3. Death of a Salesman
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Arthur (Asher) Miller (October 17,
1915 – February 10, 2005)
Arthur Miller was one of the leading
American playwrights of the twentieth century. He is one of the three greatest American dramatists (Miller, Tennessee
Williams, O’Neil). He won
Pulitzer for drama.
Death of a Salesman (1949) secured
Miller's reputation as one of the nation's foremost playwrights.
Also in 1956, Miller married actress
Marilyn Monroe. The two divorced in 1961, one year before her death. That year
Monroe appeared in her last film, The Misfits, which is based on an original
screenplay by Miller. After divorcing Monroe, Miller wed Ingeborg Morath, to
whom he remained married until his death in 2005. The pair had a son and a
daughter.
Although Miller did not write
frequently for film, he did pen an adaptation for the 1996 film version of The
Crucible starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder, which garnered him an
Academy Award nomination. Miller's daughter Rebecca married Day-Lewis in 1996.
Stage Plays:
1. No Villain 1936- first work
2. The Man Who Had All the Luck 1944- Second major play after No Villain. Miller's first play to make it to
Broadway, It was a dismal failure, closing after only four performances. It
discouraged Miller from writing.
3. All My Sons 1947- three act play, won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award
as the best play of 1947. launching
Miller into theatrical stardom. It
is based upon a true story, which Arthur Miller's then mother-in-law pointed
out in an Ohio newspaper about army inspection officers to approve defective
aircraft engines. Henrik Ibsen's
influence on Miller is evident from the Ibsen play The Wild Duck, from where
Miller took the idea of two partners in a business where one is forced to take
moral and legal responsibility for the other. This is mirrored in All My Sons. It is a tragedy about a father, Joe Keller (60), who is forced to confront the consequences of his actions during the
WW-II, knowingly shipped defective aircraft engine cylinder heads which led to
the death of his son Larry. Kate
Keller (50), mother of Larry and
Chris, knows that Joe is guilty and refuses to believe that Larry is dead, who
has been "missing in action" for three years. The couple’s surviving
son, Chris, has returned from the war and hopes to move on with his life by
marrying Ann Deever, the former fiancée of Larry. The play's title is taken from Joe's line at the end of Act III, “Sure, [Larry] was my son. But I think to him they were
all my sons. And I guess they were, I guess they were.”
Along with
Death of a Salesman, All My Sons and The Man Who Had All the Luck form a
thematic trilogy of plays about love triangles involving fathers and sons
4. Death of a Salesman 1949- His masterpiece, Based on American Dream, won Tony Award and 1949-Pulitzer. Story of Willy Lowman,63 years old, unstable, childlike salesman (Willy= Will he?, Lowman= Low
man); his wife Linda Lowman, loyal and loving wife; and his two sons: Biff Lowman (elder son), a high school football star, failed in mathematics and was
therefore unable to enter a university, thief;
and Harold or Happy (younger son), a womanizer and takes bribes at work. Charley is a
neighbor who always lends money and supports Willy. Bernard is the son
of Charley who becomes a successful lawyer. Ben is Willy's
deceased older brother, a diamond tycoon, a symbol of American Dream. Howard Wagner is Willy's boss. The play has been frequently revived in film,
television, and stage versions.
Famous lines:
o “You can't eat the orange and
throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit.”
o “A man is not a bird, to come
and go with the springtime.”
o “The only thing you've got in
this world is what you can sell.”
o “Willy was a salesman. And for a
salesman, there’s no rock bottom to the life.”
o “I am not a dime a dozen! I am
Willy Loman, and you are Biff Loman!”
o “When I was seventeen, I walked
into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one, I walked out. And by God I was
rich.”
5.
The Crucible 1953-
fictionalized story
of the ‘Salem witch trials’ that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692. Miller
wrote the play as an allegory for McCarthyism, when the United States
government persecuted people accused of being communists. It opens with a
group of young girls led by Abigail Williams (antogonist) dancing in the
forest. Reverend Samuel Parris supects it as witchcraft as his daughter Betty
is suffering from a mysterious illness. Fearing punishment, Abigail accuses
various women in the town of witchcraft, thereby igniting a series of trials
and mass hysteria. A witchcraft expert, Reverend John Hale, has been called to
investigate. Abigail Williams previously worked as a maid to Elizabeth Proctor
and fired due to her illicit relationship with Jhon Proctor (protogonist).
Abigail accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft, hoping to take her place at John’s
side leading to death sentence to John.
6. A View from the Bridge 1955- one-act verse
drama- narrated by Alfieri,
who was raised in 1900s Italy but is now working as an American lawyer, thereby
representing the "Bridge" between the two cultures.
7.
A Memory of Two
Mondays(1955)-one act play
8.
After the Fall
(1964)- centered on Miller's
recent divorce from Marilyn Monroe.
9.
Incident at Vichy
(1964)
10.
The Price (1968)
11.
The Reason Why
(1970)
12.
Fame (one-act,
1970; revised for television 1978)
13.
The Creation of
the World and Other Business (1972)
14.
Up from Paradise
(1974)
15.
The Archbishop's
Ceiling (1977)
16.
The American
Clock (1980)
17.
Playing for Time
(television play, 1980)
18.
Elegy for a Lady (short play, 1982, first part of Two Way Mirror)
19. Some Kind of Love Story (short play, 1982, second part of Two Way Mirror)
20.
I Think About You
a Great Deal (1986)
21.
Playing for Time
(stage version, 1985)
22.
I Can't Remember
Anything (1987, collected in Danger: Memory!)
23.
Clara (1987,
collected in Danger: Memory!)
24.
The Ride Down Mt.
Morgan (1991)
25.
The Last Yankee
(1993)
26. Broken Glass (1994)- Phillip and
Sylvia Gellburg are a Jewish married couple living in Brooklyn, New York City,
in 1938. the same time of Kristallnacht, in Nazi Germany. The play's title is
derived from Kristallnacht, which is also known as the Night of Broken Glass.
27.
Mr. Peters'
Connections (1998)- The title character
is a former Pan Am pilot who worked for the airline in its glory days. He
recalls flying into a thousand sunsets and bedding eighteen Rockettes in a
month, eventually marrying one of them
28.
Resurrection
Blues (2002)- set in an unnamed
third world Latin American country. revolves around a captured prisoner who may
or may not be the second coming of Christ.
29.
Finishing the
Picture (2004)- final play, 4 months
before his death
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Death of a Salesman
Context:
Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman
stems from both Arthur Miller's personal experiences and the theatrical
traditions in which the playwright was schooled. The play recalls the
traditions of Yiddish theater that focus on family as the crucial element,
reducing most plot to the confines of the nuclear family. Death of a Salesman
focuses on two sons who are estranged from their father, paralleling one of
Miller's other major works, All My Sons, which premiered two years before Death
of a Salesman.
Although the play premiered in 1949, Miller
began writing Death of a Salesman at the age of seventeen when he was working
for his father's company. In short story form, it treated an aging salesman
unable to sell anything. He is berated by company bosses and must borrow subway
change from the young narrator. The end of the manuscript contains a
postscript, noting that the salesman on which the story is based had thrown
himself under a subway train.
Arthur Miller reworked the play in
1947 upon a meeting with his uncle, Manny Newman. Miller's uncle, a salesman,
was a competitor at all times and even competed with his sons, Buddy and Abby.
Miller described the Newman household as one in which one could not lose hope,
and based the Loman household and structure on his uncle and cousins. There are
numerous parallels between Abby and Buddy Newman and their fictional
counterparts, Happy and Biff Loman: Buddy, like Biff, was a renowned high
school athlete who ended up flunking out. Miller's relationship to his cousins
parallels that of the Lomans to their neighbor, Bernard.
While constructing the play, Miller
was intent on creating continuous action that could span different time periods
smoothly. The major innovation of the play was the fluid continuity between its
segments. Flashbacks do not occur separate from the action but rather as an
integral part of it. The play moves between fifteen years back and the present,
and from Brooklyn to Boston without any interruptions in the plot.
Death of a Salesman premiered on
Broadway in 1949, starring Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman and directed by Elia
Kazan (who would later inform on Arthur Miller in front of the House
Un-American Activities Committee). The play was a resounding success, winning
the Pulitzer Prize, as well as the Tony Award for Best Play. The New Yorker
called the play a mixture of "compassion, imagination, and hard technical
competence not often found in our theater." Since then, the play has been
revived numerous times on Broadway and reinterpreted in stage and television
versions. As an archetypal character representing the failed American dream,
Willy Loman has been interpreted by diverse actors such as Fredric March (the
1951 film version), Dustin Hoffman (the 1984 Broadway revival and television
movie), and, in a Tony Award-winning revival, Brian Dennehy.
Structure- Two Acts -Requiem:
|
Act |
Details |
|
Act One |
Monday evening and night |
|
Act Two |
Tuesday |
|
Requiem |
A few days after (Willy’s burial) |
It is a 2 act play with a requiem at the end.
There is no division of scenes.
Setting: The
action takes place in Willy Loman’s house and yard and in various places he
visits in the New York and Boston of today.
Opening line:
LINDA: Willy!
WILLY: It’s
all right. I came back.
LINDA: Why?
What happened? (Slight pause.) Did something happen, Willy?
WILLY: No,
nothing happened.
Closing Line:
LINDA: Forgive
me, dear. I can’t cry. I don’t know what it is, I can’t cry. I don’t understand
it. Why did you ever do that? Help me Willy, I can’t cry. It seems to me that
you’re just on another trip. I keep expecting you. Willy, dear, I can’t cry.
Why did you do it? I search and search and I search, and I can’t understand it,
Willy. I made the last payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there’ll be
nobody home. (A sob rises in her throat.) We’re free and clear. (Sobbing more
fully, released.) We’re free. (Biff comes slowly toward her.) We’re free...
We’re free...
Short Summary
Willy Loman, a mercurial sixty-year
old salesman with calluses on his hands, returns home tired and confused. His
wife Linda greets him, but worries that he has smashed the car. He reassures
her that nothing has happened, but tells her that he only got as far as Yonkers
and does not remember all of the details of his trip; he kept swerving onto the
shoulder of the road, and had to drive slowly to return home. Linda tells him
that he needs to rest his mind, and that he should work in New York, but he
feels that he is not needed there. He thinks that if Frank Wagner were alive he
would be in charge of New York, but his son, Howard, does not appreciate him as
much. Linda tells him how Happy, his younger son, took Biff, his eldest son,
out on a double-date, and it was nice to see them both at home. She reminds
Willy not to lose his temper with Biff, but Willy feels that there is an
undercurrent of resentment in Biff. Linda says that Biff is crestfallen and
admires Willy. They argue about whether or not Biff is lazy, and Willy believes
that Biff is a person who will get started later in life, like Edison or B.F.
Goodrich.
Biff Loman, at thirty-four, is
well-built but not at all self-assured. Happy, two years younger, is equally
tall and powerful, but is confused because he has never risked failure. The two
brothers discuss their father, thinking that his condition is deteriorating.
Biff wonders why his father mocks him, but Happy says that he merely wants Biff
to live up to his potential. Biff claims he has had twenty or thirty different
jobs since he left home before the war, but has been fired from each. He
reminisces about herding cattle and wistfully remembers working outdoors. Biff
worries that he is still merely a boy, while Happy says that despite the fact
that he has his own car, apartment, and plenty of women he is still
unfulfilled. Happy believes that he should not have to take orders at work from
men over whom he is physically superior. He also talks about how he has no
respect for the women he seduces, and really wants a woman with character, such
as their mother. Biff thinks that he may try again to work for Bill Oliver, for
whom he worked years ago but quit after stealing a carton of basketballs from
him.
The play shifts in time to the Loman
house years before, when Biff and Happy were teenagers. Willy reminds the
teenage Biff not to make promises to any girls, because they will always
believe what you tell them and he is too young to consider them seriously.
Happy brags that he is losing weight, while Biff shows Willy a football he took
from the locker room. Willy claims that someday he'll have his own business
like Charley, their next door neighbor. His business will be bigger than
Charley's, because Charley is "liked, but not well-liked." Willy
brags about meeting the mayor of Providence and knowing the finest people in
New England. Bernard, Charley's son, enters and tells Willy that he is worried
that Biff will fail math class and not be able to attend UVA. Willy tells
Bernard not to be a pest and to leave. After Bernard leaves, Willy tells his
sons that Bernard, like Charley, is liked but not well-liked. Willy claims
that, although Bernard gets the best grades in school, in the business world it
is personality that matters and that his sons will succeed. After the boys
leave, Linda enters and Willy discusses his worry that people don't respect
him. Linda reassures him and points out that his sons idolize him.
Miller returns to the more recent past
past for a short scene that takes place in a hotel room in Boston. A nameless
woman puts on a scarf and Willy tells her that he gets lonely and worries about
his business. The woman claims that she picked Willy for his sense of humor,
and Willy promises to see her the next time he is in Boston.
Willy, back in the kitchen with Linda,
scolds her for mending her own stocking, claiming that she should not have to
do such menial things. He goes out on the porch, where he tells Bernard to give
Biff the answers to the Regents exam. Bernard refuses because it is a State
exam. Linda tells Willy that Biff is too rough with the girls, while Bernard
says that Biff is driving without a license and will flunk math. Willy, who
hears the voice of the woman from the hotel room, screams at Linda that there
is nothing wrong with Biff, and asks her if she wants her son to be a worm like
Bernard. Linda, in tears, exits into the living room.
The play returns to the present, where
Willy tells Happy how he nearly drove into a kid in Yonkers, and wonders why he
didn't go to Alaska with his brother Ben, who ended up with diamond mines and
came out of the jungle rich at the age of twenty-one. Happy tells his father
that he will enable him to retire. Charley enters, and he and Willy play cards.
Charley offers Willy a job, which insults him, and they argue over the ceiling
that Willy put up in his living room. Willy tells Charley that Ben died several
weeks ago in Africa. Willy hallucinates that Ben enters, carrying a valise and
umbrella, and asks about their mother. Charley becomes unnerved by Willy's
hallucination and leaves.
The play returns to the past, where
Willy introduces his sons to Ben, whom he calls a great man. Ben in turn boasts
that his father was a great man and inventor. Willy shows off his sons to Ben,
who tells them never to fight fair with a stranger, for they will never get out
of the jungle that way. Charley reprimands Willy for letting his sons steal
from the nearby construction site, but Willy says that his kids are a couple of
"fearless characters." While Charley says that the jails are full of
fearless characters, Ben says that so is the stock exchange.
The play returns to the present, where
Happy and Biff ask Linda how long Willy has been talking to himself. Linda
claims that this has been going on for years, and she would have told Biff if
she had had an address at which she could contact him. She confronts Biff about
his animosity toward Willy, but Biff claims that he is trying to change his
behavior. He tells Linda that she should dye her hair again, for he doesn't
want his mother to look old. Linda asks Biff if he cares about Willy; if he
does not, he cannot care about her. Finally, she tells her sons that Willy has
attempted suicide by trying to drive his car off a bridge, and by hooking a
tube up to the gas heater in the basement. She says that Willy is not a great
man, but is a human being and "attention must be paid" to him. Biff
relents and promises not to fight with his father. He tells his parents that he
will go to see Bill Oliver to talk about a sporting goods business he could
start with Happy. Willy claims that if Biff had stayed with Oliver he would be
on top by now.
The next day, Willy sits in the
kitchen, feeling rested for the first time in months. Linda claims that Biff
has a new, hopeful attitude, and the two dream of buying a little place in the
country. Willy says that he will talk to Howard Wagner today and ask to be
taken off the road. As soon as Willy leaves, Linda gets a phone call from Biff.
She tells him that the pipe Willy connected to the gas heater is gone.
At the office of Howard Wagner,
Willy's boss, Howard shows Willy his new wire recorder as Willy attempts to ask
for a job in New York. Howard insists that Willy is a road man, but Willy
claims that it is time for him to be more settled. He has the right to it
because he has been in the firm since Howard was a child, and even named him.
Willy claims that there is no room for personality or friendship in the
salesman position anymore, and begs for any sort of salary, giving lower and
lower figures. Willy insists that Howard's father made promises to him. Howard
leaves, and Willy leans on his desk, turning on the wire recorder. This
frightens Willy, who shouts for Howard. Howard returns, exasperated, and fires
Willy, telling him that he needs a good, long rest and should rely on his sons
instead of working.
Willy hallucinates that Ben enters and
Linda, as a young woman, tells Willy that he should stay in New York. Not
everybody has to conquer the world and Frank Wagner promised that Willy will
someday be a member of the firm. Willy tells the younger versions of Biff and
Happy that it's "who you know" that matters. Bernard arrives, and
begs Biff to let him carry his helmet to the big game at Ebbets Field, while
Willy becomes insulted that Charley may have forgotten about the game.
The play returns to the present day,
where the adult Bernard sits in his father's office. His father's secretary,
Jenny, enters and tells Bernard that Willy is shouting in the hallway. Willy
talks to Bernard who will argue a case in Washington soon and whose wife has
just given birth to their second son. Willy wonders why Biff's life ended after
the Ebbets Field game, and Bernard asks why Willy didn't make Biff to go summer
school so that he could go to UVA. Bernard pinpoints the timing of Biff's
failures to his visit to his father in New England, after which Biff burned his
UVA sneakers. He wonders what happened during that visit. Charley enters, and
tells Willy that Bernard will argue a case in front of the Supreme Court.
Charley offers Willy a job, which he refuses out of pride. Charley criticizes
Willy for thinking that personality is the only thing that matters in business.
Willy remarks that a person is worth more dead than alive, and tells Charley
that, even though they dislike one another, Charley is the only friend he has.
At the restaurant where Willy is to
meet his sons, Happy flirts with a woman and tells her that Biff is a
quarterback with the New York giants. Biff admits to Happy that he did a
terrible thing during his meeting with Bill Oliver. Bill did not remember Biff,
who pocketed his fountain pen before he left. Biff insists that they tell their
father about this tonight. Willy arrives and tells his sons that he was fired.
Although Biff tries to lie to Willy about his meeting, Biff and Willy fight.
Biff finally gives up and tries to explain. As this occurs, Willy hallucinates
about arguing with the younger version of Biff. Miss Forsythe, the woman with
whom Happy was flirting, returns with another woman and prepares to go out on a
double date with Happy and Biff. Happy denies that Willy is their father.
Willy imagines being back in the hotel
room in Boston with the woman. The teenage Biff arrives at the hotel and tells
Willy that he failed math class, and begs his father to talk to Mr. Birnbaum.
Biff hears the woman, who is hiding in the bathroom. Willy lies to Biff,
telling him that the woman is merely there to take a shower because she is
staying in the next room and her shower is broken. Biff realizes what is going
on. Willy throws the woman out, and she yells at him for breaking the promises
he made to her. Willy admits the affair to Biff, but promises that the woman
meant nothing to him and that he was lonely.
At the restaurant, the waiter helps Willy and
tells him that his sons left with two women. Willy insists on finding a seed
store so that he can do some planting. When Biff and Happy return home, they
give their mother flowers. She asks them if they care whether their father
lives or dies, and says that they would not even abandon a stranger at the
restaurant as they did their father. Willy is planting in the garden. He
imagines talking to Ben about his funeral, and claims that people will come
from all over the country to his funeral, because he is well known. Ben says
that Willy will be a coward if he commits suicide. Willy tells Biff that he cut
his life down for spite, and refuses to take the blame for Biff's failure. Biff
confronts him about the rubber tube attached to the gas heater, and tells his
mother that it was he, not Willy, who took it away. Biff also admits that his
parents could not contact him because he was in jail for three months. Biff
insists that men like he and Willy are a dime a dozen, but Willy claims
otherwise. Biff cries for his father, asking him to give up his dreams, but
Willy is merely amazed that he would cry for his father. Happy vows to get
married and settle down, while everybody but Willy goes to sleep. Willy talks
to Ben, then rushes out of the house and speeds out away in his car. Happy and
Biff come downstairs in jackets, while Linda walks out in mourning clothes and
places flowers on Willy's grave.
Only his wife, sons, and Charley
attend Willy's funeral. Linda wonders where everybody else is, and says that
they have made their final house payment and are free and clear after
thirty-five years. Biff claims that Willy had the wrong dreams, but Charley
says that a salesman must dream, and that for a salesman there is no rock
bottom in life. Biff asks Happy to leave the city with him, but Happy vows to
stay in New York and prove that his father did not die in vain. Everybody
leaves but Linda, who remains at the grave and talks about how she made the
final house payment.
Character List
Willy Loman- A 60
year old salesman living in Brooklyn, Willy Loman is a gregarious, mercurial
man with powerful aspirations to success. However, after thirty-five years
working as a traveling salesman throughout New England, Willy Loman feels
defeated by his lack of success and difficult family life. Although he has a
dutiful wife, his relationship with his oldest son, Biff, is strained by Biff's
continual failures. As a salesman, Willy Loman focuses on personal details over
actual measures of success, believing that it is personality and not high
returns that garner success in the business world.
Biff Loman- The 34
year old son of Willy Loman, Biff was once a star high school athlete with a
scholarship to UVA. But he never attended college nor graduated from high
school, after refusing to attend summer school to make up a flunked math class.
He did this primarily out of spite after finding out that his father was having
an affair with a woman in Boston. Since then, Biff has been a continual
failure, stealing at every job and even spending time in jail. Despite his
failures and anger toward his father, Biff still has great concern for what his
father thinks of him, and the conflict between the two characters drives the
narrative of the play.
Linda Loman- The
dutiful, obedient wife to Willy and mother of Biff and Happy, Linda Loman is
the one person who supports Willy Loman, despite his often reprehensible
treatment of her. She is a woman who has aged greatly because of her difficult
life with her husband, whose hallucinations and erratic behavior she contends
with alone. She is the moral center of the play, occasionally stern and not
afraid to confront her sons about their poor treatment of their father.
Happy Loman- 32
year old- The younger of the two Loman sons, Happy Loman is seemingly
content and successful, with a steady career and none of the obvious marks of
failure that his older brother displays. Happy, however, is not content with
his more stable life, because he has never risked failure or striven for any
real measure of success. Happy is a compulsive womanizer who treats women
purely as sex objects and has little respect for the many women whom he
seduces.
Charley - The
Lomans' next door neighbor and father of Bernard, Charley is a good
businessman, exemplifying the success that Willy is unable to achieve. Although
Willy claims that Charley is a man who is "liked, but not
well-liked," he owns his own business and is respected and admired. He and
Willy have a contentious relationship, but Charley is nevertheless Willy's only
friend.
Bernard- Bernard
is Charley's only son. He is intelligent and industrious but lacks the
gregarious personality of either of the Loman sons. It is this absence of
spirit that makes Willy believe that Bernard will never be a true success in
the business world, but Bernard proves himself to be far more successful than
Willy imagined. As a grown-up, he is a lawyer preparing to argue a case in
front of the Supreme Court.
Ben- Willy's
dead brother. He is not a real character in the play. He comes to
hallucinations, of Willy Loman, carrying
a valise and umbrella, again and again. Ben left home at seventeen to
find their father in Alaska, but ended up in Africa, where he found diamond
mines and came out of the jungle at twenty-one an incredibly rich man. Ben
represents the success for which Willy has always hoped but can never seem to
achieve.
Dave Singleman: He is
not a real character in the play but Willy Loman’s inspiration. He was one of
the most famous salesmen in America and at his funeral, national and
international people came to show glowing tribute to him. Willy Loman wanted to
be a rich and reputed salesman like Dave Singleman but he could not be.
Howard Wagner- The 36
year old son of Frank Wagner, Willy Loman's former boss, Howard now occupies
the same position as his late father. Although Willy was the one who named
Howard, Howard is forced to fire Willy for his erratic behavior. Howard is
preoccupied with technology; when Willy meets with his new boss, he spends most
of the meeting demonstrating his new wire recorder.
Frank Wagner: (Materialistic) -He is the father of Howard Wagner.
After his death, his capable son, Howard Wagner runs his company.
Stanley- Stanley
is the waiter at the restaurant where Willy meets his sons. He helps Willy home
after Biff and Happy leave their father there.
The Woman- An
assistant in a company in Boston with which Willy does business, this nameless
character has a continuing affair with Willy. The Woman claims that Willy
ruined her and did not live up to his promises to her. When Biff finds the
Woman in Willy's hotel room, he begins his course of self-destructive behavior.
Bill Oliver: (Bad and cruel)- He is the ex-boss of Biff
Loman. Biff goes to him for a loan to start a sporting products business, but
he is neat and clean and rejected by Bill Oliver to provide any loan. In fact,
Bill could not even recognize Biff.
Jenny: Jenny is Charley’s secretary.
Letta: A prostitute who meets Biff and Happy at Frank’s
Chop House.
Miss Forsythe- An
attractive young woman at the restaurant, who serves the play by allowing Happy
to demonstrate his womanizing and seduction languages
Mr. Birnbaum- math
teacher of Biff Loman
Themes
The Dangers of Modernity
Death of a Salesman premiered in 1949 on the
brink of the 1950s, a decade of unprecedented consumerism and technical
advances in America. Many innovations applied specifically to the home: it was
in the 50s that the TV and the washing machine became common household objects.
Miller expresses an ambivalence toward modern objects and the modern mindset.
Although Willy Loman is a deeply flawed character, there is something
compelling about his nostalgia. Modernity accounts for the obsolescence of
Willy Loman's career - traveling salesmen are rapidly becoming out-of-date.
Significantly, Willy reaches for modern objects, the car and the gas heater, to
assist him in his suicide attempts.
Gender Relations
In Death of a Salesman, woman are sharply
divided into two categories: Linda and other. The men display a distinct
Madonna/whore complex, as they are only able to classify their nurturing and
virtuous mother against the other, easier women available (the woman with whom
Willy has an affair and Miss Forsythe being two examples). The men curse
themselves for being attracted to the whore-like women but is still drawn to
them - and, in an Oedipal moment, Happy laments that he cannot find a woman
like his mother. Women themselves are two-dimensional characters in this play.
They remain firmly outside the male sphere of business, and seem to have no
thoughts or desires other than those pertaining to men. Even Linda, the
strongest female character, is only fixated on a reconciliation between her
husband and her sons, selflessly subordinating herself to serve to assist them
in their problems.
Madness
Madness is a dangerous theme for many artists,
whose creativity can put them on the edge of what is socially acceptable.
Miller, however, treats the quite bourgeois subject of the nuclear family, so
his interposition of the theme of madness is startling. Madness reflects the
greatest technical innovation of Death of a Salesman--its seamless hops back
and forth in time. The audience or reader quickly realizes, however, that this
is based on Willy's confused perspective. Willy's madness and reliability as a
narrator become more and more of an issue as his hallucinations gain strength.
The reader must decide for themselves how concrete of a character Ben is, for
example, or even how reliable the plot and narrative structure are, when told
from the perspective of someone as on the edge as Willy Loman.
Cult of Personality
One of Miller's techniques throughout the play
is to familiarize certain characters by having them repeat the same key line
over and over. Willy's most common line is that businessmen must be well-liked,
rather than merely liked, and his business strategy is based entirely on the
idea of a cult of personality. He believes that it is not what a person is able
to accomplish, but who he knows and how he treats them that will get a man
ahead in the world. This viewpoint is tragically undermined not only by Willy's
failure, but also by that of his sons, who assumed that they could make their
way in life using only their charms and good looks, rather than any more solid
talents.
Nostalgia / regret
The dominant emotion throughout this play is
nostalgia, tinged with regret. All of the Lomans feel that they have made
mistakes or wrong choices. The technical aspects of the play feed this emotion
by making seamless transitions back and forth from happier, earlier times in
the play. Youth is more suited to the American dream, and Willy's business
ideas do not seem as sad or as bankrupt when he has an entire lifetime ahead of
him to prove their merit. Biff looks back nostalgic for a time that he was a high
school athletic hero, and, more importantly, for a time when he did not know
that his father was a fake and a cheat, and still idolized him.
Opportunity
Tied up intimately with the idea of the
American dream is the concept of opportunity. America claims to be the land of
opportunity, of social mobility. Even the poorest man should be able to move
upward in life through his own hard work. Miller complicates this idea of
opportunity by linking it to time, and illustrating that new opportunity does
not occur over and over again. Bernard has made the most of his opportunities;
by studying hard in school, he has risen through the ranks of his profession
and is now preparing to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court. Biff, on
the other hand, while technically given the same opportunities as Bernard, has
ruined his prospects by a decision that he made at the age of eighteen. There
seems to be no going back for Biff, after he made the fatal decision not to
finish high school.
lost opportunities
A major theme of the play is the lost
opportunities that each of the characters face. Linda Loman, reminiscing about
the days when her sons were not yet grown and had a less contentious
relationship with their father, regrets the state of disarray into which her
family has fallen. Willy Loman believes that if Frank Wagner had survived, he
would have been given greater respect and power within the company. Willy also
regrets the opportunities that have passed by Biff, whom he believes to have
the capability to be a great man.
Growth
In a play which rocks back and forth through
different time periods, one would normally expect to witness some growth in the
characters involved. Not so in Death of a Salesmen, where the various members
of the Loman family are stuck with the same character flaws, in the same
personal ruts throughout time. For his part, Willy does not recognize that his
business principles do not work, and continues to emphasize the wrong
qualities. Biff and Happy are not only stuck with their childhood names in
their childhood bedrooms, but also are hobbled by their childhood problems:
Biff's bitterness toward his father and Happy's dysfunctional relationship with
women. In a poignant moment at the end of the play, Willy tries to plant some
seeds when he realizes that his family has not grown at all over time.
American Dream
Death of a Salesman is considered by many to
be the quintessential modern literary work on the American dream, a term created
by James Truslow Adams in his 1931 book, The Epic of America. This is somewhat
ironic, given that it is such a dark and frustrated play. The idea of the
American dream is as old as America itself.
Miller had an uncertain relationship with the
idea of the American dream. On one hand, Bernard's success is a demonstration
of the idea in its purist and most optimistic form. Through his own hard work
and academic success, Bernard has become a well-respected lawyer. It is ironic,
however, that the character most obviously connected to the American dream, who
boasts that he entered the jungle at age seventeen and came out at twenty-one a
rich man, actually created this success in Africa, rather than America. There
is the possibility that Ben created his own success through brute force rather
than ingenuity. The other doubt cast on the American dream in Death of a
Salesman is that the Loman men, despite their charm and good intentions, have
not managed to succeed at all. Miller demonstrates that the American dream
leaves those who need a bit more community support, who cannot advocate for
themselves as strongly, in the dust.
Summary of Act I.1 (Loman Home,
Present):
The troubled, misguided, and
travelling salesman in his sixties, Willy Loman, enters his home. He
appears very tired and confused. Linda Loman, his wife, puts on a robe and
slippers and goes downstairs. She has been asleep. Linda is mostly
jovial, but represses objections to her husband. Her struggle is to support him
while still trying to guide him. She worries that he smashed the car, but he
says that nothing happened. He claims that he's tired to death and couldn't
make it through the rest of his trip. He got only as far as Yonkers, and
doesn't remember the details of the trip. He tells Linda that he kept swerving
onto the shoulder of the road, but Linda thinks that it must be faulty steering
in the car.
Linda says that there's no reason why
he can't work in New York, but Willy says he's not needed there. Willy says, “I’m the New England man. I’m vital in New England.”
Willy claims that if Frank Wagner were alive he would be in charge of New York
by now, but that his son, Howard, doesn't appreciate him. Linda tells him that
Happy took Biff on a double date, and that it was nice to see them shaving
together. In Willy’opinion, it takes life time to achieve success: ”Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it,
and there’s nobody to live in it.” Linda reminds him not to lose
his temper with Biff, but Willy claims that he simply had asked him if he was
making any money. Willy says that there is an undercurrent of resentment in
Biff, but Linda says that Biff admires his father. Willy calls Biff a lazy bum
and says that he is lost.
When Willy loses himself in
reminiscences, Linda trying to bring him out of it, Says:
LINDA: Willy,
dear, I got a new kind of American-type cheese today. It’s whipped.
WILLY: Why do you
get American when I like Swiss?
LINDA: I just
thought you’d like a change...
WILLY: I don’t
want a change! I want Swiss cheese.
Willy longs for the days when their
neighborhood was less developed and less crowded. He wakes up his sons Biff and
Happy, both of whom are in the double bunk in the boys' bedroom.
WILLY: “Certain men just don’t get started till later in life.
Like Thomas Edison; I think. Or B. F. Goodrich. One of them was deaf. I’ll put
my money on Biff.”
Willy Loman clings only to his dreams
and ideals. Linda has a similar longing for an idealized past, but has learned
to suppress her dreams and her dissatisfaction with her husband and sons. The
major conflict is between Biff Loman and his father.
Summary of Act I.2 (Loman Home, Present):
Biff (34) is
well-built but somewhat worn and not very self-assured. Happy (32) is
tall and powerfully made. He is a visibly sexual person. Both boys are somewhat
lost, Happy because he has never risked defeat. The two brothers discuss their
father. Happy thinks that Willy's license will be taken away, and Biff suggests
that his father's eyes are going.
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