Essay on Death of a Salesman by MyAssignmentHelp
Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman is a play that was written by American playwright Arthur Miller in the year 1949. The play is a result of some of the personal experiences of Arthur and also the theatrical traditions in which he was schooled. Death of a Salesman can be considered parallel to ‘All My Sons”, which is another major work of Arthur Miller. It has premiered in the year 1947, two years before the premiere of ‘Death if a Salesman’. Miller had begun writing ‘Death of a Salesman’ when he was just seventeen years of age and working for his father’s company.
Miller began reworking on the play in the year 1947 after a meeting with his uncle named Manny Newman. His uncle was a salesman and was very competitive by nature. He even competed with his two sons, Abby and Buddy. Miller took a lot of inspiration from his uncle and his cousins for the characters of his play.
When the play premiered in the year 1949, it was a huge success. It even went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony prize as well for the Best Play. Since then, the play has been revived a lot of times on the stage and also adapted in many television versions.
Summary Essay of Death of a Salesman:
The play opens with Willy Loman, a sixty-year-old salesman, returning to his home tired and confused from a failed sales trip. Linda, his wife, greets him but she worries that he has smashed his car. He tells her that nothing has happened. He also tells her that he could get only as far as the Yonkers and that he does not remember everything about his trip. He says that he could not keep control and the car kept swerving on the road. Therefore, he had to drive slowly to reach home. Linda is worried because of this and tells him that he needs to rest and tells him that he should work in New York. Willy thinks that he is not needed there. He feels that had Frank Wagner been alive, he would the in-charge of New York, but now that he is gone, his son, Howard, does not value him as much. Linda tells him about the double date that Happy, his younger son took Biff, his older son, on. She says that it was very nice to see both of them at home.
Linda asks Willy to keep his faith in Biff. She tells him that Biff admires him. Both of them have an argument about whether or not Biff is lazy. Willy tells her that Biff is a person who will get started later in his life. Willy goes to the kitchen for a snack and begins to talk to himself. As he does so, Biff and Happy reminisce about their young days and talk about their father’s babbling, which mostly includes his criticism of Biff’s life because he has failed to live up to his expectations. The two are not satisfied with their lives and start fantasizing about buying a ranch out West. Willy starts daydreaming about praising his sons, now younger, for washing his car. He dreams of his two sons interacting affectionately with him as he has returned from a business trip. In the dream, he confides in his two sons and tells them that he is going to start his own business one day, which would be bigger than that owned by his neighbour named Charley. Bernard, Charley’s son enters looking for Biff, who is supposed to study for the Math exam. Willy tells his sons that despite being smart, Bernard is bound to be disliked by people and it is going to hurt him in the long run.
The dream continues and Linda enters and the boys leave. Willy tries to boast of a very successful sales trip that he has returned from, but Linda talks him into revealing that the trip was only decent. He begins to complain that he won’t be able to pay the bills for the appliances and car and that people do not like him at all because he is not good at his job. Linda begins to console him and he hears his mistress laughing. He approaches towards the voice and engages in another daydream. The Woman and Willy flirt with each other and she thanks Willy for giving her stockings.
The woman suddenly disappears and Willy fades back into the prior daydream. Linda is mending the stockings and begins to reassure him. He scolds her and asks her to throw the stockings. Bernard comes again, still looking for Biff. Linda tells Willy that Biff needs to return a football that he stole and that he is way too rough with all the girls in the neighbourhood. Willy again hears The Woman laugh and shouts at Linda and Bernard. The daydream finally ends with both of them leaving.
The play comes back to the present, where Willy tells Happy how he almost drove into a child in Yonkers, and regrets over the fact that he could not go to Alaska with his brother Ben. Ben ended up finding diamond mines in Africa and came out of the African jungles very rich and that too, at the age of twenty-one. Happy tells Willy that he will enable him to retire.
Charley enters and he and Willy play cards. Charley offers Willy a job. Willy feels insulted by this and both of them begin to argue. They also argue over the ceiling that Willy has in the living room. Willy tells Charley that Ben is dead and that he died many weeks ago in Africa. Willy experiences a hallucination. He sees that Ben enters, carrying a valise and umbrella and asks about their mother. Charley becomes disturbed by this hallucination of Willy’s and leaves.
The play moves to the past again. Willy introduces his two sons to Ben, whom he calls a great man. Ben also says with pride that his father was a great man and inventor. Willy shows off his sons to Ben. Ben tells them that they should never endeavour to fight fair with a stranger because if they do so, they might not be able to leave the jungle. Charley scolds Willy for letting his two sons steal from the construction site that is nearby. In response, Willy tells him that his kids are a couple of fearless characters. Charley tries to mock him by saying that the jails are full of fearless characters, to which Ben replies that so is the stock exchange.
The play returns to the present again and the two sons ask their mother as to how long Willy has been talking to himself. She tells them that he has been talking to himself for years and she would have told Biff if she had an address to contact him on. She even confronts Biff about his attitude towards Willy. Biff tells her that he is trying to change his attitude. Biff tells Linda that he does not want his mother to look old and therefore, she should die her hair. In response, Linda asks if him if he cares about Willy or not. She says that if he does not care about Willy, he cannot care about her. She then goes on to tell her sons that Willy has attempted suicide by hooking a tube up to the glass heater in the basement and by trying to take his car off the bridge. She admits that Willy is not a great man but he is a human being and that they should pay attention to him. This causes Biff to relent and he says that he will never fight with his father again. He tells Willy and Linda that he will go to talk to Bill Oliver about a sporting goods business that he thinks he can start with Happy. Willy says that had Biff stayed with Oliver, he would have been on top by now.
The next day, Willy sits in the kitchen, resting for the first time in many months. Linda says that Biff has got a new hopeful attitude towards life and the two of them dream to buy a little place of their own in the country. Willy tells her that he is going to talk to Howard Wagner to be taken off the road. Willy leaves and Linda gets a call from Biff. She tells him that the pipe connected to the gas heater is no more there.
Willy goes to the office of his boss, Howard Wagner. As he attempts to ask him for a new job, Howard shows him his new wire recorder. Howard tells him that he thinks of him as more of a road man, but Willy thinks that it is time for him to be more settled. He thinks that he has the right to demand this settled life as he has worked in the firm since Howard was a child and he had even named him. Willy says that the business has changed and that there is no place for friendship or personality in the salesman position anymore. He begs for any sort of salary and keeps lowering the figure. He tells Howard that his father had made promises to him. Howard leaves and Willy leans his head on the desk and thus, turning on the wire recorder. Willy gets frightened by this and shouts for Howard. Howard comes back and fires Willy. He tells him that he needs a long rest and should rely on his sons.
Willy hallucinates again. He sees that Ben enters and Linda, now young, tells Willy that he should stay in New York. She tells that not everybody is supposed to conquer the world and Frank has promised that Willy will be a member of the firm. Bernard comes and asks Biff to let him carry his helmet to the game at Ebbets Field.
The play comes back to the present. Bernard is sitting in his father’s office when his father’s secretary, Jenny, comes in and tells Bernard that Willy has arrived and is shouting in the hallway. Bernard is soon going to argue a case in Washington and her wife has just given birth to their second son. Bernard asks Willy why he did not make Biff go to summer school so that he could have gone to UVA. He even pinpoints the timing of Biff’s failures to his visit to his father, after which he had burnt his UVA sneakers. He asks as to what happened during that visit. Charley gives Willy, who has just lost his job money to pay his life-insurance premium, but he is shocked by his reply, “a man is worth more dead than alive”.
Willy meets his two sons at a restaurant for dinner. Willy refuses to hear bad news from Biff. Happy persuades Biff to lie to their father. Biff tries to tell him what happened but Willy gets angry and suddenly slips back into a flashback of what had happened in New England the day Biff had come to meet him. Willy was involved with a receptionist on one of his sales trips and Biff had unexpectedly arrived at Willy’s hotel room. Biff was shocked and confronted his father, called him a liar and fraud. This is the moment that set the two apart.
The story comes back to the present and Biff leaves the restaurant in frustration. Happy also leaves with two girls that he has picked up. Willy is left behind in a confused and upset state. When the two sons return home that night, they are scolded by their mother for leaving their father behind. While they are being scolded, Willy is outside talking to himself. Biff makes another attempt at reconciling with his father, but the discussion soon turns into an argument again. Biff tries to tell his father plainly that he is not meant for anything great. He says that both of them are ordinary people meant to live ordinary lives. The discussion ends with Biff hugging Willy and trying to make him let go of all the extraordinary expectations. Instead of listening to what Biff is saying, Willy believes that his son has forgiven him and will lead a life following in his footsteps.
After Linda goes to bed, Willy again lapses into a hallucination and begins to think that he is seeing his long-dead brother Ben, whom he idolized. In his mind, Ben approves of the plan that he has to kill himself so that Biff gets his insurance policy money. Willy goes out of the house. Biff and Linda cry as they hear the sound of Willy’s car.
The final scene of the play is at Willy’s funeral. The funeral is attended by the family, Bernard and Charley. Biff still is of the belief that he does not wish to become a businessman like his father. On the other hand, Happy has decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. Linda grieves over her husband’s decision to commit suicide before she makes the final payment on the house.
