Death of a Salesman

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is the story of Willy Loman, a man whose self worth is completely dependent upon what he makes himself (and his family) believe other people think of him. As the story plays out, it becomes more and more obvious that Willy is becoming unstable as the myths about his life, which he himself has built, are crumbling. Since they are the foundation he has built his identity upon, the resulting collapse cause him to come undone before our eyes. In a reading of the play, this in itself is emotionally impactful, but the messy unraveling of the Loman family made me more and more uneasy the closer the story drew to the end of Willy.

We learn early of the superficial things Willy finds important, and the concept is reinforced often. Willy spends a large part of his time struggling to make his son, Biff, want to become “well liked,” which Will demonstrates throughout the play is the most important thing for a man. In fact, the first time he refers to Biff with pride while talking with Linda Loman, his wife and Biff’s mother, it is in relation to what others used to think of him. “Remember how they used to follow him around in high school? When he smiled at one of them, their faces lit up” (Death. act 1). A little further on, the play returns to that time, and Willy compares his own future success with “Uncle Charley” in a scene with Biff and Willy’s younger son, Happy.

WILLY. I’ll tell you a secret, boys…someday I’ll have my own business, and I’ll never have to leave home any more.

HAPPY. Like Uncle Charley, heh?

WILLY. Bigger than Uncle Charley! Because Charley is not – liked. He’s liked, but he’s not well liked (Act 1).

Willy is expressing that a man’s success is predicated on others’ opinions of him, more than on merit or how hard he works. As an extension of the same thought, he discusses Bernard, a friend of the Loman boys, and riffs on the reason he will never be successful in the business world: he is not well liked. “Be liked and you will never want” (Act 1). This introduction to Willy’s insecure and superficial world view changes from quirky to sad as it is hammered home again and again.

Even more sad may be Linda Loman’s unconditional love and support for Willy, a man who doesn’t deserve to be cherished and supported so. Willy has an affair while on the road, about which he feels a certain amount of guilt, as we learn when a vignette involving Willy and The Woman in a hotel room plays out over a conversation between Willy and Linda. It is apparent Willy is remembering the affair during the conversation (as well as a gift of stockings he has given to his mistress), and he blurts out his guilt to his wife, who is seemingly oblivious to the reason for the exclamation

WILLY. I’ll make it all up to you, Linda, I’ll…

LINDA. There’s nothing to make up, dear. You’re doing fine… (Act 1)

The impact of the guilt affair on Willy is illustrated further when he notices Linda is darning her own stockings, and he angrily makes her stop, out of guilt that he has given his mistress stockings. This mercurial, nearly abusive behavior, directed at Linda numerous times during the play, is something that a reader may come to resent, as it demonstrates Willy isn’t worthy of the care Linda shows him.

Linda, we come to find out, may have more knowledge of Willy’s failings than it seems at first blush. She gives a very touching speech to Biff and Happy, during which she relates that she knows Willy “is not the finest character that ever lived” (Act 1), and when Biff and Happy bristle at the mention of a woman (but not The Woman), it seems Linda may have some suspicions she doesn’t want confirmed as well, as she lets her question about their reaction remain unexpressed. This knowledge, combined with Linda’s unearned, dutiful support for Willy, makes the whole dynamic feel even more sad.

This unhappy feeling does not get better, as the play continues to place Willy’s loss of touch with reality front and center. A way this is conveyed is through the back-and-forth movement through time, which is apparently based upon Willy’s perceptions. There are times when the reality of characters or scenes is called into question. Is this a real person, or are we seeing Willy’s hallucination? The most striking example of this is the character of Ben, who appears in one of the time-shifting scenes to offer Willy a job in Alaska. Linda enters, and shuts down the idea (Act 2). We are left with the feeling that Willy is expressing resentment that Linda has held him back in his life. This causes us to reconsider what is happening in the relationship. Is the selfless support of Linda for Willy due to her own guilt that she has held him back? Is Willy’s treatment of Linda, on some level, appropriate? Is Ben a real person, or based upon one? This changes the effect of Willy’s unraveling from simple sadness to slightly dizzying uneasiness.

In the end, this sad, unsettling story is a tragedy Shakespeare would be proud of - much like his Twelfth Night. Willy meets a bad end when he crashes his car intentionally in order that his insurance money will be more of a help to his family than he is, but the money is no consolation for us. We see the end coming from a long way off; the only thing is to read on to see exactly how Willy will ultimately fail. I ended up feeling as if I knew this flawed man. It is a play that will stay with me long after this reading, as I think I see Willy Lomans every day.

Work Cited

Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin Books, 1996.