Death of a Salesman By Arthur Miller Outline
Death of a Salesman By Arthur Miller
• • Outline: About the writer& play. Characters. General Summary. Themes. Important quotations. Short video. Questions
Who is Arthur Miller?
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
Death of a salesman First edition cover •
About the play: • 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
About The Play 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.
The characters •
The main characters • 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 Willy, whether in the present or in Willy's recollection of the past. Willy is an individual who craves 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 • Willy's memories are 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
Biff 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 • 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 Willy 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 • Linda 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 • 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.
General Summary: • 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 any way. • 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 adventures 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
End of the summary • 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 been contemplating suicide. He does not know that wily 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.
The major themes • • Theme of success Theme of pride Theme of betrayal Theme of American dream
Theme of success • 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
Theme of pride • 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's unable to repay. Throughout the play, we're shown that Willy and his family are incredibly proud people with nothing real to be proud of.
Theme of betrayal • 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 by 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.
Theme of American dream • 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.
Important quotations 1. 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.
n 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.
. 2 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.
n. Short video
Miller has employed different techniques that serve reflecting willy’s inner conflicts and contribute in showing his breakdown. How? 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.
What are the different concepts of the American shown throughout the play and how this shapes the characters future? ? • 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”
• Till 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.
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