DEATH OF A SALESMAN BOOK REPORT Written By

DEATH OF A SALESMAN BOOK REPORT Written By: Arthur Miller Fashioned By: Maria Zeppenfeldt, Lidiana Velazquez, Brianna Rodriguez, Bryan Mazariegos, and Giselle

Title and author v Title: Death of a Salesman Author: Renown playwright Arthur Miller.

Main characters v Willy Loman - An insecure, self-deluded traveling aspiring salesman who believes in the American Dream of easy success and wealth, but had never achieved it nor do his sons fulfill his hope that they will succeed where he has failed. When Willy’s illusions begin to fail under the pressing realities of his life, his mental health begins to unravel. The overwhelming tensions caused by this disparity, as well as those caused by the societal imperatives that drive Willy, form the essential conflict of Death of a Salesman. Biff Loman - Willy’s thirty-four-year-old elder son who led a charmed life in high school as a football star with scholarship prospects, good male friends, and fawning female admirers. He failed math, however, and did not have enough credits to graduate. Since then, his kleptomania has gotten him fired from every job that he has held. Biff represents Willy’s vulnerable, poetic, tragic side. He cannot ignore his instincts, which tell him to abandon Willy’s paralyzing dreams and move out West to work with his hands. He ultimately fails to reconcile his life with Willy’s expectations of him. Linda Loman - Willy’s loyal, loving wife who suffers through Willy’s grandiose dreams and self-delusions. Occasionally, she seems to be taken in by Willy’s self-deluded hopes for future glory and success, but at other times, she seems far more realistic and less fragile than her husband. She has nurtured the family through all of Willy’s misguided attempts at success, and her emotional strength and perseverance support Willy until his collapse.

Main characters v Happy Loman - Willy’s thirty-two-year-old younger son. Happy has lived in Biff’s shadow all of his life, but he compensates by nurturing his relentless sex drive and professional ambition. Happy represents Willy’s sense of selfimportance, ambition, and blind servitude to societal expectations. Although he works as an assistant to an assistant buyer in a department store, Happy presents himself as supremely important. Additionally, he practices bad business ethics and sleeps with the girlfriends of his superiors. Charley - Willy’s next-door neighbor. Charley owns a successful business and his son, Bernard, is a wealthy, important lawyer. Willy is jealous of Charley’s success. Charley gives Willy money to pay his bills, and Willy reveals at one point, choking back tears, that Charley is his only friend. Bernard - Bernard is Charley’s son and an important, successful lawyer. Although Willy used to mock Bernard for studying hard, Bernard always loved Willy’s sons dearly and regarded Biff as a hero. Bernard’s success is difficult for Willy to accept because his own sons’ lives do not measure up. Ben - Willy’s wealthy older brother. Ben has recently died and appears only in Willy’s “daydreams. ” Willy regards Ben as a symbol of the success that he so desperately craves for himself and his sons.

Main characters v The Woman - Willy’s mistress when Happy and Biff were in high school. The Woman’s attention and admiration boost Willy’s fragile ego. When Biff catches Willy in his hotel room with The Woman, he loses faith in his father, and his dream of passing math and going to college dies. Howard Wagner - Willy’s boss whom Howard inherited the company from his father, whom Willy regarded as “a masterful man” and “a prince. ” Though much younger than Willy, Howard treats Willy with condescension and eventually fires him, despite Willy’s wounded assertions that he named Howard at his birth. Stanley - He is a waiter at Frank’s Chop House. Stanley and Happy seem to be friends, or at least acquaintances, and they banter about and check out Miss Forsythe together before Biff and Willy arrive at the restaurant. Miss Forsythe and Letta - Two young women whom Happy and Biff meet at Frank’s Chop House. It seems likely that Miss Forsythe and Letta are prostitutes, judging from Happy’s repeated comments about their moral character and the fact that they are “on call. ” Jenny - Charley’s secretary whom is accustomed to Willy’s angsts.

Major plot events v Biff and Willy reunite when Biff comes home again to figure out a new direction for his life. Linda reveals to Biff and Happy that Willy has been trying to commit suicide. Willy talks to his boss hoping to get a non-travelling job but gets fired instead. Biff waits to see Oliver to ask for a loan but realizes Oliver doesn’t remember him. He responds by stealing his pen. Willy goes to borrow money from Charley at his office and runs into Bernard, who is now a successful lawyer. Willy thinks back to when Biff caught him and his mistress in Boston, an event that left Biff utterly disillusioned. An argument erupts and Biff tells Willy that he can’t live up to his unrealistic expectations. Willy commits suicide, convinced that it is the best contribution he may make toward his Biff’s success.

Setting v Death of a Salesman takes place in several locations, raging between those imagined by cause of his fancies and those which he is genuinely experiencing. The story takes place throughout the late 1940 s and is thus host to the great American sentiment of that time of “rebuilding” and achieving the American Dream. The freshness of WWII as of yet affects the thoughts and the sense of accomplishment of numerous Americans. Willy seems to continually reflect this throughout the novel, a yearning for something greater in the short life that humans have, many of which self impose this limited frame upon themselves, as did Willy. : Brooklyn – Primary location (Willy’s House) Manhattan – Secondary location (Restaurant and Willy’s Old Job) Boston – Secondary location (Willy’s Hotel Room of His Affair) Willy’s Mind – Primary location (Willy’s Blurred Realities and Flashbacks) Willy’s house is host to the greatest effect upon the story, representing the changes going on throughout Willy’s life, coupled by the buildings that are built about his house, serving as a continual and ever increasing reminder of his sensation of “economic imprisonment. ”

Point of View v Throughout this intricate and heart wrenching play there is o particular narrator by which one may attain a point of view, as is common of most plays, but rather a continual exposure to a series of conversations and interactions amongst all characters. This may also be seen as a sort of varying and ever shifting third person omniscient point of view from one character to the other.

Significant symbols and themes v Seeds v The American dream Diamonds Abandonment Stockings Betrayal The rubber hose

Significant symbols v Flute: The flute music that drifts through the play represents the small link that willy and his father have with the natural world. His father made flutes and was successful in his business. This foreshadows Willy’s career as a salesman. However since willy doesn’t use his talent at making things he didn’t take this route which ultimately leads to his failed career choice. Diamonds: Willy desperately craves this because diamonds represent wealth and it proves that he can pass material goods to his children. It also demonstrates how the discovery of diamonds made Ben a fortune which emulates his failure as a salesman. Stockings: During his affair with The Woman, willy gives her the intimate gift of stockings. Biff’s outburst at discovering willy’s affair symbolizes his betrayal to his wife and his family. He let his wife down emotionally and drained his families already strained finances toward his affair. Rubber Hose: Represents Willy’s impending suicide. Linda finds it hidden behind the fuse box in the cellar. She finds the gas pipe of the water heater and realizes that Willy planned to inhale gas. Willy also tried to kill himself before by driving his car off the road, the one he uses to go to work. This metaphor symbolizes how he worked so hard to afford his car and the water heater that it may be killing him without him realizing it.

Significant Themes v The American dream: Willy believes that a “well liked” and an “attractive man” in the business world will acquire the materialistic items are supposed to come with the American Dream (nice house, car financially successful and a family) something that he never fully got no matter how hard he worked. v Abandonment: Because of his abandonment of both his father and Ben Willy is left desiring for his family to conform to the ideals driving the American Dream. In the end both his sons abandon him when they discover his affair and when he believes that his son biff is about to reach his success Biff crushes his illusions and tells him that he is not going to reach the American Dream which Willy so believes in. v Betrayal: Throughout the play Willy is obsessed with Biffs betrayal of his ambitions for him. When Biff walks out on Willy’s ambition for him, he takes it as and insult. Since willy is a salesman this also shows his failure because it cant sell him the idea of wanting to acquire the American Dream.

Noteworthy quotations v “Nothing’s planted. I don’t have a thing in the ground. ” After the climax in Frank’s chop house, willy is talking to Stanley on buying seeds to plant a garden in his backyard because he doesn’t have “a thing in the ground. ” the garden symbolizes his failed career and Biff’s wild ambition. Willy is using a garden as a metaphor for success and his failure indicates that his career is a poor choice. Even though his “roots” are in sales (his father was a successful salesman) Willy never “blossomed” into the figure he idolizes, Dave Singleman. “He’s liked, but not well-liked. ” Willy’s “recipe for success” is based entirely on someone’s personality. Most people are liked by their friends and acquaintances. However, willy thinks that only great men, who are well-liked are going to be successful and acquire the American Dream that willy believes in. “I’m the new England man. I’m vital in new England. ” Willy’s self definition is centered around his career. He isn’t the man who does sales for new England, he’s the New England man. He believes himself to be a vital to the company however, in reality, it’s the company that’s vital to him and his feelings of self worth, and when he discovers that he is not genuinely vital anywhere his worldview shatters.

Major Motifs v Mythologizing Characters Willy tends to mythologize characters throughout the book. A great example of this is the grandiose perception that he has of Dave Singleman. He speaks wonders of this man and strongly believed that he must have had quite the funeral since he was supposedly so popular. The truth however is that Singleman was hopelessly lonely. Willy ends up perishing whilst attempting to follow in Dave’s “heroic” steps and he ultimately neither achieves anything nor leaves a legacy. Willy also often compares his own children to the mythical Greek figures of Adonis and Hercules. He does so because he perceives the attributes of his children so highly, esteeming “personal-attractiveness” and the importance of being “well-liked” over virtually all. In the end his high hopes are crushed because neither Biff nor Happy genuinely lead godlike lives.

Commentary upon the human condition v Perhaps one of the very starkest expositions of reality, Death of a Salesman emulates the double filed sword that is ambition, serving to both propel its respective welders upwards with every thrust and drive, all the whilst restricting them in the illusion of fantasy as they convince themselves that they have indeed achieved all which they have so strived for, whilst their reality as of yet emulates otherwise.

THE END