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Death of a Salesman summary

Name: Death of a Salesman
Author: Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller

A Play About the Success and Disappointments of the American Dream

(5 ratings)

17 mins

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Death of a Salesman
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What’s in it for me? A modern classic about the illusion of the American Dream.

Death of a Salesman is not a funny play. It’s not an action-packed, adrenaline-inducing romp. There aren’t any magnificent sets, props, or visuals. In its two short acts, the most exotic setting is a hotel room in Boston.

So why did this play win the Pulitzer Prize, sell eleven million copies, and spawn ten film adaptations?

Arthur Miller’s most enduring work accomplished these things precisely because of how ordinary it is. The Loman family isn’t fabulously wealthy or talented – they’re normal people, with normal flaws and weaknesses, living in a normal house. This heightens the tragedy of the play, and therefore its power to move us. We’re able to relate to these characters, and so we can understand how modern American culture poisons the mind of Willy Loman and breaks the hearts of his family.

To say Death of a Salesman honors ordinary people and places isn’t to say that it’s boring or pedestrian. As the play progresses, we drift through dreamlike scenes where past and present, truth and lies, and fantasy and reality all merge – mirroring the progressive disorientation of Willy’s mind. The illusions that he constructs to cling onto his twisted notions of the American Dream begin to unravel, and the psychological foundations of his life transform into quicksand. Willy has a choice: accept the reality of his life, or plunge deeper into delusion.

Just how that choice unfolds will be revealed in the course of this Blink. Along the way, we’ll also sketch out the main narrative of the play while explaining its significant themes and talking points.

Part 1: “I’m tired to the death”

Willy Loman, a 63-year-old traveling salesman, arrives home from a business trip exhausted and disheveled. His wife, Linda, is clearly concerned. Willy admits that he kept falling into a daze while driving, almost careening into an embankment. Linda reminds him of when he accidentally drove off a bridge and into a river.

From the outset, Willy’s psychological state is constantly called into question. He’s agitated, unreliable, and often contradicts himself. His two adult sons, Biff and Happy, are visiting. That morning, Willy berated Biff for his laziness and inability to hold down a steady job. Now, he asserts that Biff isn’t lazy in the slightest.

Happy is more successful than Biff, but is distressed that his father has begun talking to himself. Mostly, Willy has conversations with an imaginary Biff, as if his son were actually in the room with him. They reveal Willy’s anger and disappointment in how Biff has chosen to live his life, flitting between menial jobs and drifting from place to place. There’s a chasm between Biff’s adulthood and the values Willy tried to instill in him as a child.

These values are also the ones that Willy lives by. In fact, they obsessively dominate his life, and lie at the very heart of Miller’s play. The salesman believes in a twisted version of the American Dream, where ambition, confidence, and being “well liked” will lead to fabulous success and material wealth.

With a modest house and a modest car, we can clearly see that Willy hasn’t achieved the fame and fortune that his interpretation of the American Dream promised. What’s more, we already see his unsteady mental state, and his willingness to reinterpret reality to suit the moment.

This tension between Willy’s unrealistic aspirations and his actual existence is the driving force behind the entire play – and will lead us to its tragic ending.

Part 2: “I’ll knock ’em dead next week”

We’re now thrust into the first of Willy’s many daydreams, flashbacks, and imaginary escapes. This is a common motif that the play uses. It’s fluid in how it deals with time, and recreates Willy’s fantasies and hallucinations on stage just like it does with the “real” scenes. This helps highlight the hazy, dreamlike consciousness of Willy – we begin to question what’s real, and what’s not.

In this flashback, Biff and Happy are children again, helping to wash their father’s car. Even here, Willy’s negative qualities shine through plain as day. Happy desperately seeks his father’s attention, but Willy favors Biff – and even laughs away his favorite son’s theft of a football. He’s also deeply jealous of the success of his neighbor Charley. Remember, for Willy, success is everything. He mutters to himself that he’ll soon start an even larger company than his neighbor, because he’s more “well liked.” Bigger is better, the approval of others is paramount, and being a self-made man is everything. This is Willy Loman’s American Dream.

Part 3: “I don’t want you to represent us”

The final scene of the first act is critical. We find Willy shouting on his front lawn, and his deranged cries wake Linda and Biff. Linda reveals to Biff that Willy lost his guaranteed salary recently – he now works only on commission. What’s more, Willy borrows $50 per week from Charley, the successful neighbor he is poisonously jealous of, and tells Linda that it’s his salary. But she knows better.

She also knows the truth about Willy’s road “accidents” – they’re actually suicide attempts. She even found a rubber hose in the garage from when he attempted to hang himself.

Part 4: “I don’t want your goddam job”

Willy is still physically in Howard’s office, but his anguished mind has transported him to other places and times. After another “visit” from Ben’s ghost, where the successful younger brother asks Willy to manage a logging mill he has purchased, we flow into a memory involving Biff, Happy, and their childhood friend Bernard. It’s clear that both Happy and Bernard look up to Biff – they even argue over who should be allowed to carry Biff’s football helmet.

Back in the Loman household, an adult Bernard stops by. He is a successful and humble lawyer – he’s arguing a case in the Supreme Court later, but doesn’t mention it. Willy, full of pomp and grandeur, boasts to Bernard that Biff is working on a big business deal in town. Almost breaking down, Willy asks Bernard why Biff’s life went so terribly wrong. Bernard explains that Biff was never the same after he visited Willy in Boston. When he asks Willy what happened there, Willy flies into a rage and deflects the question.

Part 5: “A dime a dozen”

We’re now at the climax of the play, and it’s all high drama from here on out.

When Biff and Happy return to the Loman home, their mother flies into a rage at them for abandoning their sick father in a restaurant. How could they be so callous, so cruel? This is typical of Linda throughout the play: she is a deep reservoir of patience, and loves her husband unconditionally. It’s this unconditional love that makes Willy’s fantasies and delusions so tragic – his family would love him no matter how unsuccessful he is, but he simply can’t accept the reality of his life and his failure to live up to the American Dream.

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What is Death of a Salesman about?

Death of a Salesman (1949) is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century’s greatest plays. A poignant critique of the promises and pitfalls of capitalism and the American Dream, it follows the salesman Willy Loman, his increasingly tense relationships with his family and colleagues, and his tragic, hallucinatory descent into fantasy and madness.

Who should read Death of a Salesman?

Budding playwrights and theater enthusiasts
People curious about the dangers of unbridled capitalism
Anyone interested in modern drama

About the Author

Arthur Miller was an American playwright who had an enormous influence on postwar drama through his plays Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, and A View from the Bridge. He was deeply critical of the cutthroat ambition and greedy consumerism which he saw developing in modern America, and at the height of Cold War paranoia was forced to testify before the US government’s anti-communist committee.

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