Death of a Salesman Totally Explained

Everything about Death Of A Salesman totally explained

Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play by Arthur Miller and is considered a classic of American theater. Viewed by many as a caustic attack on the American Dream of achieving wealth and success without regard for principle, Death of a Salesman made both Arthur Miller and the character Willy Loman household names. The play raises a counterexample to Aristotle's characterization of tragedy as the downfall of a great man, whether through (depending on the translator) a flaw in his character or a mistake he's squandered.
It was greeted with enthusiastic reviews, received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1949, the 1949 Tony Award for Best Play, as well as the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. Death of a Salesman was the first play to win these three major awards, helping to establish Miller as an internationally known playwright.

Characters

Willy Loman, an elderly salesman, who is no longer able to make a salary from his job and receives only a small commission. He is losing his mind and has attempted to kill himself with a rubber pipe by inhaling the fumes from the gas line, as well as crashing his car. He is obsessed with the post war interpretation of the American Dream, making as much money and being as successful as possible. He originally intended to work with his hands, but after seeing the success of others, went into the sales business.
Linda Loman, Willy's wife, woman who cares much about her husband and encourages him despite his desolate state. She is Willy's "foundation and support." However she alongside Willy's friends and family reinforce and fail to contradict his delusions which results in Willy's suicide.
Biff Loman, son of Willy and Linda. Biff follows the older American Dream, of working out in the open and being free. This displeases Willy significantly, due to Willy thinking that Biff will never be successful this way. Biff used to love his father deeply, but after discovering an affair with a woman in a Boston hotel, he abandoned all of his dreams and set out to make his own way.
Happy Loman, son of Willy and Linda. Happy is the epitomisation of all of Willy's negative points, such as his lust for money and women - Happy is generally supportive of his father, and although shows concern for him, carries on to encompass Willy's dream.
Ben, Willy's wealthy and recently deceased older brother, who only appears during his time shifts.

Minor characters

Howard Wagner, Willy's boss

Charley, a neighbor of the Lomans

Bernard, Charley's son

Stanley, a waiter

Miss Forsythe, a woman that Biff and Happy meet

Letta, a woman that Biff and Happy meet

The Woman, Willy's mistress, referred to by Willy as 'Miss Francis'

Bill Oliver, a previous boss of Biff's

Jenny - Charley's secretary

Dave Singleman, a successful salesman

Plot summary

Willy Loman, a salesman based in New York City, returns from a trip, where he drove out near Yonkers, and had to turn around, because he was paying too much attention to the scenery. His two sons, Biff and Happy, greet him along with his wife, Linda, and then retreat into the other room. Biff, who had been working on a farm in Texas, talks to Happy about working outside, and how he hates to be in this house, because it brings back bad memories, and boxes him in. They talk to Willy, and afterwards he goes outside and flashes back to the days where Biff was still budding. In the flashback, Biff is the football star of his high school, and their neighbor, Bernard, comes out and advises him to study math so he won't fail. Biff, as well as Willy, ignores him and carries on playing with the football. Willy goes inside, where Linda talks to him about their budget, where Willy is reminded of an encounter he'd with The Woman. As a gift, Willy gives the Woman some stockings. When he returns from the flashback, he sees Linda mending some stockings and snatches them away in guilt. Later, he and Charley engage in a poker game, where Willy is reminded of his brother Ben. Ben begins a dialogue with him, some sort of mix between internal monologue and flashback, and WIlly contemplates why he can't become successful. In most other flashbacks involving Ben, Willy asks Ben how he made his millions. Ben, who had wanted to go up to Alaska, presumably to get involved in logging, accidentally (through a "faulty view of geography") ended up in Africa. In Africa, he "stumbled" upon the Diamond business and had made bundles of money by the time Willy was old enough to care about his career. Willy, who looks up to him, feels that he can do the same, just become successful by luck alone. However, it's made apparent that Ben never spent much time with the rest of the Lomans (he refers to himself as a "stranger" in one scene), and only gave preliminary discussions about his success. Therefore, whenever Willy asks Ben (in his flashbacks) how he made his millions, all he responds with is "When I walked into the jungle, I was 17. When I walked out, I was 21, and by God I was rich." In addition, Willy worked for a man, an octogenarian who only had to wake up in the morning, put his slippers on, and make phone calls, and had made millions of dollars. Willy then assumes that they didn't need to work or have ambition, but that all these men needed was a "smile and a shoeshine" to make their success. This is how he teaches his sons, this is what he lives by.
   But, of course, it doesn't work out for him. Willy has been reduced to working for commission alone, and has to travel all over the place and run himself ragged. While he denies it in conversation, he's to borrow money from Charley to make ends meet. To free himself from responsibility from his own failure, he puts all the pressure of success onto his sons (mainly Biff), makes them utterly full of themselves with false pride, and feels personally hurt when they don't live up to his expectations. It gets to the point that in one scene, Linda tells the boys that she found a tube and "a new little nipple" on the heater, and says he'd crashed the car deliberately several times, that he's been trying to kill himself. As the play progresses, we discover that Biff had been working in Texas a very long time and didn't ever call home, and this made Willy very angry, and his sudden return isn't very welcome. But to please the man, Biff and Happy conduct a plan that could make money, which is that that'll go down to Florida and start up a sporting goods business, putting on exhibitions for publicity. This idea, though ludicrous, makes Willy excited, and they plan to see Bill Oliver, Biff's past employer, to talk to him about getting some money to start it up. In the meantime, Willy goes to see his own employer to talk to him about getting a job in New York, so he doesn't have to travel so much. His employer, the son of his old employer (who had made promises to Willy personally about his job), instead fires him. Willy is outraged, and goes on a rant about the immorality of it, which his employer responds with, "I have to see some people, can you hurry this up?" Willy goes to meet Charley at his work, and runs into Bernard, and they've a conversation about Biff's last few days of high school, and tells him that once, he went out to Boston to visit Willy, and came back and had lost all hope or determination, and soon failed math. Willy denies anything happening in Boston. When he talks to Charley, Charley mentions that Bernard is going to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court, with which Willy is astounded. Then he starts to talk about losing his job, and Charley offers him a job, to which Willy declines because he still envies him.
   Meanwhile, Biff and Happy entered a restaurant and Biff starts talking about his encounter with Bill Oliver. He says that he never even got to talk to him, that he didn't remember who Biff was and that out of a rage, Biff stole his fountain pen and ran down the stairs, where he realized how much of a lie his life had been, and that he was never a salesman for him, just a shipping clerk. When Willy comes in, Biff tries to tell him, but Willy so eagerly wants good news, that he tries to force a lie out of him. When Biff resists, Willy starts pacing and blending his thoughts, asking Biff why he didn't pass math, and he sees his life falling apart. Out of pity, Biff tells Willy that he saw Bill Oliver and everything went okay, and this puts Willy back on track with his denial of reality. Willy visits the restroom and flashes back once again, while Happy leaves (with Biff trailing) to keep some women he was trying to pick up happy. In Willy's flashback, he remembers the night when Biff visited him in Boston, where he was having another encounter with The Woman. Biff walks in and sees her there, and knows instantly what is going on. Willy tries to lie about it, but Biff sees right through and runs off, back to New York. Willy then wakes up in the bathroom, where he'd somehow dozed off, and goes back home, where he begins planting seeds outside and talking to Ben. When Biff returns, he and Willy have a heated dialogue where Biff admits that he'd spent some time in jail, that he saw through the lies Willy had created, and shows him the tube he tried to kill himself with, and tells him that he doesn't want to live up to Willy's expectations. Willy takes it personally, tells him to rot in Hell, and Biff tells him that they should just be separate so they don't have to stand each other, and tells him to "take this phony dream and burn it." When he goes up to bed, Willy responds by saying "He loves me, how about that?" And as they go up to bed, Ben appears and taunts Willy to try to perpetuate his dream of making Biff a success, which entails Willy killing himself to leave the insurance check to have Biff spend. The play, not including the Requiem, ends with him leaving his house, and the sound of a car driving off.
   The Requiem is a funeral scene, with Happy, Biff, Linda, Charley and Bernard standing over Willy's grave. At that point, Biff has learned to accept himself for what he is, Happy still wants to carry on Willy's dream of success in the city, and Linda ends the play with a monologue alone. In this monologue, she explains that she can't cry, and that she'd made the last payment on the house, ending with the words "We're free, we're free..."

Style

The play is mostly told from Willy's point of view, and the play shows previous parts of Willy's life in his time shifts, sometimes during a present day scene. It does this by having a scene begin in the present time and adding characters onto the stage that only Willy can see and hear, representing characters and conversations from other times and places. One example of this is during a conversation between Willy and his neighbor Charley. During the conversation, Willy's brother Ben comes on stage and begins talking to Willy while Charley speaks to Willy. When Willy begins talking to his brother, the other characters don't understand who he's talking to and some of them even begin to suspect that he's "lost it." However, at times it breaks away from Willy's point of view and focuses on the other characters, Linda, Biff and Happy. During these parts of the play, the time and place stays constant without any abrupt flashbacks as usually happens while the play takes Willy's point of view.
The play's structure resembles a stream of consciousness account: Willy drifts between his living room, downstage, to the apron and flashbacks of an idyllic past, and also to fantasized conversations with Ben. The use of these different "states" allows Miller to contrast Willy's dreams and the reality of his life in extraordinary detail; and also allows him to contrast the characters themselves, showing them in both sympathetic and villainous lights, gradually unfolding the story, and refusing to allow the audience a permanent judgment about anyone. When we're in the present the characters abide by the rules of the set, entering only through the stage door to the left; however, when we visit Willy's "past" these rules are removed, with characters openly moving through walls. Whereas the term "flashback" as a form of cinematography for these scenes is often heard, Miller himself rather speaks of "mobile concurrences." In fact, flashbacks would show an objective image of the past. Miller's mobile concurrences, however, rather show highly subjective memories. Furthermore, as Willy's mental state deteriorates, the boundaries between past and present are destroyed, and the two start to exist in parallel.

On stage

Lee J. Cobb - Willy Loman

Mildred Dunnock - Linda Loman

Arthur Kennedy - Biff Loman

Thomas Chalmers - Uncle Ben

Alan Hewitt - Howard Wagner

Cameron Mitchell - Happy Loman

Howard Smith - Charley

Hope Cameron - Letta

Winnifred Cushing - The Woman

Ann Driscoll - Secretary

Constance Ford - Miss Forsythe

Don Keefer - Bernard

Tom Pedi - Stanley Produced by Kermit Bloomgarden and Walter Fried
   Written by Arthur Miller
   Incidental music by Alex North
   The original production opened on February 10, 1949 at the Morosco Theatre, and ran for 742 performances. Lee J. Cobb starred as Willy. The production won the Tony Award for: Best Play; Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Arthur Kennedy); Best Scenic Design (Jo Mielziner); Producer (Dramatic); Author (Arthur Miller); Best Director (Elia Kazan). The play won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Jayne Mansfield, a Hollywood actress once compared, in some ways, to Marilyn Monroe, performed in a production of the play in Dallas, Texas in October, 1953. Her performance in the play attracted Paramount Pictures to hire her for the studio's film productions.
   The play has been revived on Broadway three times since: � *June 26, 1975 at the Circle in the Square Theatre, running for 71 performances. George C. Scott was Willy.

   *March 29, 1984 at the Broadhurst Theatre, running for 97 performances. Dustin Hoffman played Willy. In a return engagement, this production re-opened on September 14, 1984 and ran for 88 performances. The production won the Tony Award for Best Reproduction. � *February 10, 1999 at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, running for 274 performances, with Brian Dennehy as Willy. The production won the Tony Award for: Best Revival of a Play; Best Actor in Play; Best Featured Actress in a Play (Elizabeth Franz); Best Direction of a Play (Robert Falls). This production was filmed.

Film and television versions

1951, starring Fredric March, Mildred Dunnock, Kevin McCarthy and Cameron Mitchell. It was adapted by Stanley Roberts and directed by László Benedek who won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director. The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Fredric March), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Kevin McCarthy), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Mildred Dunnock), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

1961, En Handelsresandes död starring Kolbjörn Knudsen - directed by Hans Abramson (in Swedish)

1966, a television production starring Lee J. Cobb, Gene Wilder, Mildred Dunnock, James Farentino, Karen Steele and George Segal. It was directed by Alex Segal.

1968, Der Tod eines Handlungsreisenden starring Heinz Rühmann and directed by Gerhard Klingenberg

1985, a television production starring Dustin Hoffman, Kate Reid, John Malkovich, Stephen Lang and Charles Durning. It was directed by Volker Schlöndorff.

1996, a television production starring Warren Mitchell, Rosemary Harris, Iain Glen and Owen Teale. It was directed by David Thacker.

2000, a television production starring Brian Dennehy, Elizabeth Franz, Ron Eldard, Ted Koch, Howard Witt and Richard Thompson. It was directed by Kirk Browning.

References in popular culture

Death of a Salesman is alluded to in the Seinfeld episode "The Subway". Jerry Seinfeld reminds George Costanza not to whistle in the elevator (the same advice Willy gives Biff). Jerry then continued to call George "Biff" (This can also be seen in "The Boyfriend, Part 1" when Jerry mocks George's idea of becoming a buff, saying, "So Biff wants to be a buff."). Furthermore in "The Boyfriend, Part 2" George's date Carrie refers to him as Biff Loman; and at the end of the episode Jerry says to George, "So Biff, what's next?"

In the Seinfeld episode "The Summer of George", after accidentally winning a Tony Award, Cosmo Kramer tells his new friends of a discussion with "Arty" that he should have called his play Life of a Salesman.

In the movie Soapdish, Kevin Kline's character, a formerly-famous actor, stoops to playing Death of a Salesman to near-deaf senior citizens in a dinner theater.

In an episode of Family Guy, Meg Griffin plays the part of Linda, reciting the line "Willy Loman never made a lot of money, his name was never in the paper, but attention must be paid to such a person." Then a hitman, playing the role of Happy Loman, stands up and tries to fire at Lois.

During an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Richard Lewis asks Larry David "Who are you, Willy Loman?", whilst Larry is selling cars at a car dealership. Larry David was the executive producer of Seinfeld, which also includes character references

In the movie American Beauty, Carolyn Burnham (Annette Benning) tells Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) that "'the Lomans just moved out next door" - alluding to the family in Death of a Salesman.

In "Burns, Baby Burns", the fourth episode of The Simpsons' eighth season, Mr Burns opens a door to a theatre in his home, an actor is saying "You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man isn't a piece of fruit." --- Willy Loman, Act 2, Death of a SalesmanFurther Information

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