A summary of Death of a Salesman, a play by Arthur
Miller
Willy Loman
returns home exhausted after a cancelled business trip. Worried over Willy's
state of mind and recent car accident, his wife Linda suggests that he ask his
boss to allow him to work in his home city so he will not have to travel. Willy
complains to Linda that their son, Biff, has yet to make good on his life.
Despite Biff's promising showing as an athlete in high school, he flunked senior-year math and never went
to college.
Biff and his
brother Happy, who is temporarily staying with Willy and Linda after Biff's
unexpected return from the West, reminisce about their childhood together. They
discuss their father's mental degeneration, which they have witnessed in the
form of his constant indecisiveness and schizophrenic daydreaming about the
boys' high school years. Willy walks in, angry that the two boys have never
amounted to anything. In an effort to pacify their father, Biff and Happy tell
their father that Biff plans to make a business proposition the next day.
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The next day,
Willy goes to ask his boss for a job in town while Biff goes to make a business
proposition, but both fail. Willy gets angry and ends up getting fired when the
boss tells him he needs a rest and can no longer represent the company. Biff
waits hours to see a former employer who does not remember him and turns him
down. Willy then goes to the office of his neighbor Charley, where he runs into
Charley's son Bernard (now a successful lawyer); Bernard tells him that Biff
originally wanted to do well in summer school, but something happened in Boston
when Biff went to visit his father that changed his mind.
Happy, Biff, and
Willy meet for dinner at a restaurant, but Willy refuses to hear bad news from
Biff. Happy tries to get Biff to lie to their father. Biff tries to tell him
what happened as Willy gets angry and slips into a flashback of what happened
in Boston the day Biff came to see him. Willy had been having an affair with a
receptionist on one of his sales trips when Biff unexpectedly arrived at
Willy's hotel room. A shocked Biff angrily confronted his father, calling him a
liar and a fraud. From that moment, Biff's views of his father changed and set
Biff adrift.
Biff leaves the
restaurant in frustration, followed by Happy and two girls that Happy has
picked up. They leave a confused and upset Willy behind in the restaurant. When
they later return home, their mother angrily confronts them for abandoning
their father while Willy remains outside, talking to himself. Biff tries
unsuccessfully to reconcile with Willy, but the discussion quickly escalates
into another argument. Biff conveys plainly to his father that he is not meant
for anything great, insisting that both of them are simply ordinary men meant
to lead ordinary lives. The feud reaches an apparent climax with Biff hugging
Willy and crying as he tries to get Willy to let go of the unrealistic
expectations. Rather than listen to what Biff actually says, Willy appears to
believe his son has forgiven him, and after Linda goes upstairs to bed,
(despite her urging him to follow her), lapses one final time into a memory of
Biff's football career before exiting the house. Biff and Linda cry out in
despair as the sound of Willy's car blares
up and fades out.
The final scene
takes place at Willy's funeral, which is attended only by his family, Bernard,
and Charlie. The ambiguities at the funeral of mixed and unaddressed emotions
persist, particularly over whether Willy's choices or circumstances were
obsolete. At the funeral Biff retains his belief that he does not want to
become a businessman like his father. Happy, on the other hand, chooses to
follow in his father's footsteps, while Linda laments her husband's decision
just before her final payment on the house...
Vocabulary
flunked: failed
- adrift: without direction - blare: sound loudly
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