By

Arthur Miller
 About the writer and the play
 Characters
 General Summary
 Themes
 Important quotations
 Questions
Arthur Miller was born in New York City on
October 17, 1915. His career as a playwright
began while he was a student at the
University of Michigan. Several of his early
works won prizes, and during his senior year,
the Federal Theatre Project in Detroit
performed one of his works. He produced his
first great success, All My Sons, in 1947. Two
years later, Miller wrote Death of a Salesman,
which won the Pulitzer Prize and transformed
Miller into a national sensation
 First edition cover
 Original language: English

 Subject:
the waning days of a falling
salesman

 Genre: tragedy

 Setting:
1940, Willy Loman’s house in
New York city and Boston
Death of a Salesman -
Miller’s most famous work,
addresses the painful
conflicts within one family,
but it also tackles larger
issues regarding American
national values. The play
examines the cost of blind
faith in the American
Dream, that success and
status are rights, not
earned privileges.

Willy
 Death of a Salesman is Willy’s play. Everything
revolves around his actions during the last 24 hours of
his life. All of the characters act in response to him,
whether in the present or in his recollection of the
past. Willy is an individual who craves for attention
and is governed by a desire for success. He constantly
refers to his older brother Ben, who made a fortune in
diamond mining in Africa, because he represents all
the things Willy desires for himself and his sons.
 Willy’smemories are a key to understanding his
character. He carefully selects memories or re-
creates past events in order to devise situations
in which he is successful or to justify his current
lack of prosperity. Willy’s constant movement
from the present to the past results in his
contradictory nature.
 Willy perceives himself as a failure: He is not
Dave Singleman. He is just a mediocre salesman
who has only made monumental sales in his
imagination.
Biff is Willy’s older son, who drives Willy’s actions
and thoughts, particularly his memories,
throughout the play. Whenever Willy is unable to
accept the present, he retreats to the past, and
Biff is usually there. Biff grew up believing that he
was not bound by social rules or expectations
because Willy did not have to abide by them, nor
did Willy expect Biff to.
 Biff’s perception of Willy as the ideal father is
destroyed after Biff’s trip to Boston. Once he learns
that Willy is having an affair, Biff rejects him and his
philosophy. Biff considers Willy to be a “fake”, and he
no longer believes in, or goes along with, Willy’s grand
fantasies of success. Instead, Biff despises his father
and everything he represents.
 Linda is Willy’s wife. She is a character driven by
desperation and fear. Even though Willy is often rude
to her and there is the possibility that Linda suspects
Willy may have had an affair, she protects him at all
costs. According to Linda, Willy is “only a little boat
looking for a harbor.” She loves Willy, and more
importantly, she accepts all of his shortcomings.
 Happy is a young version of Willy. He incorporates his
father’s habit of manipulating reality in order to
create situations that are more favorable to him.
Happy grew up listening to Willy embellish the truth,
so it is not surprising that Happy exaggerates his
position in order to create the illusion of success.
Instead of admitting he is an assistant to the assistant,
Happy lies and tells everyone he is the assistant buyer.
This is Willy’s philosophy all over again.
 Willy Loman is a salesman, he has two sons; Biff and
Happy, and a wife named Linda. He has been a
salesman for over thirty years.
 At the beginning of the play we have an evidence
that he is tired of his work and that he is not a very
successful salesman anyway.
 He has difficulties with his finances and he is
worried about the future of his sons.
 Willy uses flashback to explain the present and the
future through actions happened in the past.
 He wishes he had been adventurous in his youth like
his brother Ben.
 In Willy’s mind he is a model for his sons to copy,
Biff, however, comes to realize that he cannot do
this, and consequently is continually angry with his
father for trying to push him into success.
 However, Biff agrees to go and see Bill Oliver a
man for whom he used to work to try to get a job.
This is after Linda revealed that Willy has been
contemplating killing himself by gas.
 The interview for this job never takes place
despite the family’s hopes and celebration.
 Biff and Happy cannot tell the real news to their
father, specially because Willy has just lost his job.
 Willy has had an affair with a woman in the past
which explains Biff’s changed attitude towards his
work and father whom he sees as false and fake.

 Revealing at the same time that he knows his

father has been contemplating suicide. He does
not know that Willy is determined to kill himself in
order to let Biff have his life assurance. He crashes
the car and dies leaving his wife and sons talking
over his grave.
 Theme of success
 Theme of pride
 Theme of betrayal
 Theme of American dream
 Throughout Death of a Salesman, Willy pursues
concrete evidence of his worth and success. He is
entranced by the very physical, tangible results of
Ben’s diamond mining efforts and strives to validate
his own life by claiming concrete success. Willy
projects his own obsession with material achievement
onto his sons, who struggle with a conflict between
their intangible needs and the pressure to succeed
materially
 Pride in Death of a Salesman functions as a means of
self-deception. The Lomans, and particularly Willy,
are extremely proud even though the basis for their
pride is not at all founded in reality. Willy celebrates
his own “astounding success” in business and the
accomplishments of his sons while the Lomans struggle
financially. He is too proud to accept a job from
Charley, yet accepts loans that he is unable to pay
back. Throughout the play, we are shown that Willy
and his family are incredibly proud people with
nothing real to be proud of.
 Death of a Salesman is full of betrayal. Willy betrays
Linda’s love and Biff’s trust with his affair. As the
chief betrayer himself, Willy is preoccupied with the
fear of betrayal. His frequent accusations that Biff is
spiteful reflect his understanding that Biff’s failure in
business is a rejection of Willy’s own dreams of
success, and that Biff’s inability to keep a job is
related to Willy’s love affair. Even outside of his
family, Willy feels that his boss is betraying him by
firing him, but Howard says that there’s no room for
feelings of betrayal in the business world.
 Willy Loman is a dreamer of epic proportions. His
dreams of material success and freedom ultimately
dwarf the other aspects of his mentality to the point
that he becomes completely unable to distinguish his
wild hopes from rational realities in the present. Happy
and Linda also are extremely optimistic, but they
maintain their ability to distinguish hopes from reality.
Biff more than any other character struggles against the
force of Willy’s dreams and expectations.
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 . . .
when all I want is out there, waiting for me
the minute I say I know who I am.
 Biff’s explanation to his father during the climax
of their final confrontation in Act II helps him
articulate the revelation of his true identity, even
though Willy cannot possibly understand. Biff is
confident and somewhat comfortable with the
knowledge that he is “a dime a dozen,” as this
escape from his father’s delusions allows him to
follow his instincts and align his life with his own
dreams.
Whereas Willy cannot comprehend any notion of
individual identity outside of the confines of the
material success and “well liked”-ness promised
by the American Dream, Biff realizes that he can
be happy only outside these confines. Though his
attempt to cure Willy’s delusions fails, Biff frees
himself from Willy’s expectations for him. He
sees the stupidity of stealing the pen and
renounces the commercial world, content to
enjoy the simple necessities of life.
Nothing’s planted. I don’t have a thing in the
ground.

After the climax in Frank’s Chop House, in Act II,

Willy talking to Stanley, suddenly fixates on
buying seeds to plant a garden in his diminutive,
dark backyard because he does not have “a
thing in the ground.” The garden functions as a
last-ditch substitute for Willy’s failed career and
Biff’s dissipated ambition. Willy realizes, at least
metaphorically, that he has no tangible proof of
his life’s work.
While he is planting the seeds and conversing

with Ben, he worries that “a man can’t go out

the way he came in,” that he has to “add up to

something.” His preoccupation with material

evidence of success belies his very profession,

which necessitates the ability to sell one’s own,

intangible image. The seeds symbolize Willy’s

failure in other ways as well.

The fact that Willy uses gardening as a
metaphor for success and failure indicates that
he subconsciously acknowledges that his chosen
profession is a poor choice, given his natural
inclinations. Though his figurative roots are in
sales (Ben claims that their father was a
successful salesman), Willy never blossomed
into the Dave Single man figure that he idolizes.
1-Flashback:
Act 1
 Willy’s family is portrayed to be happier in the past ( p.
21, 22, 23,24.., such happy moods contrast to that of the
family in the present.
 Flashback scenes give an evidence to Willy's
misconceptions about the American Dream from very long
before and this justifies the deteriorating state he has
reached at the end.
 “Charley is liked, but he is not well-liked”
 “Bernard is not well liked, is he”
 “The man who makes an appearance in the business world,
the man who creates personal interest, is the man who
gets ahead.”
 Willy resorts to escape his present by living in the past.
Acceptance of reality is very difficult for Willy Loman and this
causes him to have flashbacks whenever he is conscious of
reality.
Act 2:
When Howard fired him, his thoughts went back to the day when
young Biff has a football game. (page 69).
When Willy was conversing with Biff about what he had done
with Oliver, his mind went back again when his son Biff
flunked Math.

-Biff, “Flunked what? What are you talking about?”

-Willy, “don’t blame everything on me! I didn’t flunk Math-you
did!”

Recalling the discovery of his cheating to Linda:

Willy: “I am lonely, I am terribly lonely”
Biff: “don’t touch me, you are a liar……you fake…you phony
little fake”
 2-Hallucinations alongside the current action of the play in
the present:
 Willy breaks from his present and shifts to talk with
imaginary people; his brother Ben.
 “Ben! I’ve waiting for you so long! What’s the answer? How
did you do it?”
 “ listen to this. This is your uncle, a great man! Tell my
boys, Ben!”
 Willy asks Ben for advice when Howard refused to give him
a job in New York
 “ Oh, Ben, how did you do it? What is the answer?”
 “Ben, nothing is working out. I don’t know what to do”
 After the play reaches its climatic point, Willy has a last
conversation with the imaginary Ben.
 The characters have different versions of understanding
the notion of the American Dream and this eventually
determines everything.
1-Willy thinks that success= well-liked, attractive
 For example he says:
 “….who makes an appearance in the business world, the
man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets
ahead. Be well-liked and you will never want”
 Charley is not liked, he is liked, but he is not well-liked”
 This wrong perception results in :
 The failure of his sons…. Biff ends up realizing that he is
nothing.
Biff says, “ why am I trying to become what I don’t want to
be?”
“what am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous,
begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there,
waiting for the minute I say I know who I am !”
 The family bonds are broken down by Willy’s
deterioration
Biff says, “We never told the truth for ten
minutes in this house”
 Willy dwells on the past always and feels
alienated and helpless so he committed
suicide in order to support his family.
“….and the years, you end up worth more dead
than alive”
2- Charley and his son Bernard
They believe that “success is determined
by hard work”
They are hard-working realists.
Willy says about Charley, “He’s a man of
few words, and they respect him… I joke
too much”
Charley once said to Willy,” The only thing
you got in this world is what you can sell."
Bernard tells Willy,” But sometimes, Willy,
it’s better for a man just to walk away.
3- Willy’s manager, Howard
 Even though he is a successful man, his
attitude towards Willy reflects a mere
materialistic soul.
 He shows no interest to listen to Willy.
 He is an embodiment of the capitalistic
system that slips people out of their
humanity.
 Howard,” I cannot take blood from a stone”
 He doesn’t pay attention to Willy and gets
busy playing with the recorder feeling
unsympathetic to willy.
 Do Willy and his sons end up realizing
their misconception about what would
make them successful??

 Approaching the end of the play, Biff has

a full awareness of his situation and his
father’s wrong dreams.
“pop, I’m a dime a dozen and so you are”
“he had the wrong dreams. All, are wrong’
“he never knew who he was”
 Until the end of the play, Willy was not
accepting the fact that he has the wrong
dreams and was always defending his
beliefs.
“I am the New England man. I’m vital in
New England”
“I’m not a dime a dozen! I’m Willy Loman
and you are Biff Loman”
Even when he tries to find a proper solution
for his crisis, he makes up the wrong one
by deciding to commit suicide. This means
that he remains blind till the end.