Death of a Salesman

Question 1

What is the flute described as “telling of” at the beginning of the play?

Answer 1

“telling of grass and trees and the horizon.”

Question 2

What surrounds the Loman house? What is this symbolic of?

Answer 2

“towering shapes behind it, surrounding it on all sides.”

Question 3

How is the fragility of the Lomans’ domestic situation emphasised at the beginning of the play?

Answer 3

“the small, fragile-seeming home.”

Question 4

How is the American Dream described in relation to the Loman house at the beginning?

Answer 4

“An air of the dream clings to the place, a dream rising out of reality.”

Question 5

How is the Loman’s low status in the world emphasised at the beginning?

Answer 5

“the brass bedstead” and “the silver athletic trophy”

Question 6

How does Miller emphasise the free-flow between past and present through the setting of the house?

Answer 6

“The entire setting is wholly, or, in some places, partially transparent.”
“Whenever the action is in the present the actors observe the imaginary wall-lines … But in the scenes of the past these boundaries are broken…”

Question 7

How does Miller describe Willy at the beginning of the play, immediately establishing him as the tragic hero?

Answer 7

“his exhaustion is apparent” and he “thankfully lets his burden down.”

Question 8

How does Miller describe Willy’s nature?

Answer 8

“his mercurial nature”

Question 9

How does Miller silence Linda at the beginning of the play?

Answer 9

“Most often jovial, she has developed an iron repression of her exceptions to Willy’s behaviour … longings which she shares but lacks the temperament to utter and follow to their end.”

Question 10

How does Willy describe his psychological state at the beginning of the play when he returns home from work?

Answer 10

“I’m tired to the death.”

Question 11

How does Willy describe his apparent loss of touch with reality at the beginning of the play?

Answer 11

“No, it’s me, it’s me. Suddenly I realise I’m going sixty miles an hour and I don’t remember the last five minutes.”

Question 12

What evidence is there of Willy longing for the idyllic at the beginning?

Answer 12

“But its so beautiful up there, Linda, the trees are so thick, and the sun is warm.”

Question 13

What happened to Willy on his way back from work?

Answer 13

“I might’ve killed somebody.”

Question 14

What are Willy’s thoughts like? (beginning)

Answer 14

“I have such thoughts, I have such strange thoughts.”

Question 15

What does Willy say about New England?

Answer 15

“I’m the New England man. I’m vital in New England.”

Question 16

What does Willy say about his empty house?

Answer 16

“Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there’s nobody to live in it.”

Question 17

What has Linda accepted about life?

Answer 17

“Well, dear, life is a casting off. It’s always that way.”

Question 18

What does Willy think about Biff’s job as a farmhand?

Answer 18

“Is that a life? A farmhand? … But its more than ten years now and he has yet to make thirty-five dollars a week!”

Question 19

How does Willy describe Biff’s work ethic?

Answer 19

“The trouble is he’s lazy goddammit!”
“Biff is a lazy bum!”
“Biff Loman is lost. 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.”

Question 20

What does Willy say about the urbanisation of the neighbourhood land?

Answer 20

“There’s not a breath of fresh air in the neighbourhood. The grass don’t grow anymore, you can’t raise a carrot in the backyard … Remember those two beautiful elm trees out there? When Biff and I swung between them?”
“They massacred the neighbourhood. (Lost.) More ans more I think of those days, Linda. This time of year it was lilac and wisteria. And then the peonies would come out, and the daffodils. What fragrance in this room!”

Question 21

What does Willy say is ruining this country?

Answer 21

“Population is getting out of control. The competition is maddening!”

Question 22

What is Willy proud of Biff for doing?

Answer 22

“Remember those days? The way Biff used to Simonize that car? The dealer refused to believe there was eighty thousand miles on it.”

Question 23

How is Biff described upon entry?

Answer 23

“well built, but in these days bears a worn air and seems less self-assured. He has succeeded less, and his dreams are stronger and less acceptable than Happy’s.”

Question 24

How is Happy described upon entry?

Answer 24

“Happy is tall, powerfully made. Sexuality is like a visible colour on him, or a scent that many women have discovered. He, like his brother, is lost, but in a different way, for he has never allowed himself to turn his face towards defeat and is thus more confused and hard-skinned, although seemingly more content.”

Question 25

What does Biff say about meritocracy to Happy?

Answer 25

“To suffer fifty weeks of the year for the sake of a two-week vacation, when all you really desire is to be outdoors, with your shirt off. And always have to get ahead of the next fella. And still - that’s how you build a future.”
“I’ve always made a point of not wasting my life, and every time I come back here I know that all I’ve done is to waste my life.”

Question 26

Is Happy content with his lot in life?

Answer 26

“But then, it’s what I always wanted. My own apartment, a car, and plenty of women. And still, goddammit, I’m lonely.”