Act One Act Two The Play as a whole   Relevant Links

Act One

1. The first stage direction is long and significant.  What does it tell us about a) the characters Willy and Linda, b) the central theme of the play (e.g. "the fragile-seeming house," apartment buildings, the "one-dimensional" roof, the colors, the flute, etc.)?

2. In the first dialogue between Linda and Willy, what do we find out about

• Willy's present conditions; What is Willy like in the "present" of the play?  Why does he always talk to himself?  What is the significance of the rubber pipe (1067; 1072)?
• the relationship between Willy and Linda,
• and Willy's views of Biff?

3. Willy and his sons in the past:  Act I shows how Willy goes back to his "glorious" past and then to a source of his failure and sense of guilt--that is, the way he teaches his kid, his unsuccessful business, and the affair he has with a woman.  So far you won't know why the three are interrelated, but pay attention to each: how and why Willy does each thing, and how he tries to justify himself.

• Willy as a salesman: What do we know about his work, in the past and in the present?   How did Willy talk about it to his sons in the past?  What was his dream?  Even in the past, when he has the red Chevvy he is proud of, does he earn a lot?  Is he as "well liked" as he says he is?  (pp. 1052-54)
• Willy and the boys: In the dialogue Willy had in the past with his sons, what did he care most about?  How does he respond to Biff's stealing the football?  Look for the signs of affection Willy and Biff show to each other (e.g. the gift, Biff's missing him, the gesture at touchdown).
• Willy in the consumer society: Why is he so proud of his red Chevvy, and Biff's "simonizing job"?  How about the fridge?  Why does he and his wife believe that it is a good one when it is broken so soon?
• Minor characters, Bernard and Charley: How do the Lomans treat them?
• The woman with laughters:  Why does the laughter emerge when 1) Willy admits his own failure, and 2) Willy heard about Biff's failures?

• Why is Ben important to Willy?  Why does he talk about the jungle, Africa and Alaska?  How is this related to the American Dream?  Why does he appear in front of Willy while Charley is there?  How are the two a contrast to each other?  What is his jungle theory of success?
• In his dialogue with Ben, Willy's childhood and his father are mentioned.  What kind of person is their father?  Does Willy's father influence Willy a lot?  Can we see Ben as a substitute father for Willy?

• A lot more is revealed about Willy and Linda in the way she talks to her sons about him.  Is Linda a blind admirer of Willy?  Linda's speech changes Biff's attitude toward his father.  Does she manage to win your sympathy, too?  ("Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person"; her revelation of Willy's not earning anything and suicidal attempts [the rubber pipe]).  In other words, do you think that Linda should be so supportive of Willy, or should she change him?
• Why does Biff decide to join the business world?  What does Happy say about Biff in his business world?  Why is "whistling in the evelator" important?

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Act Two 

The end of Act One shows the two strands of plot--one about the past and one about the father and the sons' future plans--coming together, with the father and the sons trying to make up for the past conflict through working on their future plans.

A. the present conditions
1. The consumer society, installment and insurance -- At the beginning of this act, we see Linda and Willy talk about the household electric wares such as the fridge, which is similar to the one they had in the "past" of Act I.  What is ironic about Willy's complaints about the Hastings refrigerator and the installment plan?   And "to weather a twenty-five year mortgage" as an accomplishment?

2. Garden and fine tools --  Besides being pre-occupied with the past and trying to improve his job and relationship with Biff, another thing dominates Willy's thinking is his desire to have a garden and plant vegetables in "a little place out in the country" and then in his backyard.  Is the country, then, set as a contrast to the city in this play?  What does this reveal about Willy's personality?  Does planting help him keep his sense of identity in a big and alienating city?

B. efforts to carry out  the future plans
1. The future plans get denied in Act II.  How?  What causes Willy's and Biff's failures, their personality, or the competitive business world?

2. The business world -- When Willy talks to Howard, several things shows the real nature of this business world (which is a contrast to Willy's emphasis on adventurousness, personality and personal contacts).

• wire recorder -- Besides Howard's attempt to catch up with the newest trend in the world of machanical reproduction, what else is this machine symbolic of?  Pay close attention to what he records (the daughter's whistling, the son's reading the names of the capitals and the wife's inability to speak) and how Willy is incompetent in front of this machine.
• What is Howard's attitude toward Willy's plea to stay in New York?  Does he care about the history Willy recounts?
• How does Willy try to compromise?

• What's the difference between being a salesman and a "shipping clerk"?  Why does Biff realize that he, like his father and brother, has been talking in a dream?   What does he realize after his experience at the office?
• Why does Biff take the fountain pen away from Oliver?

4. Willy vs. Charley, Biff vs. Bernard -- At Charley's office, we get to see both Charley and Bernard quite successful, a contrast to Willy and Biff.  What make the two pairs of father and son different from each other?   Consider some of the comments Charley and Barnard make:

• Bernard[about Biff] "He never train himself for anything."
• Charley: "My salvation is that I never took interest in anything."
• Charley: "Why must everybody like you?  Who liked J.P. Morgan?  . . . In a Turkish bath he'd look like a butcher.  But with his pockets on him he was very well liked."

• What does  Happy ask Biff to say to Willy instead of admitting his failure?
• When Happy denies that Willy is their father, is it surprising?  Are there other clues to prepare for this (e.g. how much money does he give to his parents while staying with them)?

1). How is the past revelation developed?  Pay close attention to the juxtaposition of the past and the present and their interrelationship.  How does Willy try to get away with his sense of failure twice in this Act when talking to Howard and then to Biff?

2) After he is fired by Howard, the first hallucination is about his talk with Ben, and then we have the scene of the family's going to Ebbets Field to watch Biff play in a football game.  How do the two scenes function for Willy?  As an escape?  A self-justification?
3) In the bar, how does Willy refuse to listen to Biff's actual experience with Bill Oliver?  At the point when Biff said, "I can't talk to him," there is the intrusion of Bernard from the past ("Mrs. Loman, Mrs. Loman!").  How does Willy try to escape from both the present and the past?    (Clues: he says, "I'm not in my room!")  Ironically, as Willy goes to the restroom, he is confronted with the past he tries hard to forget.
4) How does Willy walk out of this emotional encounter with the past?  At the moment, he is actually left behind by his beloved sons, but he remembers to pay Stanley and then he goes off to buy and plant the seeds.  What do you think about this behavior?

• In the final argument and reconciliation between Biff and Willy, what is revealed by Biff?

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The Requiem & the Play as a whole 
(Here a lot of Arthur Miller's interpretations are quoted, and you will find that MIller tries hard to persuade us that Willy Loman is a tragic hero.  However, you do not need to agree with the author.)

1. Is Willy Loman a tragic hero who acts and wins our esteem?  Or is he a victim?  A victim of his own character or of a system of ruthless competition?

 A. Personality --

• Willy Loman, for Miller as he pointed out in a 1958 symposium, "is seeking for a kind of ecstasy in life, which the machine-civilization deprives people of.  He's looking for his selfhood, for his immortal soul, so to speak."  Miller thinks that Willy's problem is in having values that cannot be realized.   Do you agree?  What are Willy Loman's dreams, for himself, for his family, and especially for Biff?  Why does he, or his sons, fail to realize them?
• The mature Bernard says to Willy: "it's better for a man just to walk away."  Why cannot Willy?  Do you see his persistence a flaw or a merit?
• What could he and his family have done to avoid the tragedy?

• What is Willy searching for?  Who, or what, instills in Willy his dream for something glorious?  Could it be that he is actually searching for his father, for feeling secure and not "temporary"?  With his sons, is Willy a good father?  Has he been wanting to be a good father?

• Why does Willy want to both earn more money and go out in the country or to the West?   Are there contradictions in his dream?
• Consider the roles of what Miller calls "the machine-civilization" in the novel: the car, the vacuum clean, the fridge the installment system and the wire recorder.  Is Willy a victim of this system?
• In several passages Linda talks about Willy's loneliness, his not being known and not being appreciated.  How is that related to contemporary caplitalist society?
• For Miller, there is a law that governs Willy's society (and maybe ours): the law of success, "a law which says that a faillure in society and in business has no right to live" (169), and Willy has broken that law.  This reminds us of Linda's plea for attention and respect for Willy.   We can, however, put the issue differently: is "successful or not" our standard of judging and evaluating people?  Or one's ways of dealing with one's own success and failure?  How does Willy deal with his failures?  How does he "succeed"?

• [End of Act I] Linda: " I don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's

not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person. "
• [The bar scene in Act II] Biff: "A fine, troubled prince. A hardworking, unappreciated prince. A pal, you understand? A good companion. Always for his boys.
• [Requiem]  Charley: Nobody dast blame this man. You don't understand: Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. and when they start not smiling back -- that's an earthquake. .  ."

 Biff: Charley, the man didn't know who he was.
 Happy: Don't say that!

• In the first stage direction, Miller describes Linda as one who "admires" Willy, who shares his longings "but lacks the temperament to utter and follow to their end" (1039).  Is Linda, then, a blind follower of Willy, and a submissive and quiet care-taker of the family?  What other roles does she play ?  Consider her speech with her sons.   What does it mean when she said she at the end that "[she] can't cry.  [She doesn't] understand it [why Willy commit suicide]"?.What does it mean when she then says, "We're free and clear...We're free..."?
• Describe Linda's importance to Willy and esp. to Biff.  In a sense, when Biff tries to "make good," he does it more for Linda than for Willy.  Why?  Out of his Oedipal love for Linda or as an attempt for make up for her?

• Why does Biff fail to meet Willy's expectation?   Do you find his final comment on himself and his father courageous self-realization or cowardly self-rejection?
• The ending shows that Happy wants to realize Willy's dream of becoming a "number-one man."  Do you think he will make it?  Does Biff know more about what American dream is?  When Happy says that "I'm gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It's the only dream you can have -- to come out  number-one man. He fought it out here, and this is where I'm gonna win it for him," does he show his true love for Willy or his fascination with the dream?

• Discuss the significance of the flute: what it represents and why, and the moments when its music is heard. (e.g. 1039; 1048; 1060-61; 1113)
• Symbolic expressions: Here is a list of things with symbolic meanings in the text (listed by  David Biele in his Teacher's Guide.)  Please look for them in the text and find out their significance and symbolic meanings.

• The past and the present: The play shifts a lot between the past and the present, which shows that the characters are preoccupied with the past.  What is the central event in the past that both Willy and Biff are preoccupied with?  How is the past juxtaposed with the present, as a parallel, a contrast, or a cause?  Consider, again, Miller's comment: "There are no flashbacks in this play but only a mobile concurrency of past and present.. . . "(Introduction to Collected Plays from the Viking version p. 159-60)

 
• The Stage Directions:

1)  The stage directions, first of all, switch to the past scene and then back to the present, as the filim fades in and out of the major present and past scenes (i.e. present dining room, the past backyard, the present bar and the past Boston hotel room).   Pay attention to the things the stage directions mention to make the transition (e.g. the woman's laughter, Bernard's words, the flute, etc.)   Why?  If we see the whole play as dominated by Willy's stream of consciousness (the original title of the play is Inside his Head), what important do these words and gestures and object have in his mind?
• Read closely and you will find how the stage performance on  is different from the film version.  Besides the merging/ the film shows Willy going to places.  But  how about the play?
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For your reference: Background 

  The Author
                                   Miller's Inspirations for Salesman

        "Death of a Salesman began as a short story that Arthur Miller  wrote at the age of seventeen while he was working for his father's company. . . . "

"In his autobiography Timebends, . . .  Miller  based Willy Loman largely on his own uncle, Manny Newman. . . .

Miller described Newman as a man who was 'a competitor at all  times, in all things, and at every, moment.'  Miller said that his uncle saw "my brother and I running neck and neck with his two   sons [Buddy and Abby] in some horse race [for success] that  never stopped in his mind." He also said that the Newman  household was one in which you 'dared not lose hope, and I  would later think of it as a perfection of America for that  reason...It was a house trembling with resolution and shouts of victories that had not yet taken place but surely would tomorrow.'   The Loman home was built on the foundation of this  household. (from Student Guide Written and Designed by David Biele)

• Arthur Miller Bio (playwright, born October 17, 1915, New York, New York)
• CHRONOLOGY

 
• Concordance to Miller, Death of a Salesman

     Concordance to the complete text; includes: Complete alphabetical word list from Death of a Salesman, complete word list by frequency from Death of a Salesman, search for word from text of  play, search for short text section or character name, search for source location of text in play.
 
• Death of a Salesman - Broadway production of Death of a Salesman starring Brian Dennehy. The site has bios, reviews, and tickets for sale.  quite useful!

 
• Death of a Salesman: STUDY RESOURCE CENTER very useful.  With study guides for both teachers and students and some related articles.
• More study guides: 1. Student's Study Guide; 2. Teacher Guide; 3. Penguin Reading and Responding Guide

 
• Death of a Salesman Review
• Death of a Salesman Links
• Death of a Salesman - Death of a Salesman American Drama 1996 Issue and links for Miller Aristotle's Definition of Tragedy and Modern Drama Review of Play Return to Junior Honors page
• Death of a Salesman - Death of a Salesman By Arthur Miller Directed by Jim Moc
• Death of a Salesman (Summary Page)
• Death of a Salesman - The following essays were written by Ms. Susan Collura's Sophomore Honors class at Holy Cross High School, Flushing, New York
• Vocabulary from Death of a Salesman by XXX for VOCAB U. -  Our mission is to "make words come alive"

              in a dynamic, new approach to learning vocabulary featured here at Vocabulary University on the WWWeb.
• A General Introduction

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