Death of a Salesman. Flashcards
What is the plot of Death of a Salesman?
Death of a Salesman is Miller’s tragic masterpiece about Willy Loman, the ageing travelling salesman haunted and driven by empty of prosperity and success. Charting Willy’s downfall and tragic end, the play has been justly celebrated as one of the most famous dramatisations of the dark side of the American dream.
Who are the characters?
Willy Loman: The travelling salesman. Linda: Willy Loman's wife. Biff: The elder son in the Loman family. Happy: Biff's younger brother. The woman: A mysterious character. Uncle Ben: Willy's brother. Charley: Willy's neighbour. Bernard: Charley's son. Howard Wagner: Willy's Boss. Jenny: Charley's secretary. Stanley, Miss Forsythe and Letta: Characters in the restaurant scene.
Willy Loman
Willy has many roles. He is a son, husband, father, neighbor, lover and employee. Willy Loman is defined by his role as a salesman but we never see him working in that capacity.
What is Willy’s role as a husband?
We see Willy first as a husband returning unexpectedly from an aborted sales trip. Miller is quick to establish the inequality in their marital relationship and to reveal Willy as the family patriarch. In his happy memories, Willy shows a gallant attitude towards his wife. He shows a dependence upon her that is absent in the scenes in the present. He shouts at her for buying the wrong cheese in Act one. Later, we discover that Willy’s guilt over his affair with the woman torments him.
Father.
Willy’s experience as a son is shown to have influenced his behavior as a father and it is his role as a father that is his most significant in the play. As a result of his experiences, Willy has striven to be a good father to Biff and Happy.
What is Linda’s role in the play?
Linda supports Willy throughout the play. Miller presents Linda as a patient and under demanding wife who constantly boosts Willy’s confidence and overlooks his short temper. She also appreciates that Willy is a difficult man and she ignores his outbursts.
What is Biff’s role in the play?
Biff has more self-awareness than Willy or Happy and he functions as Miller’s mouthpiece. As the favored son, he is critical to Willy’s emotional and mental well being.
What is Happy’s role in the play?
Miller describes Happy as ‘tall and powerful made”. In the course of the play, Miller shows Happy to be a great deal like his father. Happy has embraced Willy’s dream.
The Great depression
When Miller wrote death of a salesman in 1949, it was only a few years since the end of the second world war in 1945. The fictional, Willy Loman has lived through and survived the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, finances were tight for American families.
The American Dream.
- The familiar term of ‘the American dream’ was first coined by historian James Truslow Adams in his 1931 book the Epic of America.
- The notion of the American dream is based upon America’s declaration of Independence which stipulates that ‘all men are created equal’ with the right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’. This ideal was envisaged long before the advent of heavy industry in America.
- In the 19th century, when Willy’s father was making a living selling flutes right across the country, the American dream for many US citizens was focused on acquiring and cultivating their own land.
- America was considered to be a land of opportunity where the pioneering spirit was admired. Willy’s long lost father represents this spirit of enterprise.
Travelling salesmen.
- When Miller wrote Death of a Salesman, the career of the travelling salesman was well established in the country and can be seen to play a significant part in bolstering the materialistic strand of the American dream.
- There had been a tremendous surge in the number of travelling salesmen employed in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century.
- Salesmanship flourished as a career opportunity. The job did not demand academic qualifications, but it did demand the ability to charm and of course, to sell.
Dreams.
- The American dream is embedded deep in the American psyche and is a central theme in Death of a Salesman.
- Through Willy Loman, Miller explores a particular manifestation of the American dream. Willy has a huge capacity to dream and he believes that through his work as a salesman, he can gain status, respect and wealth for his family. Throughout the play, he rebuuilds his dreams and refuses to accept that he can’t provide a great future, even though this eventually requires his own death.
- Willy’s dream is founded on the idea that material success is granted to those who are ‘well-liked’ and those who have ‘personal attractiveness’.
Truth and lies.
- Willy lies to Linda, he lies to his sons and he lies to himself.
- In this brief speech, Miller shows us Willy’s essentially contradictory nature, his boundless facility for self-deception which suddenly and uncharacteristically falls away to recognition of the truth.
- Throughout the play, Willy is in denial about the cause of his fractured relationship with Biff, the exposure of his secret affair with the woman in Boston.
Memories, nostalgia and change.
- As a memory play, the substance of the action is punctuated with Willy’s memories and Miller supports this with numerous repeated references to remembering.
- Willy looks back to his barely remembered childhood.
- Ironically, though Willy is a salesman, he appears to despise and resist the advances of technology.
Fathers, sons and sibling rivalry.
- Closely connected to the American dream is another of Miller’s themes: the relationship between fathers and sons. The aspiration at the heart of the American dream falls on the father, who is the patriarch and provider for the family.
