Death of Salesman Summary/Analysis

Characters:

• Willy Loman: - Age 63, a traveling salesman, father of Biff and Happy, husband of Linda.  His father left him at a young age so he is constantly trying to create father-figures to impress and get approval from.  Has a short temper and flashbacks/mental delusions in which he replaces reality with images and scenes of the past in times of crisis.  Has a major problem with approval and constantly is trying to do things seeking for approval.  It is later revealed that he is very skilled in physical labor.  Constantly teaches his sons that personality will bring success, not hard work.
• Linda Loman: - Unemployed, wife of Willy, mother of Biff and Happy.  Loves Willy more than anything but also enables him to make the same mistakes repeatedly because she fears he cannot face reality.  She seems to understand how Willy is struggling with business but goes along with his act that everything is okay.  
• Biff Loman: - Eldest son of Linda and Biff, age 34.  A former football star in high school, he was raised to believe that he was better than everyone and could succeed in life only off of his personality instead of hard work.  Never graduates from high school, he struggles with his identity and if he should settle down and take a white-collar job or follow his dreams to move out West and become a farmer.  
• Happy Loman: - Younger womanizing son of Lina and Biff, very similar to his father in the sense that he only tries to get the approval of others.  Also is delusional with his work as he convinces himself he has a high position while he is only an assistant to the assistant buyer at a firm.  Essentially has no personality because he only tries to appeal to others.
• Charley: - Willy's wealthy and successful neighbor.  Gives money to Willy every week because he can't get paid and to keep up the illusion that things are okay.  Willy is very jealous of his success.
• Bernard: - Son of Charley that grew up with Biff and Willy.  He has grown up to be a successful lawyer after working hard in high school and Willy is also very jealous of his success.
• Ben: - Older brother of Willy that often appears in Willy's flashbacks and talks to him.  Ben strikes it rich in the jungles of Africa mining diamonds and at one point asks Willy to join him in a business venture in Alaska, which Willy ultimately declines.  He is the embodiment of success that Willy creates and is sort of a father-figure.  Willy often asks him for advice because he is the image of what he thinks success is.

Setting:

• Late 1940's Brooklyn, New York and in a flashback, Boston.

Plot Summary:

        The play opens with Willy returning home early from a business trip.  He claims he could not drive any further and kept veering off onto the shoulder so he came home.  It soon becomes clear that his mental state is not sound when he begins to hallucinate of times when his sons were young and talk to himself as soon as he goes to get a snack.  Meanwhile, Biff and Happy are up in their room, reminiscing and talking about their dissatisfaction with their current jobs.  Biff suggest they both move out West and do ranching together.  Happy goes downstairs to find his father talking to himself and tries to get him to bed.  Charley enters and plays cards with Willy until he has a flashback about Ben (unbeknownst to Charley) and loses his temper, driving him away.  Charley seems to understand Willy's difficulties with his job and offers him a job, but Willy declines.  The flashback continues after Charley leaves and it is of the moment in which Ben offers Willy a job in Alaska that he ultimately declines.  While Willy is gone, Biff and Linda argue about how Biff doesn't give Willy any love but Biff says he is a fake and refuses to explain why. Linda tells Biff how he needs to support his father because he is now working on commission and has to ask Charley for money every week and Biff responds angrily that he will despite his hatred of the city. She also reveals that Willy has had the idea to kill himself because she found a rubber pipe that he planned to use to asphyxiate himself.  Willy comes back and scolds Biff for having other ambitions outside of business, and the two begin to argue.  Happy intervenes by telling Willy that Biff plans to ask for venture capital from an old employed to start a sporting goods company with Happy which immediately changes the mood -- Willy is happy and hopeful and everyone stops arguing.
       The next day, Willy awakes with in a hopeful and cheery mood, and plans to ask his boss for a job in the city so he won't have to travel.  His boss constantly interrupts Willy before he can ask by fixating on his wire recorder, until when finally Willy has a chance to ask him, he will not give him a job.  Willy loses his temper at his boss and then gets fired which initiates a flashback.  Willy leaves the office talking to himself, still in his flashback until he gets to Charley's office.  He arrives to find Bernard, a successful lawyer, visiting his father.  Willy asks Bernard why Biff was never a success, but he questions Willy about a Boston business trip which sets off his temper.  Charley enters and Willy asks him for more money that usual to which Charley responds with another job offer.  Willy declines and Charley scolds him for always wanting to be well liked but gives him the money.  Willy exits and tells him he is his only friend.   In the next scene, Biff and Happy are found at Frank's Chop House, talking out Biff's meeting with his old boss Bill Oliver.  Biff waited for 6 hours in order to be immediately dismissed by Oliver and ends up stealing his fountain pen on the way out.  On his way out, he ultimately realizes he was born to be outdoors and not in the business world.  Happy thinks he should lie to his father and say he has a lunch date to discuss details with Oliver because the truth will crush him.  Willy arrives to have dinner with his boys and Biff starts to tell him the truth.  However, Willy starts to have a flashback in order to shut out reality each time Biff tries to get through to him, until Biff desperately lies and says he got a lunch date with Oliver.  Willy immediately returns to reality but Biff tries to tell him the truth again and why he can't go to the lunch date (he stole his pen) after which Willy begins to flashback again, and locks himself in the bathroom.  In the bathroom, Willy plays out the scene of his Boston business trip where he has an affair with another woman.  Biff unexpectedly arrives and discovers his secret, thus destroying his hero-like image of his father, and thus explaining why Biff thinks his father is a fake.  The boys return to the house to find their father trying to plant seeds in their yard (which will never grow).  Willy is meanwhile talking to Ben outside and discussing how killing himself for the insurance check might be worth it.  Biff and Linda argue again and he settles on leaving the house and cutting off communication.  Biff goes to say goodbye to his father which results in a shouting match between the two, with Willy telling him he does everything out of spite and to rot in hell.  Biff tries to make him understand that he is just not cut out for business and he is a common man.  He finally embraces his father in tears desperately trying to tell him that he is a nobody, asking to leave.  Biff goes up to bed and Willy interprets his actions as Biff admitting his love for his father.  Everything seems to be good until everyone goes up to bed except Willy, where he leaves the house and crashes his car committing suicide.  The final scene is of Willy's family and Charley's family, and nobody else at the funeral.  Biff thinks Willy always had the wrong dreams, and Charley says he was a victim of his own job.  Happy decides to stay in New York, to carry out his father's dream.

Narrative Tone/Voice/Style:

• The play has no narrator and is primarily character driven.  Although it is more difficult to identify because it is a play, Miller's tone is primarily uncomfortable and depressed throughout the entire play as you listen to the family argue with each other and watch tragedy unfold.  Miller's voice is obviously skeptical/critical of the American Dream as the Loman family tries to grasp hold of it but simply cannot.  Furthermore, his style is captivating the audience through the characters and dialog.  The dialog is gripping and dramatic, but not written in a way that it seems impossible to believe that real people could be saying it.  It is also interesting to note that most of the characters speak formally but with colloquialisms included.  

 Imagery:

• Miller's communication of imagery is done through the set because it is a play.  The Loman home is depicted as uninviting and dark, surrounded by high rise apartments.  When Willy has flashbacks, the scene is transformed into a bright and happy setting, with open surroundings.  There is also auditory imagery with flute music that plays during flashbacks to represent the past and Willy's father -- a flute maker.  Ben is often seen with glowing light behind him further reinforcing the image that he is the physical representation of success and omniscience.  

Symbolism (a few):

• Seeds: Represents hope and growth.  The garden grew in the past, when there was a lot of hope especially for Biff's future.  The garden can no longer grow physically because the house is boxed in by apartment buildings, but also because there is no hope for the success Willy wants Biff to have.  
• The West: Represents freedom and happiness for Biff.  This is where he truly belongs, not New York.
• Diamonds: Represents the tangible wealth that Willy desires for his boys.  Associates this wealth with success, and thus associates Ben with success.  Also represents the shortcut to success which Willy thinks exists, not through hard work.  

Quotes:

• "I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and the time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and I thought, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be?" - Biff

Biff finally realizes that the American Dream is not for him and he can no longer continue to deny it.

• "You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away -- a man is not a piece of fruit!" - Willy

This line perfectly captures how the American Dream has failed Willy; he is used by the elite and then discarded.  

Theme:

• The "American Dream" is false and can be seen through the tragedy in Death of  Salesman.

The setting of the play, New York City, is a cornerstone of the American Dream where opportunity is supposed to be endless.  Willy is ultimately failed by the dream even in New York which contributes to the theme.  The plot is entirely about Willy's life based upon false dreams and him ultimately being hung out to dry despite his clinging to the American Dream ideals.  The narrative voice is entirely depressing and pessimistic to highlight how Willy was failed by the American Dream.  The imagery, like the boxed in home of the Lomans, is deliberate to show how there is no hope for growth for them in their chasing after the American Dream.  Finally, the symbolism is there to highlight how Willy cannot grow (seeds) and how New York's business success will never work for everyone (the West and Biff).