1. Willy arrives home late at night with sample cases after almost crashing his car.
2. Happy and Biff hear Willy talking to himself about how popular Biff was in High School. They talk about women and how Biff was happy working on a ranch.
3. Willy remembers the boys washing the car and Biff “borrowing a ball” from the locker room. Bernard reminds Biff he has to study.
4. Linda asks him for money and Willy lies about his pay. The woman then thanks him for the silk stockings. He becomes angry at Linda
5. Charley comes in and offers Willy a job. Willy wonders about his time with Ben. They meet in his mind and Ben tells him about diamond mines whilst Willy tries to impress Ben.
6. The family argue on stage and discuss how Biff and Happy are going to set up a sporting goods company. Willy is pleased and gives Biff advice. Biff takes away the piping.
7. ACT TWO Both very happy, Linda tells Willy the boys want to meet him at Frank’s Chop House.
8. Willy asks Wagner (his boss) to stay in New York. Wagner fires Willy.
9. The Lomans and Bernard start to leave for the big game.
10. Bernard and Willy meet and we find out about Bernard’s success. Willy asks Bernard to tell him why Biff is a failure. Charley gives Willy $50
11. At the restaurant Happy is flirting. Biff tells him he didn’t get anywhere with Oliver and stole his fountain pen. He tries to tell Willy about his revelation.
12. Biff discovers the Woman in Willy’s hotel room.
13. The boys return and Linda is furious. She insists they leave. Biff goes to see Willy in the garden. Willy is muttering to Ben about insurance. And 20k
14. The Loman’s argue with Biff trying to make Willy realize his failures and admits to his stealing. Willy doesn’t believe him. Happy tells his parents he is getting married.
15. Willy talks to Ben before the family hear the sound of a car. Linda lays flowers at Willy’s grave.
16. Nobody comes to the funeral; the insurance has not paid out; Happy wants to carry on Willy’s legacy. Alone, Linda tells Willy that she can't cry because she feels like he's just gone on another trip and she made the last payment on the house today.
Showing posts with label Death of a Salesman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death of a Salesman. Show all posts
Monday, 29 March 2010
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Death of a Salesman - Techniques
Death of a Salesman - Miller's Techniques
- Contrasts (Willy's mood swings)
- Character contrasts
- Stage directions (reveal mood of characters)
- Lies
- Rejection
- Mythological Figures and Language
- Ambiguous statements
- Things not mentionned (e.g. only talking about the positive side of things)
- Symbolism - Diamonds (financial security, wealth, prestige), Seeds (proving worth and providing an inheritance - last ditch attempt to be sucessful), Tape Recorder (only records truth - show Willy's failure to repress his past), Stockings (betrayal and guilt), Rubber Hose (suicide), Africa and Alaska (Willy's missed opportunities), The American West (which is Biff's wanting to work on a ranch symbolises his freedom and potential)
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Death of a Salesman - Sample Essay
What impressions do we get of Willy in Act One?
Within Act One we are introduced to Willy Loman as the protagonist of the play Death of a Salesman. He is given several roles within the act such as father, husband, brother, salesman and – from the flashbacks he has to the past – how Willy was in the past.
Willy’s role as a father is one of the most prominent in the play. Miller initially presents him as a disappointed father who is unhappy with the lack of achievement in his son. Willy states: “Biff is a lazy bum!” however he soon retracts this later in the act saying “He’ll come good”. This constant changing of opinion is significant to both Willy’s other actions and Miller’s own view of American society at the time; namely the ever-changing opinion of the American Dream.
The American Dream is something that Miller examines throughout and uses irony to emphasises his criticism of it. As a salesman, Willy is hard-working, often driving thousands of miles each day to sell items which are unnamed in the play. However, he is regularly failing as his job and reveals that he is working on purely on commission and is forced to make excuses for his failings. He says “Three stores were half closed for inventory in Boston. Otherwise I woulda broke records”. The use of the word “otherwise” shows Willy’s constant excuses for his failings.
Willy’s obsession with success is not just in the present. Miller uses a series of flashbacks to show this, introducing Willy’s brother, Ben, in flashbacks. Ben is used as a contrast to Willy: being a successful businessman who left America to find opportunities in diamond mining in Africa. Within the flashbacks; Willy is determined to gain Ben’s approval, especially with his sons: “Ben, how should I teach them?”. The distinct child-like tone of Willy’s dialogue towards his brother gives the audience the view that he is unsure of his own identity.
In Willy’s marriage, Miller uses Willy’s wife Linda as his main grip of reality, but also keeping him in his fantasy world. She indulges Willy’s assertions of success: “But you’re doing wonderful dear”. However in her use of the word “but”, she is also is his constant reminder of his failings in that within the flashbacks she details their debts and their bills on the items they bought through hire purchase.
Within act one, Miller portrays Willy as an extreme character and uses contrast to this effect. Willy’s moods fluctuate throughout and he incorporates his flashbacks into reality. This causes the play to feel disjointed and mirrors Willy’s own mental state. However his roles as father, brother, husband and salesman, both present and present appear to revolve around success and Willy’s failure at attaining this.
Within Act One we are introduced to Willy Loman as the protagonist of the play Death of a Salesman. He is given several roles within the act such as father, husband, brother, salesman and – from the flashbacks he has to the past – how Willy was in the past.
Willy’s role as a father is one of the most prominent in the play. Miller initially presents him as a disappointed father who is unhappy with the lack of achievement in his son. Willy states: “Biff is a lazy bum!” however he soon retracts this later in the act saying “He’ll come good”. This constant changing of opinion is significant to both Willy’s other actions and Miller’s own view of American society at the time; namely the ever-changing opinion of the American Dream.
The American Dream is something that Miller examines throughout and uses irony to emphasises his criticism of it. As a salesman, Willy is hard-working, often driving thousands of miles each day to sell items which are unnamed in the play. However, he is regularly failing as his job and reveals that he is working on purely on commission and is forced to make excuses for his failings. He says “Three stores were half closed for inventory in Boston. Otherwise I woulda broke records”. The use of the word “otherwise” shows Willy’s constant excuses for his failings.
Willy’s obsession with success is not just in the present. Miller uses a series of flashbacks to show this, introducing Willy’s brother, Ben, in flashbacks. Ben is used as a contrast to Willy: being a successful businessman who left America to find opportunities in diamond mining in Africa. Within the flashbacks; Willy is determined to gain Ben’s approval, especially with his sons: “Ben, how should I teach them?”. The distinct child-like tone of Willy’s dialogue towards his brother gives the audience the view that he is unsure of his own identity.
In Willy’s marriage, Miller uses Willy’s wife Linda as his main grip of reality, but also keeping him in his fantasy world. She indulges Willy’s assertions of success: “But you’re doing wonderful dear”. However in her use of the word “but”, she is also is his constant reminder of his failings in that within the flashbacks she details their debts and their bills on the items they bought through hire purchase.
Within act one, Miller portrays Willy as an extreme character and uses contrast to this effect. Willy’s moods fluctuate throughout and he incorporates his flashbacks into reality. This causes the play to feel disjointed and mirrors Willy’s own mental state. However his roles as father, brother, husband and salesman, both present and present appear to revolve around success and Willy’s failure at attaining this.
Death of a Salesman - Symbolism
Why are these items in the play and what do they symbolise?
Linda’s Stockings
Laughter
Football
The Red Chevvy
Wire Recorder
Garden
Africa/Alaska
Adonis, Hercules
Flute
Linda’s Stockings
Laughter
Football
The Red Chevvy
Wire Recorder
Garden
Africa/Alaska
Adonis, Hercules
Flute
Death of a Salesman - Essay Questions
You have a choice of three questions in the exam and here are the pros and cons of each.
1. The extract question
Pros: You only really need to analyse that extract, you can look closer at language, you don’t have to find quotes because they are already there.
Cons: You can only focus on the extract, you may not know that bit well, you have to examine language and word choice more closely.
2. The character question.
Pros: You can use a lot of points for that character; you can link it to the play as a whole; you can go into detail on one character.
Cons: If you don’t know the character it’s difficult, limits you to one character focus.
3. In-role writing
Pros: Creative writing, it seems easier to do, don’t have to analyse language too in depth.
Cons: Have to know the plot REALLY well, have to write in character voice, incorporate quotations directly into your writing without copying the play.
1. The extract question
Pros: You only really need to analyse that extract, you can look closer at language, you don’t have to find quotes because they are already there.
Cons: You can only focus on the extract, you may not know that bit well, you have to examine language and word choice more closely.
2. The character question.
Pros: You can use a lot of points for that character; you can link it to the play as a whole; you can go into detail on one character.
Cons: If you don’t know the character it’s difficult, limits you to one character focus.
3. In-role writing
Pros: Creative writing, it seems easier to do, don’t have to analyse language too in depth.
Cons: Have to know the plot REALLY well, have to write in character voice, incorporate quotations directly into your writing without copying the play.
Death of a Salesman Quotations
Important Quotations
Find each of these quotations. Who says them? To whom? What is the significance of these quotations within the play as a whole?
… he thinks I’m nothing, see, and so he spites me. But the funeral … Ben, that funeral will be massive.
A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.
A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man.
Be liked and you will never want.
Gee, look at the moon moving between the buildings.
He had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong.
He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine.
I can see it like a diamond, shining in the dark, hard and rough, that I can pick up and touch in my hand. Not like – like an appointment.
I know you laugh at me behind my back.
I never got anywhere because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking orders from anybody!
I realised what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been.
I still feel kinda temporary about myself.
I thank Almighty God that you’re both built like Adonises. Because the man who creates an appearance in the business world is the man who gets ahead.
I’m a dime a dozen, and so are you.
I’m not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you.
I’m not interested in stories about the past or any crap of that kind because the woods are burning, boys, you understand? There’s a big blaze going on all around. I was fired today.
I’ve got to get some seeds, right away. Nothing’s planted. I don’t have a thing in the ground.
In those days there was personality in it, … There was respect, and comradeship, and gratitude in it.
It’s Brooklyn, I know, but we hunt too.
Nothing’ll grow any more.
The gist of it is that I haven’t got a story left in my head.
The only thing you got in this world is what you can sell.
They time them so when you finally paid for them, they’re used up.
Why must everybody conquer the world?
Will you take that phoney dream and burn it before something happens?
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.
Willy, dear, what has he got against you?
You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away – a man is not a piece of fruit.
You fake! You phoney little fake! You fake!
Find each of these quotations. Who says them? To whom? What is the significance of these quotations within the play as a whole?
… he thinks I’m nothing, see, and so he spites me. But the funeral … Ben, that funeral will be massive.
A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.
A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man.
Be liked and you will never want.
Gee, look at the moon moving between the buildings.
He had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong.
He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine.
I can see it like a diamond, shining in the dark, hard and rough, that I can pick up and touch in my hand. Not like – like an appointment.
I know you laugh at me behind my back.
I never got anywhere because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking orders from anybody!
I realised what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been.
I still feel kinda temporary about myself.
I thank Almighty God that you’re both built like Adonises. Because the man who creates an appearance in the business world is the man who gets ahead.
I’m a dime a dozen, and so are you.
I’m not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you.
I’m not interested in stories about the past or any crap of that kind because the woods are burning, boys, you understand? There’s a big blaze going on all around. I was fired today.
I’ve got to get some seeds, right away. Nothing’s planted. I don’t have a thing in the ground.
In those days there was personality in it, … There was respect, and comradeship, and gratitude in it.
It’s Brooklyn, I know, but we hunt too.
Nothing’ll grow any more.
The gist of it is that I haven’t got a story left in my head.
The only thing you got in this world is what you can sell.
They time them so when you finally paid for them, they’re used up.
Why must everybody conquer the world?
Will you take that phoney dream and burn it before something happens?
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.
Willy, dear, what has he got against you?
You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away – a man is not a piece of fruit.
You fake! You phoney little fake! You fake!
Key Topics in Death of a Salesman
SYMBOLISM / IMAGERY
• Willy symbolizes the common man
• Biff's football game = a symbol of success for the future to Willy
• Ben represents all that Willy wishes the boys to be, yet his actions in the past are not firmly established. He is, for Willy, a symbol of all that is "good in the land of opportunity"
• The garden is symbolic of Willy needing to leave something behind for people to remember him by.
SOCIETY
• consumer society and pressures of advertising persuade people to acquire goods and to do so by paying for them by instalments
• money defines success: people are judged by the amount they acquire that is why Willy feels he has to succeed, and the only way to show his success is to acquire money and material goods.
• Willy's America: a land of opportunity in which people like Biff can accomplish great things
• Real America; although it still may be the land of opportunity, it seems to have acquired a new set of values
• countryside is different from modern consumer society: the structure of society there is much simpler and different - it is an image of an older America
• Willy feels that he has to be within society yet looks back to a golden age when life was simpler.
• Society in which the Lomans live is governed by people like Ben- people who care little for the opinions of others, and in such a society the Lomans, although they only occasionally realize it, are out of place.
• There are many forms of failure as well as success. Lomans are all an example of what life is like if you continually live in a dream world. Ben is the exception in the Loman family.
• However, Charlie and his son Bernard were able to achieve greatness and to make the system work for them. In the end, the decision to make it in this American system is, ironically, up to the individual.
ABSURDITY OF LIFE
• DS attempts to explore the implications of life for which men-not gods-are wholly responsible.
• Willy is disturbed by the element of rapid obsolescence which is an oppressive aspect of life
• the play in general is a study of the things which affect human destiny in the moral universe
DEATH
• Loman's suicide is obviously intended as a gesture of the hero's victory over circumstances
• it is an act of love, intended to redeem his house
• The exhausted, idealistic man who has visions of a great future for his sons does not in the end come to terms with reality, but retains his hopes. To Willy, death is the only answer.
EXTERNAL CONFLICTS
• Loss of job and money defines success; by losing his job, Willy has let everyone down, most of all himself.
INTERNAL CONFLICTS
• inconsistencies which Willy displays shows the conflict inside of him. e.g. Willy says that his car is "the greatest car ever built", but later contradicts himself
• He has always been a figure of several faces to the boys he must be the successful father, to Linda the provider, and to himself the great salesman.
• needs to believe in himself in order to survive
• cannot accept the supposed hurt to his pride that a job offered by Charley might inflict upon him
IMPORTANCE OF MINOR CHARACTERS
Biff
• lacks self assurance because of the uncertainty about his father's attitude towards him, and his doubts about his own life and future
• has not found his place in society, but realizes that he doesn’t fit into society.
• is a result of Willy's lies he is undisciplined and disillusioned
• sees the city as a concrete jungle, but reuses to conform to the city's demands
Linda
• tries to share in Willy's ideals, and suffers great torment as she observes Willy's decline knowing that she is unable to help
• Fails to understand what happens to Willy, and fails to fathom what has occurred between him and Biff, but still manages to retain a belief in the need to treat human beings properly
• loyal and supportive
• anger stems from her beliefs in the Loman family, and memories of happy times in the past
• she is a woman struggling to come to terms with the city, her husband, and her sons
• "Linda, as the eternal wife and mother, the fixed point of affection both given and received, the woman who suffers and endures, is in many ways, the earth mother who embodies the play's ultimate moral value, love. But in the beautiful, ironic complexity of her creation, she is also Willy's and their sons' destroyer. In her love Linda has accepted Willy's Greatness and his dream, but while in her admiration for Willy her love is powerful and moving, in her admiration for his dreams, it is lethal. She encourages Willy's dream, yet she will not let him leave her for the New Continent, the only realm where the dream can be fulfilled. She want to reconcile father and son, but she attempts this in the context of Willy's false values. She cannot allow her sons to achieve that selfhood that involves denial of these values"
Happy
• similar to Willy - lost because he has never allowed himself to turn his face toward defeat
• regular guy has a job, hopes for promotion, committed to conform
• needs to pretend to more than he really is (like father like son)
• likes women
• never acquires Biff's ultimate self-knowledge and realization of the truth
• remains the Loman that he always was, incapable of interpreting the message of Willy's failure
Ben
• Willy's foil
• ruthless business man, rich adventurous, not confined by any psychological restraints
• acts as a mentor for Willy, Willy want Ben's story of success to happen to him
• is an example of the very small population who are successful without much work the dream of everyone is to have that happen to themselves
Charley
• Willy cannot understand Charley's success, his own formula seems to have broken down, and yet he can never admit this.
• helps break down Willy's belief that to be well liked is the most important quality in a salesman
Bernard
• Biff's foil
Woman
• at first makes Willy feel wanted, has made him feel as though he were the salesman that he imagines himself as being
• Willy's longing to be seen as a successful man and to be placed in a position where he can reach all the to buyers is obviously connected to the woman, while it also reveals the superficiality of Willy's family life
• his concern for Linda is genuine but his need for success overcomes his feelings of loyalty
• Howard represents the professional business man-consideration for the firm must come first. He has no sentiment which probably accounts for his success.
PROTAGONIST
Willy Loman(the common man)
• Miller attempted to personify certain values which civilized men in the twentieth century share.
• Symbolizes the cruel paradox of human existence
• Seen as ritual head of his family
• Seeks to discover a design in the paradoxical movement of life; to impose upon it a sense of meaning greater than that conferred upon it by reality.
• His life's experiences seem to intermingle and disturb the logical flow of reality
• Views his life as a totality. conventions of time and place are not relevant for him.
• Has high ideals-perhaps unattainable ones
• Wants to be loved by all; wants to succeed by terms that do not suit his nature; wants to leave his mark upon the world.
• Feels he has to succeed, and the only way to show his success is to acquire money and material goods. He does not want to face the fact that he is not earning enough.
• When he finally evaluates his performance, he realizes that he has fallen far short of his goals at that point, suicide becomes an at of valour for him
PLOT STRUCTURE
• Follows an aesthetic, rather than a logical mode of development
• Represents the protagonist's attempt to reconstitute the progression of his experience
• "stream-of-consciousness"
• Miller does not divide his vision of reality into discrete unit. He conceives Will's mind as a place out of time, as a state in which all boundaries have been erased, in which all things are coexistent.
• Aesthetic progression: a reconstruction of the movement of consciousness.
• Return to the past in Willy's mind happens because: the family is all important to him, he is becoming deranged, and it portrays his frame of mind to the audience, shows the extent of Willy's disillusionment, flashbacks reveal the truth, adds to understanding of characters and relationship development
• The play is divided into three main parts, Act I, Act II, and the Requiem. Each section takes place on a different day in present-day. Within Act I and Act II, the story is presented through the use of Willy's flashbacks. This use of flashback is fundamental to the structure and understanding of the play.
• The story starts at present-day and Willy then lapses in and out of the past. Each flashback is somehow related the present. Very often, the contents of the flashback offer essential background knowledge for understanding why the present-day problems in the Loman family are occurring. For example, when Willy is thinking about Biff and Biff's problems, Willy is transported to the summer of Biff's senior year. The events that took place in the past expose for the reader the situations that have led up to the present-day boiling point in the Loman household.
TRAGIC ELEMENT
• The enactment of his suffering, fall, and partial enlightenment, provokes a mixed response: that anger and delight, indignation and sympathy, pity and fear which Aristotle describes as "catharsis"
• tragic feeling is evoke when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down hin life, if need be, to secure one thing-his sense of personal dignity
Is Willy a tragic hero?
Yes
• Miller argues that tragedy is not restricted to kings and queens and that the common man is capable of heroism and tragedy
• Miller's tragedy = The result of an individual's quest for personal dignity and occurs when an individual attempts to evaluate existence justly.
• tragic flaw = an unwillingness to submit passively to the established order and values
• in Willy's descent, there is a tragic paradox; for as he moves towards inevitable destruction, he acquires that knowledge, that sense of reconciliation, which allows him to conceive a redemptive plan for his house
• Loman, the contemporary her, embarks upon a most courageous Odyssey: the descent into the self, where he engages his most dangerous enemy, himself.
No:
• In the traditional sense, Willy is neither noble nor heroic
• does not measure up to the stature of a great and good man
• a small man, a mere failure who does not have the grace to warrant universal concern
• doesn't have just one tragic flaw - he has many (disloyal, headstrong, short tempered, proud, false, etc)
• common man is not of high stature
TIME
• views his life as a totality. conventions of time and place are not relevant for him.
• everything that brings joy for Willy is associated with the past
SETTING
• set in twentieth-century industrial society, complete with apartment blacks, financial difficulties and pressures to succeed.
• Willy's America - land of opportunity in which Biff can accomplish great things with ambition
• Real America although it still may be the land of opportunity, it seems to have acquired a new set of values
STYLE AND LANGUAGE
• "American drama" attempts to record the kinds of crisis that plagued their times
STAGING
• The Salesman image was from the beginning absorbed with the concept that nothing in life comes next, but that everything exists together and at the same time within us; that there is no past to be brought forward' in a human being but that he is his past at every moment and that the present is merely that which his past is capable of noticing and smelling and reacting to.
• Music: sets the mood opening stage direction "a melody is heard, played upon a flute. It is small and fine, telling of grass and trees and the horizon.' flute is an expressionist device, flute is an instrument associated with nostalgia can be heard playing when Willy begins to imagine a happier life in the past. At times of promise of better things to come in the future, the music is "gay and bright' creating a mood on the stage. A "raw, and sensuous music' during the "woman' scenes
• Light :Apartments are surrounded by "an angry glow of orange'...represents the anger of people who fall in the city, who are deprived of promise, who, like Biff, are angered by the way of life.
RELATIONSHIP WITH AUDIENCE
• Willy lives closer to our experience than many protagonists, he is struggling with the pressures of twentieth century life: of money, of the city, of the family, of the job, while his weaknesses are those which ordinary humans share. Loneliness, the inability to decide exactly what one wants, the breakdown of communications btw the two generations, are all part of our lives to some extent. Miller shows that man is isolated, and, even though he struggles, the may be faced with impossible odds.
RELATIONSHIPS
• relationship between Willy & Biff (father and son)
• Biff is the favourite son, and yet cannot live up to what Willy wants for him, nor can he really share Willy's ambitions for the future
• Gap of generations between father and son, a gap of ideals. Willy is unable to face the fact that Biff will never become a great man
• Willy's hopes are so closely associated with Biff that he seems unable to remember for long that Biff is a mature man, supposedly capable of making his own decisions.
GENERAL
• DS is a statement about the nature of human crises in the twentieth century which seems, increasingly, to be applicable to the entire fabric of civilised experience
• Sensitivity of it's myth: critical relationship of its central symbol-the salesman-to the interpretation of the whole of contemporary life. In this image, Miller brings into the theatre a figure, who is, in our age, a kind of hero- a ritual representative of an industrial society.
• It is its intimate association with our aspirations which give to the story of Loman an ambiguous, but highly affecting, substratum of religious, philosophical, political, and social meaning.
• The play grew from observations of ordinary life: a simple frame house filled with children who will grow and leave; a house that will one day be full of strangers.
• It is about the fabric of family life.
• About failure and disillusionment, a boy's belief in his father and a father's dream for his sons and himself are sadly crushed.
• Also celebrates humanity and the love between father and son.
• Moral ignorance is the most serious and most common indictment against humanity in our time
• Willy symbolizes the common man
• Biff's football game = a symbol of success for the future to Willy
• Ben represents all that Willy wishes the boys to be, yet his actions in the past are not firmly established. He is, for Willy, a symbol of all that is "good in the land of opportunity"
• The garden is symbolic of Willy needing to leave something behind for people to remember him by.
SOCIETY
• consumer society and pressures of advertising persuade people to acquire goods and to do so by paying for them by instalments
• money defines success: people are judged by the amount they acquire that is why Willy feels he has to succeed, and the only way to show his success is to acquire money and material goods.
• Willy's America: a land of opportunity in which people like Biff can accomplish great things
• Real America; although it still may be the land of opportunity, it seems to have acquired a new set of values
• countryside is different from modern consumer society: the structure of society there is much simpler and different - it is an image of an older America
• Willy feels that he has to be within society yet looks back to a golden age when life was simpler.
• Society in which the Lomans live is governed by people like Ben- people who care little for the opinions of others, and in such a society the Lomans, although they only occasionally realize it, are out of place.
• There are many forms of failure as well as success. Lomans are all an example of what life is like if you continually live in a dream world. Ben is the exception in the Loman family.
• However, Charlie and his son Bernard were able to achieve greatness and to make the system work for them. In the end, the decision to make it in this American system is, ironically, up to the individual.
ABSURDITY OF LIFE
• DS attempts to explore the implications of life for which men-not gods-are wholly responsible.
• Willy is disturbed by the element of rapid obsolescence which is an oppressive aspect of life
• the play in general is a study of the things which affect human destiny in the moral universe
DEATH
• Loman's suicide is obviously intended as a gesture of the hero's victory over circumstances
• it is an act of love, intended to redeem his house
• The exhausted, idealistic man who has visions of a great future for his sons does not in the end come to terms with reality, but retains his hopes. To Willy, death is the only answer.
EXTERNAL CONFLICTS
• Loss of job and money defines success; by losing his job, Willy has let everyone down, most of all himself.
INTERNAL CONFLICTS
• inconsistencies which Willy displays shows the conflict inside of him. e.g. Willy says that his car is "the greatest car ever built", but later contradicts himself
• He has always been a figure of several faces to the boys he must be the successful father, to Linda the provider, and to himself the great salesman.
• needs to believe in himself in order to survive
• cannot accept the supposed hurt to his pride that a job offered by Charley might inflict upon him
IMPORTANCE OF MINOR CHARACTERS
Biff
• lacks self assurance because of the uncertainty about his father's attitude towards him, and his doubts about his own life and future
• has not found his place in society, but realizes that he doesn’t fit into society.
• is a result of Willy's lies he is undisciplined and disillusioned
• sees the city as a concrete jungle, but reuses to conform to the city's demands
Linda
• tries to share in Willy's ideals, and suffers great torment as she observes Willy's decline knowing that she is unable to help
• Fails to understand what happens to Willy, and fails to fathom what has occurred between him and Biff, but still manages to retain a belief in the need to treat human beings properly
• loyal and supportive
• anger stems from her beliefs in the Loman family, and memories of happy times in the past
• she is a woman struggling to come to terms with the city, her husband, and her sons
• "Linda, as the eternal wife and mother, the fixed point of affection both given and received, the woman who suffers and endures, is in many ways, the earth mother who embodies the play's ultimate moral value, love. But in the beautiful, ironic complexity of her creation, she is also Willy's and their sons' destroyer. In her love Linda has accepted Willy's Greatness and his dream, but while in her admiration for Willy her love is powerful and moving, in her admiration for his dreams, it is lethal. She encourages Willy's dream, yet she will not let him leave her for the New Continent, the only realm where the dream can be fulfilled. She want to reconcile father and son, but she attempts this in the context of Willy's false values. She cannot allow her sons to achieve that selfhood that involves denial of these values"
Happy
• similar to Willy - lost because he has never allowed himself to turn his face toward defeat
• regular guy has a job, hopes for promotion, committed to conform
• needs to pretend to more than he really is (like father like son)
• likes women
• never acquires Biff's ultimate self-knowledge and realization of the truth
• remains the Loman that he always was, incapable of interpreting the message of Willy's failure
Ben
• Willy's foil
• ruthless business man, rich adventurous, not confined by any psychological restraints
• acts as a mentor for Willy, Willy want Ben's story of success to happen to him
• is an example of the very small population who are successful without much work the dream of everyone is to have that happen to themselves
Charley
• Willy cannot understand Charley's success, his own formula seems to have broken down, and yet he can never admit this.
• helps break down Willy's belief that to be well liked is the most important quality in a salesman
Bernard
• Biff's foil
Woman
• at first makes Willy feel wanted, has made him feel as though he were the salesman that he imagines himself as being
• Willy's longing to be seen as a successful man and to be placed in a position where he can reach all the to buyers is obviously connected to the woman, while it also reveals the superficiality of Willy's family life
• his concern for Linda is genuine but his need for success overcomes his feelings of loyalty
• Howard represents the professional business man-consideration for the firm must come first. He has no sentiment which probably accounts for his success.
PROTAGONIST
Willy Loman(the common man)
• Miller attempted to personify certain values which civilized men in the twentieth century share.
• Symbolizes the cruel paradox of human existence
• Seen as ritual head of his family
• Seeks to discover a design in the paradoxical movement of life; to impose upon it a sense of meaning greater than that conferred upon it by reality.
• His life's experiences seem to intermingle and disturb the logical flow of reality
• Views his life as a totality. conventions of time and place are not relevant for him.
• Has high ideals-perhaps unattainable ones
• Wants to be loved by all; wants to succeed by terms that do not suit his nature; wants to leave his mark upon the world.
• Feels he has to succeed, and the only way to show his success is to acquire money and material goods. He does not want to face the fact that he is not earning enough.
• When he finally evaluates his performance, he realizes that he has fallen far short of his goals at that point, suicide becomes an at of valour for him
PLOT STRUCTURE
• Follows an aesthetic, rather than a logical mode of development
• Represents the protagonist's attempt to reconstitute the progression of his experience
• "stream-of-consciousness"
• Miller does not divide his vision of reality into discrete unit. He conceives Will's mind as a place out of time, as a state in which all boundaries have been erased, in which all things are coexistent.
• Aesthetic progression: a reconstruction of the movement of consciousness.
• Return to the past in Willy's mind happens because: the family is all important to him, he is becoming deranged, and it portrays his frame of mind to the audience, shows the extent of Willy's disillusionment, flashbacks reveal the truth, adds to understanding of characters and relationship development
• The play is divided into three main parts, Act I, Act II, and the Requiem. Each section takes place on a different day in present-day. Within Act I and Act II, the story is presented through the use of Willy's flashbacks. This use of flashback is fundamental to the structure and understanding of the play.
• The story starts at present-day and Willy then lapses in and out of the past. Each flashback is somehow related the present. Very often, the contents of the flashback offer essential background knowledge for understanding why the present-day problems in the Loman family are occurring. For example, when Willy is thinking about Biff and Biff's problems, Willy is transported to the summer of Biff's senior year. The events that took place in the past expose for the reader the situations that have led up to the present-day boiling point in the Loman household.
TRAGIC ELEMENT
• The enactment of his suffering, fall, and partial enlightenment, provokes a mixed response: that anger and delight, indignation and sympathy, pity and fear which Aristotle describes as "catharsis"
• tragic feeling is evoke when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down hin life, if need be, to secure one thing-his sense of personal dignity
Is Willy a tragic hero?
Yes
• Miller argues that tragedy is not restricted to kings and queens and that the common man is capable of heroism and tragedy
• Miller's tragedy = The result of an individual's quest for personal dignity and occurs when an individual attempts to evaluate existence justly.
• tragic flaw = an unwillingness to submit passively to the established order and values
• in Willy's descent, there is a tragic paradox; for as he moves towards inevitable destruction, he acquires that knowledge, that sense of reconciliation, which allows him to conceive a redemptive plan for his house
• Loman, the contemporary her, embarks upon a most courageous Odyssey: the descent into the self, where he engages his most dangerous enemy, himself.
No:
• In the traditional sense, Willy is neither noble nor heroic
• does not measure up to the stature of a great and good man
• a small man, a mere failure who does not have the grace to warrant universal concern
• doesn't have just one tragic flaw - he has many (disloyal, headstrong, short tempered, proud, false, etc)
• common man is not of high stature
TIME
• views his life as a totality. conventions of time and place are not relevant for him.
• everything that brings joy for Willy is associated with the past
SETTING
• set in twentieth-century industrial society, complete with apartment blacks, financial difficulties and pressures to succeed.
• Willy's America - land of opportunity in which Biff can accomplish great things with ambition
• Real America although it still may be the land of opportunity, it seems to have acquired a new set of values
STYLE AND LANGUAGE
• "American drama" attempts to record the kinds of crisis that plagued their times
STAGING
• The Salesman image was from the beginning absorbed with the concept that nothing in life comes next, but that everything exists together and at the same time within us; that there is no past to be brought forward' in a human being but that he is his past at every moment and that the present is merely that which his past is capable of noticing and smelling and reacting to.
• Music: sets the mood opening stage direction "a melody is heard, played upon a flute. It is small and fine, telling of grass and trees and the horizon.' flute is an expressionist device, flute is an instrument associated with nostalgia can be heard playing when Willy begins to imagine a happier life in the past. At times of promise of better things to come in the future, the music is "gay and bright' creating a mood on the stage. A "raw, and sensuous music' during the "woman' scenes
• Light :Apartments are surrounded by "an angry glow of orange'...represents the anger of people who fall in the city, who are deprived of promise, who, like Biff, are angered by the way of life.
RELATIONSHIP WITH AUDIENCE
• Willy lives closer to our experience than many protagonists, he is struggling with the pressures of twentieth century life: of money, of the city, of the family, of the job, while his weaknesses are those which ordinary humans share. Loneliness, the inability to decide exactly what one wants, the breakdown of communications btw the two generations, are all part of our lives to some extent. Miller shows that man is isolated, and, even though he struggles, the may be faced with impossible odds.
RELATIONSHIPS
• relationship between Willy & Biff (father and son)
• Biff is the favourite son, and yet cannot live up to what Willy wants for him, nor can he really share Willy's ambitions for the future
• Gap of generations between father and son, a gap of ideals. Willy is unable to face the fact that Biff will never become a great man
• Willy's hopes are so closely associated with Biff that he seems unable to remember for long that Biff is a mature man, supposedly capable of making his own decisions.
GENERAL
• DS is a statement about the nature of human crises in the twentieth century which seems, increasingly, to be applicable to the entire fabric of civilised experience
• Sensitivity of it's myth: critical relationship of its central symbol-the salesman-to the interpretation of the whole of contemporary life. In this image, Miller brings into the theatre a figure, who is, in our age, a kind of hero- a ritual representative of an industrial society.
• It is its intimate association with our aspirations which give to the story of Loman an ambiguous, but highly affecting, substratum of religious, philosophical, political, and social meaning.
• The play grew from observations of ordinary life: a simple frame house filled with children who will grow and leave; a house that will one day be full of strangers.
• It is about the fabric of family life.
• About failure and disillusionment, a boy's belief in his father and a father's dream for his sons and himself are sadly crushed.
• Also celebrates humanity and the love between father and son.
• Moral ignorance is the most serious and most common indictment against humanity in our time
Death of a Salesman Characters
Ben:
1. Ben is to Willy’s mind the epitome of all he desires.
2. Willy calls him ‘success incarnate’ (p.32).
3. Ben went to Africa at 17 and emerged rich at 21.
4. Willy sees Ben as proof that: ‘The greatest things can happen!’ (p.37).
5. To the audience Ben represents all that Willy is not.
6. He is self-assured, rich, adventurous and succinct.
7. Willy sees his big mistake in life as not going with Ben to Alaska.
8. Willy’s line: ‘I don’t want you to think…’ (p.39) indicates that Willy sees himself in competition with Ben.
9. Ben does not give an answer to Willy’s question about the secret of success.
10. Ben’s one moral lesson is a dubious one i.e when he trips up Biff. His message is that you will ‘never get out of the jungle’ by fighting fair with a stranger (p.38).
11. The reference to the jungle recalls to the mind the phrase ‘the law of the jungle’ – suggesting the need to be ruthless in a ruthless world. However this ‘jungle’ also promises diamonds. Ben is an example of how to succeed in a capitalist society – by being competitive (note that this is what Biff ultimately rejects). Ben remarks on p.39 that the stock exchange is also full of fearless characters.
12. Ben appears after Willy has been rejected by Howard and he again uses fighting metaphors to explain how to succeed (p.66).
13. His speech on p.66 echoes Biff and Happy’s dreams of a farm in the country and sees wealth as a reward for adventure.
14. Ben questions Willy’s search for reputation and to be ‘well-liked’ as these are not commodities that can be cashed in (p.25)
15. Ben fulfils his role as a tempter in the scene where Willy explains that he wants to commit suicide in order to help Biff. He calls it a ‘cowardly thing’ (p.100) but he does agree that twenty thousand dollars is a tempting argument and in keeping with his businesslike approach to life he cannot deny that the idea has its attractions.
16. Ultimately Ben’s view is that the suicide is ‘A perfect proposition all around’ (p.107).
Bernard:
1. Bernard is cautious, studious, altruistic and law-abiding (a contrast to Biff).
2. Bernard partially fulfils the role of Biff’s father by reminding him to study and to not drive without a licence.
3. He is described as ‘anaemic’ and is not as sporty or strong as either of the Loman brothers.
4. Bernard accepts the realities of school life but Willy rejects him as being ‘not well liked’ and tells his boys how Bernard will not succeed in the business world (p.25).
5. Bernard represents what Biff might have become without Willy’s influence.
6. The adult Bernard has matured into a very successful lawyer with influential friends.
7. Bernard had a very close relationship with biff. He is upset that Biff did not retake his maths exam to qualify for university. Bernard has a prolonged fist fight with Biff after Biff burns his sneakers because he can see that this action is symbolic of Biff wasting his talent (p.74).
8. Bernard is philosophical about success and advises Willy that sometimes giving up may be the best option (p.75).
9. Bernard and Biff’s relationship parallels Charley and Willy’s – Bernard helps Biff academically as Charley helps Willy financially.
10. It is Bernard who tells Mrs Loman that Biff has failed maths, he seems to represent Willy’s nemesis, and by this time we realise that he is living evidence that Willy’s advice to Biff was wrong.
Biff and Happy:
Miller states that he is sorry that ‘Biff is not a weightier counterbalance to Willy’s disaster in the audience’s mind’.
1. Biff should offer the basis for optimism to balance Willy’s despair
2. Happy is more like his father than Biff
3. Happy is competitive and inspired by the American dream. He wants to ‘win it’ for Willy after his father’s death
4. Biff believes his father never really ‘knew who he was’; Biff will reject competitiveness.
5. Biff changes from ‘a lost boy’ to a man of insight and responsibility.
6. Happy oozes confidence and refuses to give in
7. Biff has little confidence, Willy belittles his farm work.
8. Biff doesn’t know ‘what I’m supposed to want’; he tried at school but failed.
9. Biff is a ‘boy’, engaged in hobbies rather than a career.
10. Happy has a good job and plenty of sexual power.
11. Biff has lost sexual confidence; Happy has gained it.
12. All the males need to grow up.
13. Happy knows that Biff despises his choice of career.
14. Happy uses his sexuality to seduce the wives of senior colleagues.
15. Happy is sexually competitive, he won’t take bribes but he will seduce other men’s wives – ‘it gets like bowling’. (confused morality).
16. Happy wants to create a Loman Brothers enterprise in farming.
17. Happy prefers a physical challenge to the psychological one involved in office politics.
18. Both boys have absorbed their father’s ideas: boxing, competition, capitalism.
19. Biff boxes to please his father
20. Biff is a thief; he becomes a petty criminal; Willy condones this.
21. Biff is defensive of his mother; he accuses Willy of never having ‘an ounce of respect’ for Linda; Charley, unlike his father, would never ‘spew out vomit from his mind’.
22. Biff has known about Willy’s affair since he was 17; he regards his father as a fake.
23. For Happy, success means an apartment and lots of women (shallow?)
24. Happy uses Biff (‘one of the greatest football players in the country’) to try and seduce the woman in the restaurant.
25. Biff sees through the American dream, ‘We’ve been talking in a dream for fifteen years’; Happy doesn’t: he’ll still continue to construct myths and illusions.
26. Biff has discovered ‘bad faith: we live to the expectations of others and not our own (existentialism).
27. Biff tries hard not to expose/destroy his father’s illusions, but in the end he has to be cruel to be kind.
28. Biff realises that competitiveness and status are illusions and, ultimately, are worthless.
29. Biff tells Willy that there will be no sympathy for him if he commits suicide.
30. It is the realisation that Biff and Happy are a ‘dime a dozen’ that shatters Willy’s illusions.
31. Willy, now, has nothing to live for as he realises that Biff is not a ‘leader of men’.
32. The illusions and false consciousness that have been established in Biff’s thinking are not easily eradicated: he knows that they are wrong but he isn’t sure how to extricate himself from them. He does, however, offer us a kind of hope.
Linda:
1. Linda is a staunch defender of everything that Willy stands for.
2. However, she is also acutely aware of his nature (p.43).
3. According to the stage directions she is usually cheerful and has developed an ‘iron repression’ of her objections to Willy’s behaviour (p.8)
4. She is ready to excuse anything he does.
5. The opening stage directions suggest that she needs Willy to create the ideals that she can believe in (p.8).
6. Linda mediates between Biff and Willy.
7. Through this mediation she often discovers the reasons for Willy’s cruelties (which affirm his concern for his son) (p.11).
8. She tries to calm Willy through kindness but this is thrown back in her face – however, she accepts the rejection mildly.
9. The difficulty for an actress playing Linda is to portray her as more than a weak victim of Willy’s foolishness and her sons’ immaturity. Is she a character in her own right?
10. It is Willy’s ‘massive dreams’ that makes him both attractive and bearable to Linda.
11. Willy refers to her as: ‘my foundation and my support’ (p.13).
12. Like Biff, she is aware that Willy has impossible dreams, but she can’t allow herself to accept their impossibility.
13. When Willy expresses self-doubt she recognises the need to bolster his self-confidence (p.29).
14. An actress playing Linda needs to distinguish between a blind acceptance of Willy (and all his faults) and a gentle indulgence of them.
15. Linda has a clear view of things within the play – but she doesn’t seem to grasp their full implications.
16. She alone is aware of their financial situation.
17. She tries to stop Biff from stealing, but is ignored (p.39)
18. When it comes to crucial decisions she has an iron will – when she realises that the boys are not getting on with Willy she is quick to offer an ultimatum (p.43)
19. Linda’s love sustains the family unit.
20. She is determined that whatever he has done, Willy must not be allowed to fall into his grave ‘like an old dog’ (p.44).
21. When Biff reminds her that there are many people worse off than Willy she shows a both an uncompromising attitude and a recognition of what Willy’s life on the road must really be like.
22. Linda is aware that Willy intends to kill himself and has already tried.
23. She realises that Willy’s life is in Biff’s hands, as only he can restore Willy’s self respect.
24. However, Linda is vulnerable to the actions of those around her – it seems that she does not have the means to change her life independently.
25. Linda does deny the dreams that Willy has of going to Alaska. (p.67)
26. She does not subscribe to all aspects of the American Dream.
27. However, that is not to say that she does not possess strength (compare her reaction to her sons on p.10 to the way she turns on them on p.98).
28. She is powerful in her final defence of Willy (p.98).
29. Her emotions break when Willy is pathetically sowing seeds in the yard at night – then sadness overcomes her and she pleads: ‘Will you please leave him alone?’ (p.99).
30. Linda could be played as a downtrodden drudge, mending her stockings because she no longer has any self-respect, but this would ignore the sharper and more powerful sides of her character. She chooses to be passive when it seems appropriate and she is able to act decisively when it matters. She is arguably the strongest of all the characters.
Willy:
Willy: has ‘massive dreams’ but indulges in ‘little cruelties’:
1. He dreams of running the New York business, but wants his own business so that he can spend more time with his family.
2. He lives in a world of his own; doesn’t realise that his wife is trying to please him.
3. He berates Biff for working on a farm.
4. He lectures Biff on not getting too involved with women – which, of course, Willy does!
5. He delights that Biff deceives and exploits women.
6. He seems to encourage Biff to steal the football, then condemns him for it.
7. He has a tendency to reinterpret to fulfil his own dreams.
8. He believes his own hype; thinks his wealthy when the evidence is that he isn’t.
9. he appears self-confident but isn’t.
10. He is constantly reassured by Linda that his sons ‘idolise’ him, but this isn’t true.
11. he is a proud man, not one to accept charity – but he does accept money from Charley.
12. He needs to be a salesman so that he can earn ‘big’ money (to match his big dreams).
13. He belittles Happy’s secure and reasonably well-paid job; he asks Ben (his dead brother) about his father who, it turns out, made and sold flutes. His father was both successful and happy.
14. He projects his own behaviour and anxiety onto Biff.
15. He can’t understand that appearance and image are not enough for success.
16. It is difficult to be sure whether Willy refuses to face reality or is unable to do so.
17. He projects responsibility for action onto others.
18. He blames others for his failure to achieve his dreams.
19. He believes that Biff will only love him if he is successful: Biff loves him anyway!
20. Willy does, however, attack consumer society and the dross it is responsible for.
21. He believes he is going to be successful in his meeting with Howard but becomes very defensive when it is clear that he is not going to get his way.
22. He appeals to the values of a bygone era (‘respect, and comradeship and gratitude). These values are clearly absent in the America that Miller’s play describes.
23. Even his appeal to Howard’s dead father, Frank, fails to have the desired effect
24. Despite his ‘wrong dreams’ Willy does try his best for his family.
1. Ben is to Willy’s mind the epitome of all he desires.
2. Willy calls him ‘success incarnate’ (p.32).
3. Ben went to Africa at 17 and emerged rich at 21.
4. Willy sees Ben as proof that: ‘The greatest things can happen!’ (p.37).
5. To the audience Ben represents all that Willy is not.
6. He is self-assured, rich, adventurous and succinct.
7. Willy sees his big mistake in life as not going with Ben to Alaska.
8. Willy’s line: ‘I don’t want you to think…’ (p.39) indicates that Willy sees himself in competition with Ben.
9. Ben does not give an answer to Willy’s question about the secret of success.
10. Ben’s one moral lesson is a dubious one i.e when he trips up Biff. His message is that you will ‘never get out of the jungle’ by fighting fair with a stranger (p.38).
11. The reference to the jungle recalls to the mind the phrase ‘the law of the jungle’ – suggesting the need to be ruthless in a ruthless world. However this ‘jungle’ also promises diamonds. Ben is an example of how to succeed in a capitalist society – by being competitive (note that this is what Biff ultimately rejects). Ben remarks on p.39 that the stock exchange is also full of fearless characters.
12. Ben appears after Willy has been rejected by Howard and he again uses fighting metaphors to explain how to succeed (p.66).
13. His speech on p.66 echoes Biff and Happy’s dreams of a farm in the country and sees wealth as a reward for adventure.
14. Ben questions Willy’s search for reputation and to be ‘well-liked’ as these are not commodities that can be cashed in (p.25)
15. Ben fulfils his role as a tempter in the scene where Willy explains that he wants to commit suicide in order to help Biff. He calls it a ‘cowardly thing’ (p.100) but he does agree that twenty thousand dollars is a tempting argument and in keeping with his businesslike approach to life he cannot deny that the idea has its attractions.
16. Ultimately Ben’s view is that the suicide is ‘A perfect proposition all around’ (p.107).
Bernard:
1. Bernard is cautious, studious, altruistic and law-abiding (a contrast to Biff).
2. Bernard partially fulfils the role of Biff’s father by reminding him to study and to not drive without a licence.
3. He is described as ‘anaemic’ and is not as sporty or strong as either of the Loman brothers.
4. Bernard accepts the realities of school life but Willy rejects him as being ‘not well liked’ and tells his boys how Bernard will not succeed in the business world (p.25).
5. Bernard represents what Biff might have become without Willy’s influence.
6. The adult Bernard has matured into a very successful lawyer with influential friends.
7. Bernard had a very close relationship with biff. He is upset that Biff did not retake his maths exam to qualify for university. Bernard has a prolonged fist fight with Biff after Biff burns his sneakers because he can see that this action is symbolic of Biff wasting his talent (p.74).
8. Bernard is philosophical about success and advises Willy that sometimes giving up may be the best option (p.75).
9. Bernard and Biff’s relationship parallels Charley and Willy’s – Bernard helps Biff academically as Charley helps Willy financially.
10. It is Bernard who tells Mrs Loman that Biff has failed maths, he seems to represent Willy’s nemesis, and by this time we realise that he is living evidence that Willy’s advice to Biff was wrong.
Biff and Happy:
Miller states that he is sorry that ‘Biff is not a weightier counterbalance to Willy’s disaster in the audience’s mind’.
1. Biff should offer the basis for optimism to balance Willy’s despair
2. Happy is more like his father than Biff
3. Happy is competitive and inspired by the American dream. He wants to ‘win it’ for Willy after his father’s death
4. Biff believes his father never really ‘knew who he was’; Biff will reject competitiveness.
5. Biff changes from ‘a lost boy’ to a man of insight and responsibility.
6. Happy oozes confidence and refuses to give in
7. Biff has little confidence, Willy belittles his farm work.
8. Biff doesn’t know ‘what I’m supposed to want’; he tried at school but failed.
9. Biff is a ‘boy’, engaged in hobbies rather than a career.
10. Happy has a good job and plenty of sexual power.
11. Biff has lost sexual confidence; Happy has gained it.
12. All the males need to grow up.
13. Happy knows that Biff despises his choice of career.
14. Happy uses his sexuality to seduce the wives of senior colleagues.
15. Happy is sexually competitive, he won’t take bribes but he will seduce other men’s wives – ‘it gets like bowling’. (confused morality).
16. Happy wants to create a Loman Brothers enterprise in farming.
17. Happy prefers a physical challenge to the psychological one involved in office politics.
18. Both boys have absorbed their father’s ideas: boxing, competition, capitalism.
19. Biff boxes to please his father
20. Biff is a thief; he becomes a petty criminal; Willy condones this.
21. Biff is defensive of his mother; he accuses Willy of never having ‘an ounce of respect’ for Linda; Charley, unlike his father, would never ‘spew out vomit from his mind’.
22. Biff has known about Willy’s affair since he was 17; he regards his father as a fake.
23. For Happy, success means an apartment and lots of women (shallow?)
24. Happy uses Biff (‘one of the greatest football players in the country’) to try and seduce the woman in the restaurant.
25. Biff sees through the American dream, ‘We’ve been talking in a dream for fifteen years’; Happy doesn’t: he’ll still continue to construct myths and illusions.
26. Biff has discovered ‘bad faith: we live to the expectations of others and not our own (existentialism).
27. Biff tries hard not to expose/destroy his father’s illusions, but in the end he has to be cruel to be kind.
28. Biff realises that competitiveness and status are illusions and, ultimately, are worthless.
29. Biff tells Willy that there will be no sympathy for him if he commits suicide.
30. It is the realisation that Biff and Happy are a ‘dime a dozen’ that shatters Willy’s illusions.
31. Willy, now, has nothing to live for as he realises that Biff is not a ‘leader of men’.
32. The illusions and false consciousness that have been established in Biff’s thinking are not easily eradicated: he knows that they are wrong but he isn’t sure how to extricate himself from them. He does, however, offer us a kind of hope.
Linda:
1. Linda is a staunch defender of everything that Willy stands for.
2. However, she is also acutely aware of his nature (p.43).
3. According to the stage directions she is usually cheerful and has developed an ‘iron repression’ of her objections to Willy’s behaviour (p.8)
4. She is ready to excuse anything he does.
5. The opening stage directions suggest that she needs Willy to create the ideals that she can believe in (p.8).
6. Linda mediates between Biff and Willy.
7. Through this mediation she often discovers the reasons for Willy’s cruelties (which affirm his concern for his son) (p.11).
8. She tries to calm Willy through kindness but this is thrown back in her face – however, she accepts the rejection mildly.
9. The difficulty for an actress playing Linda is to portray her as more than a weak victim of Willy’s foolishness and her sons’ immaturity. Is she a character in her own right?
10. It is Willy’s ‘massive dreams’ that makes him both attractive and bearable to Linda.
11. Willy refers to her as: ‘my foundation and my support’ (p.13).
12. Like Biff, she is aware that Willy has impossible dreams, but she can’t allow herself to accept their impossibility.
13. When Willy expresses self-doubt she recognises the need to bolster his self-confidence (p.29).
14. An actress playing Linda needs to distinguish between a blind acceptance of Willy (and all his faults) and a gentle indulgence of them.
15. Linda has a clear view of things within the play – but she doesn’t seem to grasp their full implications.
16. She alone is aware of their financial situation.
17. She tries to stop Biff from stealing, but is ignored (p.39)
18. When it comes to crucial decisions she has an iron will – when she realises that the boys are not getting on with Willy she is quick to offer an ultimatum (p.43)
19. Linda’s love sustains the family unit.
20. She is determined that whatever he has done, Willy must not be allowed to fall into his grave ‘like an old dog’ (p.44).
21. When Biff reminds her that there are many people worse off than Willy she shows a both an uncompromising attitude and a recognition of what Willy’s life on the road must really be like.
22. Linda is aware that Willy intends to kill himself and has already tried.
23. She realises that Willy’s life is in Biff’s hands, as only he can restore Willy’s self respect.
24. However, Linda is vulnerable to the actions of those around her – it seems that she does not have the means to change her life independently.
25. Linda does deny the dreams that Willy has of going to Alaska. (p.67)
26. She does not subscribe to all aspects of the American Dream.
27. However, that is not to say that she does not possess strength (compare her reaction to her sons on p.10 to the way she turns on them on p.98).
28. She is powerful in her final defence of Willy (p.98).
29. Her emotions break when Willy is pathetically sowing seeds in the yard at night – then sadness overcomes her and she pleads: ‘Will you please leave him alone?’ (p.99).
30. Linda could be played as a downtrodden drudge, mending her stockings because she no longer has any self-respect, but this would ignore the sharper and more powerful sides of her character. She chooses to be passive when it seems appropriate and she is able to act decisively when it matters. She is arguably the strongest of all the characters.
Willy:
Willy: has ‘massive dreams’ but indulges in ‘little cruelties’:
1. He dreams of running the New York business, but wants his own business so that he can spend more time with his family.
2. He lives in a world of his own; doesn’t realise that his wife is trying to please him.
3. He berates Biff for working on a farm.
4. He lectures Biff on not getting too involved with women – which, of course, Willy does!
5. He delights that Biff deceives and exploits women.
6. He seems to encourage Biff to steal the football, then condemns him for it.
7. He has a tendency to reinterpret to fulfil his own dreams.
8. He believes his own hype; thinks his wealthy when the evidence is that he isn’t.
9. he appears self-confident but isn’t.
10. He is constantly reassured by Linda that his sons ‘idolise’ him, but this isn’t true.
11. he is a proud man, not one to accept charity – but he does accept money from Charley.
12. He needs to be a salesman so that he can earn ‘big’ money (to match his big dreams).
13. He belittles Happy’s secure and reasonably well-paid job; he asks Ben (his dead brother) about his father who, it turns out, made and sold flutes. His father was both successful and happy.
14. He projects his own behaviour and anxiety onto Biff.
15. He can’t understand that appearance and image are not enough for success.
16. It is difficult to be sure whether Willy refuses to face reality or is unable to do so.
17. He projects responsibility for action onto others.
18. He blames others for his failure to achieve his dreams.
19. He believes that Biff will only love him if he is successful: Biff loves him anyway!
20. Willy does, however, attack consumer society and the dross it is responsible for.
21. He believes he is going to be successful in his meeting with Howard but becomes very defensive when it is clear that he is not going to get his way.
22. He appeals to the values of a bygone era (‘respect, and comradeship and gratitude). These values are clearly absent in the America that Miller’s play describes.
23. Even his appeal to Howard’s dead father, Frank, fails to have the desired effect
24. Despite his ‘wrong dreams’ Willy does try his best for his family.
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