ENGL 4603/5413, AMST 5833: American Drama

John M. Mercer, Professor of English

Northeastern State University, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma

Study Guide 5: Death of a Salesman

Setting

1. Why do apartment buildings tower over the Lomans’ house? How is the set supposed to suggest the presence of the apartment buildings? What is the significance of the apartment buildings to Willy’s situation?

2. What is a scrim? What use does the set make of a scrim?

3. How are the walls of the Lomans’ house depicted? When do characters observe the boundaries of the walls? When do characters “walk through” the walls?

4. What are the different levels of this multilevel set?

5. What is an apron stage? What scenes take place on an apron stage?

6. What lines from the play support or refute the following statements about the timeline?

a. In the main action of the play, Biff is 34 years old.

b. In Willy’s memory, Biff was 17 years old and a senior in high school in 1928.

c. The main action of the play takes place in 1945 (1928 + 17 = 1945).

7. What most important world event of 1945 is never mentioned in the play? Why might this be?

8. What main events take place in each of the following time periods?

a. 1945, in the present

b. 1928, when Biff was a senior in high school

9. What events occur only in Willy’s hallucinations in the present?

Symbols

1. Some symbols are part of the play’s set.

a. What do the apartment buildings symbolize?

b. What other aspects of the play’s set are symbols?

2. Some symbols are stage properties (props) that the audience sees.

a. What do the stockings symbolize?

b. What does the stolen fountain pen symbolize?

c. What other props are symbols?

3. Some symbols are mentioned in the dialogue but never seen by the audience.

a. What do Biff’s sneakers (the ones he burns) symbolize?

b. What do the diamonds that Ben discusses in Willy’s hallucination symbolize?

c. What other items mentioned in the dialogue but never seen by the audience are symbols?

Plot

Act 1

1. What is suspense? What do we learn about each of the following in act 1 that creates suspense about Willy’s future?

a. Willy’s state of mind

b. Willy’s ability to drive long distances

c. Willy’s ability to earn enough money to make a living

2. What clues does act 1 provide concerning each of the following suspenseful questions?

a. Why is there conflict between Biff and Willy?

b. Why is Willy upset when Linda mends stockings?

c. Who is “the Woman” in Willy’s memory?

3. As act 2 reveals, what do all of the above questions have in common? What are the answers to these questions?

4. What makes the end of act 1 the most hopeful part of the play?

5. How reasonable is the characters’ sense of hope at the end of act 1? Why?

Act 2

1. The scene in the restaurant provides the turning point or crisis of the events of both the present (1945) and the past (1928).

a. What happens in the restaurant that provides a turning point in the present concerning Willy’s future? Why is this event so significant to Willy?

b. What happens in the restaurant that reveals a turning point in the past relationship between Willy and Biff, explaining the conflict that continues into the present?

2. Ben’s words with Willy (in Willy’s hallucinations) help lead to Willy’s death.

a. When and how does Ben at first oppose Willy’s committing suicide?

b. When and how does Ben finally support Willy’s committing suicide?

3. What is Willy’s specific motivation in committing suicide? What interaction between Biff and Willy helps convince Willy to commit suicide?

Requiem

1. What definitions of the word requiem apply to the play’s final section?

2. How have the conflicts developed in acts 1 and 2 (see above) been resolved in the “Requiem”?

The Character of Willy Loman

1. What is the significance of Willy’s surname, Loman?

2. What speech by Linda admits Willy’s commonness but pleads for attention to be paid to him?

3. How does each of the following circumstances or incidents relate to Willy’s inability to cope with the modern world?

a. The apartment buildings that surround his house

b. His wife’s buying whipped cheese

c. The broken refrigerator belt

d. The problem with his Chevy

e. The breaking of household appliances before they are paid for

f. The “wire recorder” in Howard’s office

4. Willy experiences mental confusion. (See questions concerning act 1 above.)

a. On what occasions does Willy confuse the present and the past?

b. Willy frequently makes contradictory statements.

i. What contradictory statements does Willy make whether or not Biff is a hard worker?

ii. What contradictory statements does Willy make about whether or not Biff should joke with Oliver?

iii. What other contradictory statements does Willy make?

5. Willy also experiences moral confusion. (See later questions about Willy’s values.) On what occasions does Willy make contradictory statements

i. about whether or not he has taught his sons the right values?

ii. about the moral values his sons should follow? (See discussion of Willy’s values below.)

Willy’s Values

1. Willy values being well liked and making a good appearance as the keys to achieving material wealth, and he values wealth as evidence of a person’s worth.

a. When and concerning whom does Willy say that one can “[e]nd with diamonds here on the basis of being liked”?

b. In act 2, what character debunks the value of being liked? What does he say to Willy?

c. How does Willy’s concern with how Biff dresses for his interview with Oliver reveal Willy’s values?

d. When Biff and Bernard are in high school together, what does Willy ridicule about Bernard? In contrast, what does he praise about Biff?

e. How are the means by which Bernard achieves success and wealth at odds with Willy’s values? What is the situational irony here?

f. What causes Willy to conclude that Bernard’s friends in Washington are “fine people”?

g. Who is Dave Singleman? What evidence does Willy give to show that Dave Singleman is a popular salesman? What might be the symbolic significance of Singleman’s last name?

2. Willy values business careers as the only way to achieve the American Dream.

a. The play mentions the names of many well-known Americans who made fortunes in business.

i. Where and how does the play mention American financier J. P. Morgan? Who was J. P. Morgan? What is he known for?

ii. Where and how does the play mention American inventor-entrepreneurs Thomas Edison and B. F. Goodrich? What are they known for?

iii. Where and how does the play mention American athlete-businessmen Gene Tunney and Red Grange?

iv. Though they are not historical characters, where and how does the play mention American pioneer-exploiters? How do these men fit this description?

v. Though he is not a historical character, what character is referred to as a legendary American salesman?

b. Biff realizes that Willy has pursued the wrong occupation. What kind of work does Willy enjoy and excel at? Why does Willy not pursue this career?

c. What kind of work does Biff enjoy most? Why has he not stuck with this career? Why does Willy not approve of this career?

d. Why does Willy encourage Biff to talk to Oliver?

3. Willy does NOT value honesty and integrity. Rather, he lies, cheats, and steals, and he encourages his sons to do the same.

a. How does Willy lie to Linda about his income? What indicates that she is accustomed to his lying about it?

b. How does Willy justify Biff’s stealing a football from the high school locker room?

c. At Willy’s command, what do Biff and Happy steal for Willy’s home improvement projects?

d. What does Biff steal when he is working for Oliver?

e. How does Willy encourage Biff to cheat in school?

f. How does Willy cheat on his wife?

g. How does Happy cheat sexually?

h. What other instances of lying, cheating, and stealing do you find in the play?

Biff and Happy

1. Both of Willy’s sons have boyish names.

a. Biff says he feels as if he’s still a boy because he has not done what two things that are expected of men?

b. In what other ways are these boyish names appropriate to the characters?

2. What other pairs or groups of brothers have we studied in this class? Although these other pairs or groups of brothers experience conflict over inheritance, why is this not the case with Biff and Happy?

3. Which of his two sons does Willy prefer? What evidence demonstrates his preference? Why does he prefer this son over the other? What demonstrates the other son’s desire to win the father’s approval?

4. Biff is a popular jock in high school. What other high school and/or college jocks or campus heroes have we studied?

5. Their lives since high school show that Biff and Happy have reacted differently to Willy’s values. (See previous section on Willy’s values.)

a. How does Happy’s job history demonstrate that he has accepted Willy’s values? Why does Happy hate his job? How does he get revenge for what he suffers at work?

b. How does Biff’s job history show that he has failed to follow Willy’s values? What kind of work does Biff really enjoy doing? Why does he feel guilty about doing this kind of work?

c. The play creates suspense about why Biff “gave up on life” when he was a senior in high school.

i. Before his disillusionment, how does Biff feel about his father?

ii. What causes Biff to become profoundly disillusioned with his father?

iii. What goals does Biff abandon because of his disillusionment?

iv. What does Biff’s burning of his “University of Virginia” shoes symbolize?

d. When and how does Biff realize that he has been pursuing values (Willy’s values) that are unfulfilling?

Charley and Bernard

1. In his relationship with Willy, what admirable traits does Charley demonstrate? Why does Willy refuse Charley’s offer of help?

2. What kind of boy is Bernard when he is in high school? How popular is he? How successful is he academically?

3. What evidence does the play give of Bernard’s success as an adult? What attitude does he take toward his accomplishments?

4. How is Bernard a foil to Willy’s sons and especially to Biff?

Linda

1. In what ways, both in the past and in the present, does Willy treat his wife badly?

2. What is Linda’s attitude toward Willy? How does she respond to his abuse of her? Why?

3. In what ways does Linda encourage or “enable” Willy’s delusions?

4. At what point in the play does Linda change her attitude toward her sons? What decisive action does she take toward them? Why?

Title of Play

1. Where in the play’s dialogue does the phrase “death of a salesman” appear? To what salesman’s death does this phrase refer? What is noteworthy about this salesman’s funeral?

2. How does Willy’s funeral contrast with this other salesman’s funeral? What is the situational irony of the title of the play?

3. According to Charley’s speech in “Requiem,” how is a salesman’s life different from that of people in other occupations? How does Charley’s speech help explain why Miller makes Willy a salesman?

Death of Salesman as Tragedy

1. Willy is generally considered to be the tragic hero or main character of the play. In The Poetics, Aristotle says that a tragic hero has nobility of status and nobility of character.

a. Does Willy have high social status? What passages in the play emphasize Willy’s social status? What does Linda say about it? What does Biff say about it?

b. How does Willy’s name symbolically emphasize Willy’s status?

c. Does Willy have any exemplary character traits? What does Biff say to Miss Forsythe in the restaurant about his father’s character?

2. According to Aristotle, a tragic hero falls from happiness to misery. Although Willy does not seem ever to be truly happy in the present, in what sense is he in a state of relative happiness at the beginning of the play? In what sense is he in misery at the end of the play?

3. According to Aristotle, a tragic hero experiences one or more reversals, when something that has promised to be good turns out to be disastrous. What reversals does Willy experience? How do these reversals contribute to his suicide?

4. According to Aristotle, a tragic hero has a hamartia (imperfection, error in judgment, or tragic flaw) that causes his own fall. Does Willy have a hamartia? If so, what is it?

5. According to Aristotle, a tragic hero experiences recognition (an epiphany or moment of insight).

a. Although Willy does not seem to experience complete self-knowledge, what realization does he have when he talks to Bernard in Charley’s office? When he asks Bernard, “What’s the secret?” what is the unstated answer? Does Willy recognize the answer?

b. What does Willy recognize when Biff breaks down in front of him at the climax of the play?

c. What shows that Willy is still clinging to illusions at the end of the play?

6. Biff, unlike Willy, seems to more clearly experience recognition.

a. When does Biff experience recognition?

b. What does Biff say about his epiphany? What has he learned?

7. Happy, however, never seems to experience recognition.

a. What evidence near the end of the play and in the “Requiem” suggests that Happy hasn’t learned anything? What unrealistic promises does he make to Willy? How does he defend his father at the cemetery?

8. In “Tragedy and the Common Man,” Arthur Miller, the playwright, writes that the essence of tragedy is that the hero is willing to “lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing—his sense of personal dignity.” By this definition, is Willy a tragic hero? Why or why not?

9. In “Tragedy and the Common Man,” Miller also states his belief that tragedy is more optimistic than pessimistic. What arguments could support the assertion that Death of a Salesman is more optimistic than pessimistic?