Death of a Salesman Study Guide
INTRODUCTION
Arthur Miller (1915-2005) was among the most prominent and influential of American post-World War II playwrights. Many of his works are complex reflections on the darkness which lies behind the American Dream. Miller was born in New York City to a non-Orthodox Jewish family. His father was a ladies-wear manufacturer who was ruined during the Great Depression. As a young man, Miller worked at a variety of casual jobs. When he began to read extensively on his own, he decided to apply to the University of Michigan to study journalism. As a student there, he wrote a series of award-winning dramas, thus initiating his career as a playwright. His first major play, All My Sons, was produced and published in New York in 1947 and won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award.
For Miller, playwriting was an act of self-discovery and an effective means of communicating with other people. He has been called a prophet by a number of critics, and in that role has attempted to uncover flaws in American culture with the hope that we might strive to improve our lives. Miller’s work is described as deriving from a “vision that emphasizes self-determination and social responsibility and that is optimistic and affirms life by acknowledging man’s possibilities in the face of his limitations and even sometimes in the dramatization of his failures.” (Steve Centola, in Conversations with Arthur Miller, 1987)
Death of a Salesman is probably Miller’s most well-known play, and its main character, Willy Loman, is an important cultural icon. After it opened in 1949, he became famous overnight and won both the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award (again). On one level, the play is a depiction of the historical economic environment in the United States American society during the post-war period. Willy lived through major changes in the economic structure of the United States, including the wild prosperity of the 1920s, through the Great Depression of the 1930s and the renewed economic vigor during and after World War II. The play was written and is set in 1948, at the time when forces of capitalism and materialism came to the fore and technology was beginning to make grand promises for the lives of ordinary families.
It is important to realize, however, that Willy’s story is timeless and his tragedy is universal. His failure is that of Everyman – in terms of his working life as well as his relationships with the members of his family. The reason for its success all over the world is that people recognize in Willy their own weaknesses and tendencies toward self-delusion. This is a play about the last terrible day of a man and about the flood of facts and lies, or reality and fantasy, of the actual and the potential that made him and killed him. Miller’s gift is that has made this character both specific and both universal.
TRAGEDY
In one of his earliest essays on drama, “Tragedy and the Common Man,” Arthur Miller formulated his position on the nature and function of tragedy. The tragic feeling, he writes, is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing – his sense of personal dignity. There is also a personal factor – no one is flawless – but the human situation is a product of forces outside the individual person and the tragedy inherent in this situation is a consequence of the individual’s attempts to fight against an order that degrades. The function of tragedy is to reveal the truth concerning our society, which frustrates and denies man his right to personal dignity; and the enlightenment of tragedy is the discover of the moral that supports this right.
Among the many influences on the writing of Arthur Miller was Greek drama. He admired the ritualistic aspect, the sense of form and symmetry of events. In Greek tragedy the individual is influenced strongly by forces outside of himself – his fate is foretold by oracles, and in many ways, the hero is not responsible for his actions. Our own perceptions of universal law and the role of the individual in society have changed such that this dramatic world view would not currently work. Miller was interested in developing a form which would function in the same kind of relationship to the moral crises of the twentieth (and twenty-first…) century as did Greek, Shakespearean or any other tragic drama – each to its own era. In his view, the best drama is social drama, that is, drama which illuminates the ties between the individual and society. As in Greek tragedy, there are forces beyond us that determine our fate, but our own will as well as the events of our own past, are called into play at all times.
CHARACTER ANALYSIS
Willy Loman
Willy Loman is the main character in the play, an insecure, self-deluded salesman (of unspecified goods). He is a victim of society, and his warped values are a reflection of that, but he never acknowledges or learns the errors of his ways. To the very end he is a devout believer in the ideology that destroys him. He maintains that life’s problems can be solved by making oneself “well-liked.” His failure to achieve self-realization is atypical of the tragic hero. Probably the real tragedy is his inability to recognize the deep anguished love offered to him by his family and to be redeemed by it. His sacrifice is his attempt to leave an inheritance that will allow Biff to fulfill the American Dream.
Willy is someone well-known to Miller. He simultaneously hated and admired his own father, who had suffered financial ruin in the Depression. Miller was annoyed by his father’s inability to recover emotionally and economically from this catastrophe, but was also able to appreciate the man’s inner goodness and capacity for love. This ambivalence toward his father lies at the core of many of the father figures in his plays.
The other important model for Willy was Miller’s uncle, Manny Newman, also a salesman. He had a wild imagination, liked to brag and maintained a continuous sense of competition between his nephew (Miller) and his own sons. Newman was also prone to black moods and bouts of despair and it is believed that he committed suicide. After a conversation during which Newman abruptly changed subjects, Miller got the idea to write a play without transitions, in which the dialogue would flow from one scene to another without apparent breaks.
Biff Loman
Biff is the elder son, who led a charmed life in high school as a football star with prospects for scholarships and good friends. He failed math and did not graduate, thus not fulfilling his father’s ambitions for him. In some ways, he represents Willy’s vulnerable and poetic side. He needs to break away from Willy’s expectations, and is compelled to seek the truth about himself and to confront failure. He longs for the freedom of the West to escape his father’s blind faith in materialism. When Biff catches Willy in his hotel room with The Woman, he loses faith in his father, as well as his dream of passing math and going to college.
Happy Loman
He is Willy’s younger son, who has lived in the shadow of Biff all of his life, but has compensated by his relentless sex drive and professional ambition. He represents Willy’s sense of self-importance and devotion to society’s expectations, to some extent also embodying the dark side of the American Dream. He also shares Willy’s capacity for self-delusion – a doomed, utterly deceived figure.
Linda Loman
She is Willy’s loyal, loving wife, who suffers through his grandiose dreams and self-delusions. Sometimes she seems taken in by his hopes for glory, but usually she seems far more realistic and less fragile than her husband. She has nurtured the family through it all. Along with their neighbor Charley, she serves as a force of reason and is probably the most enigmatic and complex character in the play, and maybe even in all of Miller’s work. It can be said that she represents the emotional core of the drama.
Charley
The Loman’s next-door neighbor, Charley owns a successful business and his son, Bernard is a successful lawyer. Willy is jealous of Charley’s success, but still regards him as his only friend. Charley can be seen to function as a kind of poetic prophet or sage, much like Tiresias, the mythological seer in the Sophocles’ Oedipus cycle. His analysis of Willy’s circumstances is logical, and grounded in practical considerations. The job he offers Willy is a commonsense solution.
Bernard
Charley’s son and successful lawyer, Bernard was always mocked by Willy for studying hard. In spite of this, Bernard has always liked and admired Biff and Happy. Bernard’s success is difficult for Willy to accept because his own sons’ lives do not measure up.
Ben
He is Willy’s older brother, who has recently died and appears in Willy’s “daydreams.” Willy regards him as a symbol of the success that he desperately craves for himself and his sons.
The Woman
She is Willy’s mistress during the time that Happy and Biff were in high school. She is someone who boosts his fragile ego. When Biff catches Willy in the hotel room with her, he loses faith in his father, and also in his own dream of going to college.
Howard Wagner
He is Willy’s boss, who had inherited the company from his father, regarded as “a masterful man” and “a prince,” by Willy. Although much younger than Willy, Howard treats him with condescension and eventually fires him. Miller presents him as the epitome of the hard-hearted businessman.
SYMBOLS
One aspect of the drama which makes the story universal and timeless, almost mythic, is the reoccurrence of various symbols or motifs which deepen our understanding of abstract ideas and concepts in the play. Here are some:
garden/seeds – The idea of planting a garden is a major motif and carries significance on a number of levels. Throughout the play, Willy mentions the idea of planting a garden – at one point saying, “The grass don’t grow anymore, you can’t raise a carrot in the back yard.” His need to put something into the ground is his attempt to combat the feelings of impermanence and being hemmed in by large grey buildings. His desperate, nocturnal attempt to grow vegetables also signifies his shame about barely being able to put food on the table and having nothing to leave his sons when he dies. The garden represents his desire to leave something behind, but his inability to make the garden happen mirrors his failure to raise his sons effectively.
diamonds – represent tangible wealth and validation of one’s life, as well as the ability to pass material goods to one’s offspring. The discovery of diamonds by Willy’s brother Ben made him a fortune, which highlighted Willy’s failure as a salesman. At the end of the play, Ben (in Willy’s imagination) encourages Willy’s to enter the “jungle” finally and retrieve this elusive diamond – that is, to kill himself for the insurance money as a way of giving his life meaning.
American West/Alaska/African Jungle – These regions represent potential or realized success to Willy and to Biff. Willy’s father found success in Alaska and his brother Ben became rich in Africa. These locations are in contrast to Willy’s urban neighborhood which has trapped him. The American West symbolizes Biff’s true self – he realizes he has been content only when working out in the open. He has tried to escape from Willy’s delusions and the striving for commercial success.
women’s stockings – Willy has a strange obsession with the condition of Linda’s stockings which foreshadows the scene of Biff’s discovery of him with The Woman. The teenage Biff accuses Willy of giving her Linda’s stockings. Thus the stockings are a metaphor for betrayal and sexual infidelity. New stockings are important for Willy’s pride in having financial success and being able to provide for the family and for his ability to suppress both guilt and the memory of his betrayal.
rubber hose – this is the stage prop which reminds the audience of Willy’s attempts at suicide. He has tried to kill himself by inhaling gas, which is, ironically, the very substance essential to providing heat for his family. Literal death by inhaling gas parallels the metaphorical death that Willy feels in his struggle to afford a basic necessity.
THEMES
American Dream
Miller’s play is a critique of American morals and social standards. He saw the constant quest to be successful, especially in terms of wealth, as potentially destructive and harmful. Willy believes wholeheartedly in what he considers the promise of the American Dream – that a “well-liked” and “personally attractive” man in business will certainly and deservedly acquire the material comforts offered by modern life. His blind faith in this stunted vision is what leads to his psychological collapse, as he is unable to cope with the disparity between the Dream and his life.
The family
Possibly the most powerful positive value expressed in the play is that of family loyalty. There is no doubt that Willy loves his family, particularly his son Biff. It could be argued that the betrayal of that loyalty is what ruins Willy’s life more than the his failure as a salesman. And it is in the name of family love that he finally kills himself. But unfortunately, Willy has a false ideal of fatherhood, revealed most blatantly at the very moment when he decides to sacrifice himself: “Ben, he’ll worship me for it.” This is parental love obscured by a form of egotism and is a recurrent theme in Miller’s work.
Abandonment/betrayal
Willy’s life can be marked by one abandonment to the next, leaving him in greater despair each time. His father leaves him and Ben when they are very young, without a tangible legacy or sense of family history. Ben also leaves Willy when he goes to Alaska, allowing him to be lost in a warped sense of values. His fear of abandonment likely contribute to his fierce adherence to those values and his desire to raise perfect sons. Biff also abandons Willy by dropping his father’s ambitions for him and later shattering his illusions.
Along with his fear of abandonment is Willy’s obsession with what he sees as Biff’s betrayal – he believes he has every right to expect Biff to fulfill the ambitions he himself has laid out, and Biff’s refusal to do so is viewed as a personal affront. Biff’s discovery of Willy’s infidelity reveals the real betrayal – of Linda’s love – and Biff feels that his father is a “phony little fake.”
QUESTIONS FOR FUTHER STUDY
1. How would you describe Miller’s language – poetic? wordy? visceral?
2. Describe the ideas of “hunger” or “hunting” as they apply to this play.
3. What is the turning point?
4. How does Willy’s guilt about his relationship with The Woman dictate his actions and his relationships?
5. What is the significance of the line which Willy speaks to Howard: “You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away – a man is not a piece of fruit.”?
6. What is the significance of the “burning woods?” What are positive and negative aspects of trees in the play?
7. What are some other symbols in the play not discussed above?
8. How does Willy’s home function as a metaphor for his ambitions?
9. Arthur Miller has said that the structure and form of Greek Drama have influenced his writing. What other influences did he have?
10. In addition to what has been described above, what are the elements of the play which make it universal?
11. Expand upon the comments above on the themes of the play. Discuss some of them in relation to other works by Arthur Miller (especially All My Sons).
12. Do you agree with the character analyses given above? What would you add?
13. Why does Willy reject Charley’s job offer?
14. During both world wars, Americans were encouraged to grow “Victory Gardens.” This trend happened as a result of people’s fears about food shortages and rising prices. Discuss the notion of the Victory Garden and how it could relate to the motif of the garden in Death of a Salesman.
15. The names of the characters in the play have been chosen carefully. What is their significance (Loman, Singleman, Biff, Happy, etc.)?
16. Discuss the notion of mythic figures in the play? What purpose to they serve for or against Willy?
17. Discuss the role of sports – how do attitudes toward sports shape feelings which Biff, Willy and Happy have about themselves?
18. What is the role of women in the play? Discuss the play from a feminist perspective, especially in regard to the idea of the American Dream and to the theme of family loyalty.
LEXICON
Death of a Salesman
Adonis – a handsome youth, in Greek mythology, loved by Aphrodite, goddess of love. He is also associated with myths of death and regeneration, which is interesting in the context of some of the themes in Death of a Salesman.
American cheese – the whipped cheese that Linda is talking about is hard to pin down exactly, but it could actually refer to something like "Cheez Whiz," which was introduced by Kraft in 1953 - a little bit after the play. The first processed cheese ("American") was invented in 1916 and Velveeta in 1928 - both Kraft products. They also came up with the first packaged macaroni and cheese dinner in 1937.
B.F. Goodrich – the tire company founded in 1870 in Akron Ohio by Benjamin Franklin Goodrich
Bulova – founded as a jewelry company in 1875 in New York City by Bohemian immigrant Joseph Bulova; started manufacturing pocket watches and small clocks in 1911; manufactures first wrist watches in 1919
Ebbets Field – home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, opened April 9, 1913; last game was Sept. 24, 1957; demolished Feb. 23, 1960
Filenes – department store in Boston, founded by William Filene in 1881
Gene Tunney – American boxer, James Joseph Tunney (1898-1978), heavyweight champion 1926-1928, when he retired undefeated
Gold Coast diamond mines – Gold Coast, name of Ghana during the British colonial period. Diamond mines are actually found in South Africa.
Hercules – hero in Greek mythology known for his strength, courage, and many legendary exploits
J.P. Morgan (1837-1913) – one of the most influential bankers in American history
Jack Benny (1894-1974) – an American comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor, was arguably the biggest star in classic American radio and was also a major television attraction.
New York Giants – New York’s professional football team since 1927
New York State Regents exams – set of standardized tests given to high school students through the New York State Board of Education, in order that they may receive a special diploma
Red Grange (1903-1991) – American football player, known as the “galloping ghost;” major college start as well as professional, mostly Chicago Bears
saccharine – artificial sweetener, discovered by accident in 1879
simonize – to polish, usually a car or other vehicle, with wax; originally the brand name of the product (like Kleenex, or Xerox)
Spaulding – sporting goods company, founded in 1850 by baseball player Albert Spaulding (Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs)
Studebaker - Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company was a United States wagon and automobile manufacturer that was incorporated in 1868. The company left the automobile business in 1966. 1953 Studebaker Commander Starliner, showing the streamlined design of the 1950s Studebaker. In the 1980s, a multi-national panel of renowned automobile journalists, voted the 1953 Studebaker Starliner "one of the top ten most beautiful automobiles ever made".
Thomas Edison (1847-1931) - was an inventor and businessman who developed many devices which greatly influenced life in the 20th Century; most famous for his improvements on the light bulb
West Point – United States Military Academy in West Point, NY, founded in 1802
wire recorder – early type of sound recording on steel piano wire, first developed in 1878, with the first commercially successful ones introduced in 1930; between 1947-1952, wire recorders became popular in America and across Europe.
Yonkers – city north of New York city, originally settled by the Dutch
Other cities mentioned in the play:
Albany, New York
Bangor, Maine
Hackensack, New Jersey
Hartford, Connecticut
Ketchikan, Alaska
Portland, Maine
Providence, Rhode Island
Waterbury, Connecticut
| 
