Essay, Research Paper
Death of a Salesman is a play by Arthur Miller. It takes place in New York. It
is about a man named Willy Loman. He has been traveling salesman for the
Wagner Company for 34 years. He has a wife named Linda, and two sons
named Biff and Happy. Happy lives in New York, and works in a department
store. After 14 years, Biff finally comes home, looking for a job in New York.
Willy is so happy that his sons are with him, that he decides to ask his Boss if
he can have a job in New York, rather than New England. Instead, Willy gets
fired. Willy then asks his friend Charley for fifty dollars, and Charley offers
Willy a good job in New York. Willy refuses, and leaves to go meet his sons in
a restaurant. Later on, after they have gone home, Willy commits suicide,
because with the insurance money, he feels that Biff could be such a
magnificent person. Willy Loman came back home after having left for New
England one day. He is a traveling salesman for the Wagner Company. His
wife Linda is at home, and he tells her how he hasn’t been able to keep his
mind on driving. He starts daydreaming, and his car just swerves off to the side
of the road. He asks about their son Biff, who hasn’t been home in over 14
years. He is visiting in New York, and is staying with them. Willy starts
daydreaming about when Biff was a senior in high school, and was in a big
football game. People were coming from all over to offer him scholarships. But
something happened that year, because Biff was never able to find himself.
Now that Biff is in New York, him and his brother Happy are trying to think of
a job that Biff could get in New York. They decide that he could ask Mr.
Oliver, a man Biff used to work for. He wants to ask him for a loan of ten
thousand dollars, so that Biff can start his own business. When they tell their
father about their plans, Willy is ecstatic. He thinks they could conquer the
world. He reminds them that the most important thing in life is to be well-liked
and to have personal attractiveness. Willy is so happy that his two sons are
going to have a business together, that he decides to go ask his boss, Howard
Wagner, for a job in New York. Howard tells him there is no room for Willy in
New York, and then tells him that he can no longer work in New England
because he is doing harm for the company. Willy goes to an old friend to
borrow money. His name is Charley. Willy tells Charley that he has been fired,
and Charley offers him a job in New York. But Willy declines. Earlier, Biff had
gone to see Oliver about the loan. He waited all day to speak to Oliver, and
then when he finally got to see him, Oliver didn’t even recognize Biff. Biff then
realizes that his whole life has been a ridiculous lie. Later on, when Biff meets
Happy in a restaurant, he tells Happy about what happened. Happy suggests
that Biff not tell Willy about it, and instead tell him a nice story instead. When
Willy gets to the restaurant, Biff tries to explain to him that he had never
worked as a salesman with Oliver, and that he was only a shipping clerk. But
Willy tells his boys he wants to hear something good, because he just got fired.
Biff can’t believe that the company fired Willy. He keeps trying to tell Willy the
truth about the interview, but Willy doesn’t listen. He pretends that Oliver had
remember Biff after all those years, and how Oliver threw his arm around Biff.
Biff screams out that he can’t talk to Willy. Willy leaves and goes to the
bathroom. Biff asks Happy to stay and wait for him. Biff leaves, and Happy
follows. He brings along two girls that he picked up earlier. When Willy come
out of the bathroom, he sees that his boys left. He leaves the restaurant, and
goes to the store to look for seeds. Biff finds Willy in the garden planting the
seeds. Biff explains to him that he has to leave, and he wont be coming back.
Biff tells him that he has stolen himself out “of every good job since high
school”. Biff starts crying, and then Willy sees that he was wrong when he
thought that Biff had been intentionally hateful towards him. He then realizes
that Biff loves him. Later that night, Willy kills himself in a car accident. A few
days later, at Willy’s funeral, no one came. Willy died a forgotten man. Death
of a Salesman was a great book. It was a little hard to follow, because it had a
lot of flashbacks, and sometimes it was difficult to figure out what time period it
was in. At the end of the book, Willy kills himself, and no one but his family
came to his funeral. All his dreams about being well-liked were phony, because
the truth was that he wasn’t very well-liked at all. It is a book about the
“common man being defeated by a society which drains the common man of
his energy, and then drops him”.