostitute Happy had met earlier. The next morning, Linda asks them both to leave. Willy has clearly become more unstable and thinks more overtly of suicide. The Act ends with Willy speeding off in his car. Requiem The last moments of the play occur after Willy's funeral, which has not been well-attended.
Biff indicates that he will return to the West, while Happy will remain in business in New York. He grew up with an older brother and a younger sister and received his earliest schooling in Harlem in the s.
Because his parents could not afford to send him to college when he graduated high school in in the middle of the Depression , he worked at several jobs, including one at an auto parts warehouse and one as a radio singer. He saved enough money during this time to enter school at the University of Michigan, where he had applied earlier but was rejected. In college, his growing interest in literature led him to write a number of successful plays as an undergraduate.
After graduating from Michigan, Miller married Mary Grace Slattery in , worked briefly for the Federal Theatre Project the Depression-era government agency that paid young writers for their work , and wrote short radio scripts. Senator Joseph McCarthy led against American politicians and public figures thought to be associated with Communism. At that time the s , the U. Historians have roundly condemned the frenzy with which McCarthy and others sought to attack, often with no foundation, Americans interested in communism, socialism, or significant socioeconomic change.
Miller himself was called before the hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and convicted of contempt of Congress when, stating he was not himself a Communist, he refused to name people he had met at a Communist writers meeting.
The conviction was later overturned on a technicality. Associated with politically left causes and organizations throughout his career, Miller did not always reflect his political concerns directly in his writings.
Like Henrik Ibsen, the late nineteenth-century Norwegian playwright whom he admired, Miller tended toward realism in his style. He also wrote Focus, a novel about anti-Semitism, a topic that greatly occupied Miller and that informed both Incident at Vichy and his television screenplay Playing for Time His works have enjoyed several new stage, film, and television productions over the years and are consistently produced by small theaters around the country. The two celebrities divorced in , and in Miller married photographer Ingeborg Morath, with whom he continues to live in Connecticut.
The dream held the possibility for greater personal wealth, even while African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, and new immigrants struggled to gain the civil rights that would give them equal opportunity to chase that dream.
American movies and manufactured goods were exported along with the American dream and American capitalism. By the end of the s, Americans earned an average of 15 times the yearly wage of the rest of the world, a fact that reveals the overall wealth of the U.
Although television had been invented before the end of the s, it did not fully surpass radio in prominence and audience size until several years later.
And while traveling salesmen are rare in the s, they were common in the s, selling items such as brushes and vacuum cleaners door-to-door. Social relations were also different from today. However, her behavior does suggest the cultural notions, common in that period, of restrained, even timid, femininity; and, as the play bears out, masculinity of the time was overly identified with the virile figures of the athlete, businessman, and soldier.
Death of a Salesman opened on Broadway at the Morosco Theatre on February 10, and ran for more than two years, tallying performances.
Its initial success has been reinforced by several regional, repertory, and touring productions over the years. One of its most famous productions was in Beijing, China, during a time when the U.
While reading Death of a Salesman, the reader should remember that it is not a novel, but a play meant for the stage. As such, the play asks the audience to notice not just what is being said by characters, but what music, costumes, set design, and unheard actions contribute to the overall effect.
The general public has continually come out to see Death of a Salesman in significant numbers, drawn to the pathos of its central character, Willy Loman, whom audiences tend to regard as a symbol of the ordinary American.
Some critics and academics have not liked Death of a Salesman and dispute its status as a viable tragedy. They argue that Willy is not a compelling protagonist but merely a pitiful man, a loud-mouth and cheat. Nonetheless, Death of a Salesman possesses enough of both styles to have earned praise for its innovative stage orchestration of space and memory, as well as its several captivating speeches, at once earnest and self-deceiving.
He made his fortune in African diamonds as a very young man. Charley — Neighbor of the Lomans. He is called Uncle Charley by Biff and Happy, even though he is not their actual uncle.
The Woman — The woman with whom Willy has an extramarital affair during his sales trips to Boston. Miss Forsythe — A woman whom Biff and Happy meet in the restaurant. Summary of the Play Arthur Miller did not divide his play into scenes within each act. Instead, the action is continuous, even when flashbacks occur. Therefore, for the purposes of this study guide, the acts have been divided into parts, each covering about 15 pages of the play. The play encompasses an evening and the following day, but the action is interrupted by or mixed with flashbacks or memories of a period approximately 17 years earlier.
Willy, a traveling salesman of 63, is exhausted after years of making his trips. Even by the end of the play, we do not know what product he sells. He has yet to reach a level of success that would allow him to stop traveling and afford the household bills that always seem to swallow his diminishing wages.
Linda informs Biff and Hap she has discovered that Death of a Salesman: Overview 7 Willy has secretly started to contemplate suicide. The evening of Act I winds down as Biff and Hap attempt to cheer up Willy by promising to go into business together. In Act II, which encompasses the day following the evening of Act I, Willy asks his boss for a new, non-traveling job.
Instead of being rewarded for years of service, Willy is fired because he has not been able to sell enough. Bewildered, he asks his friend Charley for another of many loans and, while doing so, meets Bernard, now a successful lawyer. In the evening, Willy joins Biff and Hap at a restaurant and eventually tells them his bad news; unable to depress a father who wants good news at the end of a terrible day, Biff fails to tell Willy that he did not get the loan that would have made it possible for Hap and him to start a business together.
The scene then changes to years earlier, when Biff comes to Boston just after flunking math, which has endangered his chances for college by preventing him from graduating high school. Biff there discovers Willy is having an affair.
In the present, when Biff and Hap return to the house, their mother reproaches them for abandoning Willy in the restaurant.
Delusional, Willy is planting a garden in the dark and having an imaginary conversation with his elder brother Ben, who made a fortune in diamonds as a young man. Biff tries to explain the ungranted loan to Willy, as well as his decision to leave so as not to disappoint Willy ever again. Inspired by this realization, but obviously disoriented, Willy sneaks away that night and kills himself in a car accident, thinking his life insurance money will give Biff a new start and that a well-attended funeral will prove his own popularity.
An average student, reading about pages an hour, will need hours to read the play. His parents were Jewish immigrants who had come to America in search of prosperity.
His father, Isadore, ran a successful garment business for a number of years, while his mother, Augusta, was a schoolteacher. Following the failure of his father's business in , Miller's family moved to Brooklyn, which would serve as the setting for a number of his plays, including Death of a Salesman.
His father's failure and subsequent withdrawal from the world of business had a profound effect on the young Miller, one that has direct roots in the character of Willy Loman. By the time Miller reached young adulthood, America was in the midst of the Great Depression.
He saw firsthand how once-wealthy neighbors were reduced to poverty and the humiliation of menial labor or outright panhandling. Much of the playwright's cynicism regarding wealth and conspicuous consumption can be attributed to his experiences during these years.
Miller followed his high school graduation with two years of work in the hopes of earning enough money to attend college. In he was admitted to the University of Michigan.
His time in college nurtured both his writing skills and his interest in liberal social causes. He studied play writing under Kenneth Rowe and was twice awarded the Avery Hopwood Award for playwriting.
In , the year of his graduation, he won the Theater Guild National Award for his play They Too Arise; like many of his early plays, the work features youthful idealogues fighting against social inequity. Following his graduation, Miller returned to New York and began a series of jobs involving play writing. During the war, Miller worked on a screenplay for the film The Story of GI Joe, a work he envisioned as a realistic portrayal of the average combat soldier.
His efforts were overruled by film studio executives, however, who wanted a more palatable, romanticized story to sell the American public. Miller's hunger for realism in drama was not dimmed, however, and he sought out a forum for his art. Unfortunately, the Broadway stage of would not offer such a forum: Miller's debut with The Man Who Had All the Luck, a tale of a man unhappily trapped in his world of wealth, was a failure. Three years later, however, he achieved success on Broadway with All My Sons.
In he presented Death of a Salesman, the work that established him as a major force in American theatre.
Miller's work in subsequent years continued his interest in current events and social injustice, with works such as The Crucible furthering his reputation. By the mids, however, Miller's personal life began to overshadow his professional. His marriage to film star Marilyn Monroe swept him into a life of celebrity that all but eclipsed his work as a playwright.
After his divorce from Monroe, and a lengthy hiatus, he returned to his craft. Not content to rest on the laurels of his past, Miller continued to experiment with forms of drama, crafting a variety of works throughout the s and s. The kitchen occupies center stage, flanked by a bedroom at a raised level on the right.
Behind and above the kitchen is another bedroom, and a doorway draped with a curtain leads out from the back of the kitchen to an unseen living room.
The setting is completely or, in places, partially transparent. A tired-looking man in his sixties, Willy has returned home early from a business sales trip he began that morning.
His wife Linda wonders why Willy has returned unexpectedly, and Willy responds that while driving he had begun daydreaming and almost had an accident. Willy is convinced, and Linda agrees, that after years as a loyal traveling salesman he should be rewarded with a non-traveling position at the company office in New York; we do not learn what Willy sells, although we see his sample cases.
Willy and Biff have been at odds with each other for a long time. Willy finally heads down to the kitchen from the bedroom to make a sandwich. Adding to his existing confusion is his realization that moments ago he thought that today he had driven a different, older car than the one he actually drove. Lying in their bedroom above the kitchen, Biff and Happy do not hear their parents discussing Biff but do begin listening shortly before Willy goes to the kitchen.
Moreover, the set design helps Miller suggest the way the characters, especially Willy, live in the past as much as the present. The large apartment buildings are crowding Willy and Linda, beating down on them the same way many unrewarding years as a traveling salesman have weighed on Willy. For many people, that optimism also connotes an enthusiasm for self-improvement associated with the American dream.
The upward mobility of the American dream has usually been identified with hard work, not personality, but — at least to someone like Willy — sometimes honest effort has not seemed as important as who you know or who likes you. Is Willy really a good salesman? Is Biff a bum or not? Is success measured only by a lucrative career? Although Linda consoles Willy, the reader must also wonder if she suspects him of self-deception.
Her traditional role reflects the conservatism of American culture at the time, as well as the difficult life she has shared with Willy. As the play progresses, the reader should question whether any characters are more truthful or honestly perceptive than other characters.
Biff is now 34, two years older than Hap. Biff tries to explain to Hap that he could not bear slowly working his way up in a career as a salesman or shipping clerk, but that neither has his latest job as a farmhand in Texas given him any sense of a stable future. Biff suggests they escape their present situations and buy a farm out West. Acknowledging his dishonesty, as well as the pleasure he derives from it, he likens his behavior to his inability to refrain from accepting bribes at work.
Before the brothers fall asleep again, Biff announces that he intends to ask for a loan from Bill Oliver, for whom he worked years ago; Biff wonders for a moment, though, whether Oliver will remember or ever knew that Biff stole a carton of basketballs from him. Biff and Hap hear Willy mumbling to himself downstairs as they go back to sleep. On stage, the light fades away from the brothers and focuses on Willy in the kitchen.
The set changes to let the audience know a flashback is occurring: the surrounding apartment buildings disappear, green leaves appear, and cheerful music plays.
Willy seems to speak to Biff and Hap, but no one is visible. Eventually, Biff and Hap enter as teenagers. Willy, just returned from a sales trip, is in good spirits and gives his sons a punching bag as a gift. Without scolding him, Willy tells him to return it and proceeds in his enthusiastic mood to tell Biff and Hap of his great success and popularity as a salesman.
Act I, Part 2: Summary and Analysis 11 The conversation is interrupted when the young Bernard enters, dressed in knickers, to tell Biff he should be studying with him today.
After he warns Biff that flunking the upcoming test will prevent him from graduating high school, Willy tells Biff to go study. That sympathy becomes more complicated, however, as we learn that Biff has not been able or willing to hold any job, and that he intends to request a loan from a man from whom he once stole.
Although Hap, too, seems very likable at first — a simple, happy person as his name would indicate — we begin to doubt his integrity, as well. His unwillingness to stop preying on the fiancees and girlfriends of his bosses and to quit taking bribes suggests how he possesses a hollow competitiveness; that competitive drive will lead not to his fulfillment but merely to a need to grasp for more unrewarding, short-lived pleasures.
Despite their questionable behavior, though, Biff and Hap manage to convince themselves and, perhaps, the audience, that change may be possible, and that their flaws are not insurmountable. Willy talks himself and the audience right back into the past, which is confirmed when we see the young Biff and Hap. In the episode, we see the Loman family during happier days.
Willy loves his sons and they adore him. Is there a middle ground between those two possibilities? I was right! Willy exaggerates his success, but is slowly forced to admit his trip was not very profitable once Linda begins listing the household expenses. On the road — on the road I want to grab you sometimes and just kiss the life outa you.
On the left part of the stage, a woman appears silhouetted and then standing in front of a mirror as she dresses. Willy wakes from this daze and chastises Linda for mending her stockings; as Bernard runs by, Willy demands he give Biff the answers for the upcoming test. Hap comes downstairs to help his father to bed but leaves when Charley appears and begins to play a late-night game of cards with Willy. Charley urges Willy not to worry about Biff, but Willy is not soothed and begins talking aloud to his older brother, Ben, visible only to Willy and the audience.
The flashback shows the audience the first time Willy and his family met Ben, years ago when Biff and Hap were teenagers. Willy did not know Ben or their father while growing up and thus asks Ben to tell Biff and Hap about their grandfather. Shortly after Willy sends Biff and Hap to get some sand from a nearby construction site, Bernard enters to warn Willy and Linda that a watchman is chasing Biff and Hap after again discovering them trying to steal from the construction site. When I walked out I was twenty-one.
And, by God, I was rich! To walk into a jungle! Analysis At the outset of this segment of the play, we find that Willy exaggerates about his ability and popularity as a salesman.
Although this revelation may give us cause to call Willy arrogant, Miller makes Willy seem less pompous and more sympathetic by having him confess to his own anxieties about being fat, foolish, and too talkative.
It is that insecurity, in all likelihood, that turns into confusion and rage after Willy remembers his affair with the woman in Boston. Consumed with self-hate and frustration after hearing how much his wife loves him, he is overwhelmed by the fact that Linda must mend her own stockings when he gives new ones to the Boston woman and by the stealing and cheating he did not discourage in Biff.
You want him to be a worm like Bernard? Furthermore, that respect has translated into business success for Charley, who can afford kindly to offer Willy a job.
We never learn exactly how Ben made his money, and Willy never asks, by which Miller implies Ben was either merely lucky or very ruthless in attaining his wealth.
Willy has convinced himself and his sons that life is a jungle from which only some people will emerge victorious; victory, according to this logic, results from cleverness, not necessarily from an honest work ethic. After his vision and flashback of Ben, Willy has shed the self-doubt that threatened to overcome him earlier in this section of the play. Miller has suggested that Willy experiences cycles of anxiety and confidence, with any realistic self-assessment usually succumbing to his belief in the rewards of personal attractiveness.
However, the renewed energy and confidence seem to indicate that when reality begins to overwhelm Willy, he reverts to reverie, flashbacks, imaginary conversations, and megalomania. Although Willy must bear heavy responsibility for his ongoing predicament, the play also shows the way Willy has been misled by the myth of charm and cunning, represented here by Ben.
Lacking any stable, self-determined identity, Willy has failed to defend himself against that myth. The flashback involving Ben has ended, leaving Willy alone when Linda comes looking for him. In a dreamy state, still thinking of Ben, Willy has headed out of the house to take a short walk despite the late hour. When Biff implies that he is worried about Linda, she announces that he cannot care about her without expressing equal concern for his father.
So attention must be paid. After listening to his mother, Biff agrees to live at home and help support the family. I know that, Mom. Biff and Willy become frustrated with each other, but when Biff threatens to leave for good, Hap tells Willy that Biff plans to see Bill Oliver tomorrow. In his enthusiasm, Willy starts rattling off advice to Biff about how to act and what to wear when he asks Oliver for the loan.
Linda has been caught between Willy and Biff, trying to sympathize with both her husband and her son. Biff has not realized the way his resentment of Willy has caused Linda pain. However, because of her gentle personality and because women of her day were not encouraged to be assertive, Linda rarely expresses any anger toward Willy or her sons.
Her kind nature is momentarily interrupted when she scolds Biff and admits that getting along with Willy can be difficult; nevertheless, her temporary frustration actually signals her wish that the family can be happy and unified once again.
Throughout this scene, Biff behaves somewhat childishly; his complaints about office jobs and about Willy are reasonable but also express a fair amount of selfishness and self-pity. That seems to be exactly what Biff wonders as he removes the rubber pipe from behind the heater: if I fail one more time, what will happen to my father?
Both of them are in high spirits, feeling confident that Biff will receive the loan from Bill Oliver today. After this house payment, though, Willy and Linda will own their house outright, ending 25 years of payments. You and your boys are going to have dinner. Be loving to him. Howard enthusiastically plays recordings of his daughter whistling, his son reciting state capitals, and his wife shyly wondering what to say to the machine.
Howard encourages Willy to buy a recorder, suggesting that it can be used to record radio programs. So you tell the maid to turn the radio on when Jack Benny comes on, and [the recorder] automatically goes on with the radio.
Howard answers that there are no openings to be a salesman in the store. His inspiration, Willy says, came from watching the way an older salesman, Dave Singleman, could at age 84 make sales with a simple phone call. When Singleman died, hundreds of buyers and salesmen came to his funeral.
Howard does not change his mind. Howard still does not budge, and when he leaves the room Willy realizes that he has been yelling at Howard. When Howard returns, Willy feels ashamed; Willy states he will go to Boston and continue to be a traveling salesman. By this point in the play, though, the audience might wonder if — considering the many past disappointments of the Lomans — they should be more cautious.
When Willy announces that he will try to plant a garden in the yard, Miller means that once again Willy will try to plant seeds of hope and change. While the end of house payments is a bright spot, bills will keep coming. Howard signifies the success and privilege that neither Willy nor his own son Biff has had. Similarly, unlike Howard, Willy does not have a maid who could turn on the recorder in the middle of the day. Instead, Willy has a wife, Linda, who must do all of the household chores herself.
Moreover, Howard contrasts starkly with Biff, who has neither a family nor a job at this advanced stage in his life. As Willy is fired, we see him become increasingly desperate. By firing Willy, Howard implies that not only is Willy a bad salesman but also that his personality is an embarrassment to the company. Throughout his life, Willy felt sure that his personality would bring him business success, but it has not.
However, Willy should not bear all the blame for his failure, the play seems to say. The previous section ends with Howard leaving his office. Willy remains and the lights change. Ben tells Willy he has finished his business trip to Alaska and must soon board a boat to return to Africa. Act II, Part 2: Summary and Analysis 18 From this information the audience realizes that after getting fired Willy has begun daydreaming again and that a flashback has begun.
Biff and Hap as teenagers enter. Charley enters just as everyone is about to leave. Charley continues to joke with Willy, telling Biff to hit a home run at Ebbets Field, but Willy becomes very angry. Charley continues to tease Willy, pretending not to recognize Red Grange an extremely well-known football player at that time.
Put up your hands! After being fired, he thinks back to this moment many years ago when he chose a life as a salesman rather a new life of adventure and possibility in Alaska. The fact that Biff has not become a famous football player also adds to his regret: Willy did not prove Charley wrong. Willy sees himself teaching his sons the same masculine sense of adventure and self-reliance that he admires in Ben.
When Linda argues against Alaska, we notice how she is repeating what Willy has told her. We begin to doubt if old man Wagner ever really promised Willy a promotion. Likewise, we become suspicious of the Dave Singleman story: was he really so popular? What makes Willy believe such success is possible? In order to continue in his job and present social position, Willy needs to believe that he may one day be successful and widely liked.
Jenny has work to do and asks Bernard to deal with Willy, who is obviously very disoriented, talking to himself as if he were in the flashback of Part 2. Willy then becomes polite and formal when he notices Bernard. As an adult, Bernard now strikes a very impressive figure; he still wears glasses but is mature and self-assured. Willy is surprised to see Bernard, who is now a lawyer and on his way to Washington, DC, where he will argue a case.
Explaining why he has two tennis rackets with him, Bernard states that while in Washington he will play tennis with a friend who has his own tennis court. Impressed with the kind of friends Bernard keeps, Willy boasts that Bill Oliver called Biff back East for a very important deal. His life ended after that Ebbets Field game. From the age of seventeen nothing good ever happened to him.
Had Biff gone to summer school he would have graduated from high school. I begged him to go. I ordered him to go! Gonna argue a case in front of the Supreme Court. Charley then asks Willy why his job does not seem to earn him any money.
When Willy refuses again to accept the job, Charley calls him jealous but gives him the insurance money anyway. Furthermore, tennis itself — unlike football, which Biff played — seems like a sport for successful, upper-class, sophisticated people. When Bernard questions Willy about what happened in Boston, we begin to feel that Willy knows something that he will not admit, perhaps not even to himself.
Furthermore, not even Charley truly likes Willy, since Willy has long looked down on him and even now acts too proud to accept a job from him. Willy feels ashamed but has never been able to stop hoping that events would turn around. Death, Willy implies, might be equal to or better than facing failure honestly.
At this moment, Willy appears to contemplate suicide as a way of solving his problems. Hap finds a table with the help of Stanley, a waiter who knows Hap and treats him very well. Before Stanley exits, Hap asks him also to bring some champagne to a very beautiful woman at a nearby table.
Introducing himself to the woman, Miss Forsythe, Hap pretends to work for a champagne company. Press ESC to cancel. Ben Davis May 2, What is the significance of Death of a Salesman? What does Loman mean?
What is the significance of the woman in Death of a Salesman? What kind of person is happy Loman? Why does Linda put the rubber hose back? Who is Jenny in the death of a salesman? What is the significance of the title Death of a Salesman quizlet? What is the climax of Death of a Salesman quizlet? This made everyone laugh and the two names stuck!
There are a combination of factors that led Willy to kill himself. Willy was consumed with his own conception of the American dream; the play chronicles his sprialing downfall. Biff is bothered by the way that Willy refuses to live in reality. Effectively, this refusal to engage in reality means that Biff and Linda are ignored by Willy.
They are invisible to him in their reality. Happy is thirty-two years old, younger than his brother Biff by two years. By the end of the play, Willy is flat broke and without a job. He was a football star with lots of potential in high school, but he failed math his senior year and dropped out summer school due to seeing his father with another woman while visiting him in Boston.
Post a Comment. There is some evidence to suggest thatwas a spy throughout 's classic novel. Julia portrays herself as a loyal admirer of Big Monday, 10 November Willy's reminiscences Why is Biff upset with Willy's mumbling reminiscences? No comments:. Newer Post Older Post Home.
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