Summary:
Death of a Salesman follows
the last days of the Salesman himself, Willy Loman, a man who has aged kicking
and screaming, and lives half his life in hallucinatory flashbacks to better
days where his sons Biff and Happy idolized him and his wife Linda smiled more.
Back in cruel reality, however, things are far less idyllic. Biff has returned
after living a vagrant life, and cannot hold down a job. Happy is working a
banal desk job trying to work his way up through the corporate ranks, and has
become a womanizer with no meaningful relationships. Willy himself is off of
his actual pay, instead working only on commission, and is horribly abusive to
Linda, who sticks her head so deep in the sand she could probably find
fossilized dinosaurs. Through Willy’s flashbacks, we slowly learn the reason
that the family is in the disarray that it is. We meet Willy’s vastly more
successful brother Ben, who offered to take Willy with him on his journey to
success. Willy didn’t accept the invitation, and missed out on Ben’s wealth. We
also see Willy interact with his boys, instilling values of form over function
into them, and encouraging laissez-faire attitudes about personal
responsibility and hard work. Even as Bernard warns Willy about making Biff
start studying and stop stealing, Willy brushes him off. Everyone ignores
Happy. Biff’s personal failures also contribute to the family chaos, but the
most notable issue is the failed math class, meaning Biff did not graduate high
school. He could have redeemed himself over a summer course, but refused when
he discovers that Willy is cheating on his mother with another woman in Boston.
As things in the flashbacks get progressively worse, so too do the issues of
the later dates. In the end, Willy kills himself by driving his car off a
bridge, hoping to not only give his sons a good start with the insurance money
but also to prove, by way of a lavish funeral, that he was known and loved. No
one attends but the family.
Style:
One of our articles pointed out
that Arthur Miller took a break from his usual basis of realistic and
well-crafted dialogue to create a more surreal work, and I remember thinking
nothing but ‘why.’ One of the things that made The Crucible an amazing read was its ability to force people to
relate to characters that had been dead for hundreds of years. Salesman
is completely absent of that trait, which
made it a much less enticing read, at least for me. There is a sense of
defeatism about the whole play, and Willy Loman is a walking tone shift, able
to take a stable moment and holler away any sanity he had, and any patience I
had left with him. Although Miller definitely succeeded at creating a more
modern style work, I would not necessarily deem it a good choice in the first
place.
Since this is a drama and there is
no narration, the most important considerations to make have to do with the
staging and setting and other features unique to dramas, and the most important
of those in this work is the ‘wall-less house.’ This aspect was completely lost
in the movie, but having actors go through wall lines in the flashbacks to the
past is a choice that sends a very clear indicator each time it happens. One
thing that I noticed as right before the “Requiem” is all the characters exit
through the wall line of the kitchen. This action alone places the entire end
of the play outside the realm of reality, which serves to justify the dialogue
of the Requiem itself, which basically serves as an entire section summarizing
each character’s opinions as they had already been expressed.
The symbolism in Salesman is also essential to understanding the work. Even the
background music given in the stage directions is an important consideration-
each time a flute plays, for example, becomes relevant when it is revealed that
Willy’s father sold flutes. When Willy gives his mistress in Boston a pair of
stockings, Linda’s mending them in the next scene becomes all the more painful
because they stand for sexual relationships and her femininity- both of which
apparently need fixing in the Loman household. The seeds Willy plants near his
end and the end of the play, in dirt that can’t keep grass alive, are not only
symbolic of his desire to improve life for his sons, but also provide a clear
signal that such a desire is doomed to failure.
As far as imagery goes, the
lighting in Salesman is integral to
understanding the work. The golden halo around Biff at the end of Act One, the
harsh glare of the radiator Willy was considering as suicide, but most
especially the shadows of buildings in the background representing the city and
serving as the “forest on fire” that Willy refers to once or twice in his
ravings. Shadows of leaves appear during flashbacks, reminding the audience of
the calmer more natural setting that was once there, and at the end of the play
the last things to be seen are the overhanging buildings, surrounding and
trapping our main characters. The lighting, truly, is what sets the despondent
tone of Salesman in stone.
Quotes:
Ben: “Why boys, when
I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked
out. And by God I was rich”
- This
statement is essentially Willy’s goal for his two sons- semi instant
prosperity and fulfillment. Interestingly enough, in the minds of both
men, prosperity can only be reached by material wealth (Ben also likes to
talk about diamonds that can be held and touched). The problem is, Willy
has no idea how to achieve that goal himself, and his guesses prove to be
completely wrong. The constant repetition of ‘the jungle’ also underscores
an interesting commentary on the corporate world, and how it isn’t far
separated from the more brutal jungle that Ben gained his success in.
Linda: “Willy Loman
never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest
character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is
happening to him. So attention must be paid.”
- Again,
this line sets up money (alongside fame) as the only measures of human
success, ignoring the more interpersonal levels that happiness can take.
What it also does, though, as add a prayer for human dignity. Linda
expresses Miller’s feelings about the common man, and how nobility can
still be found in those who have not achieved success in the eyes of the
world.
Charley: “Willy was
a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. . . He’s a
man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they
start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. And when you get yourself a couple
of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A
salesman is got to dream, boy.”
- Charley’s
little rant at the end of the play essentially serves as the cliffs notes
for those who weren’t paying attention the whole way through. He discusses
the difference between tangible and intangible successes, and along the
way, points out several themes of the play. Notably, he addresses the
importance of outward appearance, something Willy always stressed above
all else. He also talks about the assignment of blame, which no character
in the play is comfortable assigning or taking on. Charley absolves Willy
completely in this speech-, which is not to say that he should be agreed
with.
Theme:
Death
of a Salesman serves as a warning that it
is not always possible to fix what has been broken.
The
Loman family is undoubtedly broken. Willy’s suicidal and out of work, Happy is
desperate for any kind of attention, Biff is essentially a hobo, and Linda
favors mothering her husband over mothering her actual children. All of these
problems have clearly defined causes, as the play slowly reveals, but the
problem is always what to do about the problems.
In
some cases, the characters are reluctant to even admit that a problem exists.
Willy is particularly guilty of this, even in the past ignoring heavy warnings
about Biff’s truancy and inability to apply himself. Linda, too, refuses to
acknowledge Willy’s suicide attempts as a serious issue. Instead, she enables
him to keep that option open in a misguided attempt to save his dignity in lieu
of his life. Biff, in fact, is the only character who consistently insists that
there are problems, and tries over and over to bring them up for discussion.
It
is only in the second act, and only then after Biff makes his disastrous
meeting with Bill Oliver clear, that Willy realizes that his life may not be
what it was cracked up to be. He has many conversations with Ben about what to
do to make Biff see who he truly is, but most notably, he purchases several
packs of seeds. He plants these seeds in ground that cannot possibly grow them,
in an attempt to justify his life. Everyone else, be they characters in the
story or audience members watching can understand the futility of the gesture,
but Willy persists.
None
of Willy’s attempts to fix the problems he himself created end up coming to
fruition. His garden doesn’t grow. His funeral is barely attended. Biff doesn’t
go into business with the insurance money provided by Willy’s death. Everything
that Willy did was too little, too late, and in the end he failed to break the
never ending cycle of failure that the Loman family is trapped in.
