Book Questions
6. A) Willy is a sad product of his own disillusion. He believes that when he dies,
people will line up everywhere but really, only his family is there. He is very arrogant
and isn’t realistic with his goals, often pushing his dreams onto the people around him.
Willy is a tragic hero, trying hard to make the best for his family as he tries to achieve his
unrealistic goals. There is a possibility that Willy knows that he will not attain his goals,
thus he lives through his sons to become successful.
“No, you’re ignorant. You gotta know about vitamins and things like that… They build
up your bones. Chemistry.” He is indignant towards Charley because he believes that he
is equally if not more knowledgeable.
Although Charley offers Willy a job, Willy turns down the job believing that he is
currently in a better position.
Willy lives in the past in that he believes the perks that he got with Howard’s father
would still apply with Howard.
B) Willy’s disillusionment is his most highlighted characteristic. Although outwardly he
shows how confident and successful he perceives himself to be, his schizophrenic
episodes prove otherwise. Willy is also very prideful and unrealistic. He was offered a
lucrative job in Alaska by Ben, but he turns it down thinking that he will eventually rise
to a higher position in the firm.
C) When Biff and Happy were younger, they looked up to Willy. After witnessing his
father’s affair, Biff loses his respect for his father and starts rebel and realize his father’s
flaws. While his wife always sees Willy as a success because he is dedicated to his
family’s well being, most of the other characters see him as a failure.
7. A) Women play a subordinate role in this play. Willy is always telling his wife what
to do. Linda is a dynamic character. She goes from a woman who is just a spectator to a
woman who gains lots of experience and expresses her own ideas. The women in the
restaurant further demonstrate the subordinate roles of women in that time period because
they are there just to get picked up. It shows that women are looked down upon.
B) Throughout the play, he has a multifaceted relationship with women. He is married to
Linda but has a lover from the firm. With Linda, he treats her with respect as much as his
sanity will allow. On the other hand, he treats his lover as an object.
C) When Biff was younger, he objectified women while Happy was shy around women.
However, as time passed, the roles switched. Happy became the one who had entice Biff
to have fun with women again.
Literary Analysis
Character
Willy is a static round character. The play starts with Willy extremely conflicted–
he believes himself to be successful, yet he still tries to swerve off the road in an attempt
to kill himself. Subconsciously, he realizes the mistakes that he has made in his life, his
flaws becoming increasingly more apparent to him. “I don’t know the reason for it, but
they pass me by. I’m not noticed.” He becomes more frustrated about the goals that he
set out for himself but ultimately never achieves. “Ben,” he says while experiencing a
schizophrenic episode, “nothing is working out. I don’t know what to do.” His
schizophrenia gets worse as he gets fired and as his sons continue to fall short of his
expectations. His mental instability and disillusionment intensify towards the end of the
play, culminating in his eventual death. He hides behind his apparent successes, using his
past accomplishments as a front. However, his true reality is one of failure and
disappointment, a reality that he tries to hide from others. In order to avoid confronting
these disappointments in his life, he creates a false sense of reality for both himself and
his family. He succeeds in his deception until he is fired from his job – at this moment,
his flaws become apparent to the other characters in the play. Once he loses his job, the
one thing that allows him to keep up his ruse of false success, he is exposed as prideful
and unrealistic as he struggles to confront his failures. An example of this is when
Charley offers him a job that would pay fifty dollars a week and wouldn’t require him to
be out on the road. Despite his financial situation, Willy replies, “I’ve got a job,” and
becomes more defensive and agitated as Charley continues to offer him the job, even
going as far as challenging Charley to a fight. His loss of a source of solace is the last
straw that snaps his insanity that causes him to commit suicide. At that point, he realizes
that by committing suicide, he could provide “the twenty-thousand” for his family,
money that Biff and Happy could use to open up their sporting goods shop and to give
them a better life, in order to make up for his past flaws. “Why can’t I give him
something and not have him hate me.” Willy is talking to Ben towards the end of the
play about the life insurance money that his family would receive if he died. “Isn’t that a
remarkable thing? Ben, he’ll worship me for it!... Can you imagine that magnificence
with twenty thousand dollars in this pocket?... When the mail comes he’ll be ahead of
Bernard again!”
If we were to play Willy, we would exaggerate his flaws, juxtaposing his ideal
sense of accomplishment with his reality of disappointment. This would best demonstrate
the discrepancy between who he is and how he presents himself to the world. When
portraying his schizophrenia, we would downplay the severity of his condition in the
beginning of the play, making it slowly more apparent that he is losing his grip on reality.
His schizophrenic episodes and flashbacks would start to bleed into the present,
becoming more obvious as the play progresses. This contrast between his mental state at
the beginning of the play and at the end would depict his gradual mental deterioration.
Another way that we would portray Willy’s deterioration and fall from sanity is to
manipulate his appearance throughout the play. At the beginning, he would seem like a
just another tired man, unhappy with his job, but as the play progresses, his appearance
would become more and more disheveled. This would create a sense of irony as one of
his most precious beliefs is that all a person needs to be successful is to be well liked and
good looking. Willy wants to look like he is a man who is capable of taking care of and
providing for his family. He tells Linda that he “won’t have [her] mending stockings in
this house!” regardless of the price. This statement could reflect Willy’s guilt for giving
Linda’s stocking away to the woman he was having an affair with- instead of providing
his wife with this little luxury, he gave it away for a moment of pleasure.
Willy passes up the chance to go to Alaska, using Biff as an example of how
people can achieve the American dream. “Without a penny to his name, three great
universities are begging for him, and from there the sky’s the limit… And that’s why
when you get out on that field today it’s important. Because thousands of people will be
rooting for you and loving you. And Ben! when he walks into a business office his name
will sound out like a bell and all the doors will open to him!” This mistake is one of the
many that continues to haunt Willy throughout the play.
One of Willy’s beliefs that he tries to pass on to his sons is that all a person needs
to be successful is to be “impressive” and “well-liked.” Towards the end of the play,
Willy seeks help from Charley, who is the voice of reason and hits closer to home in his
comments than Willy would like. Willy is indignant that Howard fired him from his job,
especially because Willy was the person who “named him Howard.” Charley then
replies, “Willy, when’re you gonna realize that them things don’t mean anything? You
named him Howard, but you can’t sell that. The only thing you got in this world is what
you can sell. And the funny thing is that you’re a salesman, and you don’t know that.”
While this belief plays a factor in Willy’s downfall, Biff is fortunate enough to realize the
flaws in his father’s thinking. After meeting with Bill Oliver, Biff confronts the truth of
his success. He tells Happy that “[Oliver] walked away. I saw him for one minute…
How the hell did I ever get the idea I was a salesman? I even believed myself that I’d
been a salesman for him! And then he gave me one look and- I realized what a ridiculous
lie my whole life has been! We’ve been talking in a dream for fifteen years. I was a
shipping clerk.” In his final confrontation with his father, Biff tries to convince Willy
that his lack of success is not out of spite towards him. Instead, Biff has finally realized
that he is “not a leader of men” and he is “not bringing home any prizes any more, and
[Willy is] going to stop waiting for [him] to bring them home!” Biff accepts that he is “a
dime a dozen”- a concept that Willy is unable to grasp. However, Happy has never
stopped in his goal of getting Willy to respect him. Throughout the play, in the both the
present and in flashbacks, Happy is constantly trying to win over and appease his father.
This attitude never changes even at the end of the play- while Biff moves on, Happy
declares that he is “gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in
vain. He had a good dream. It’s the only dream you can have- to come out number-one
man. He fought it out here, and this is where I’m gonna win it for him.”
As the story continues, Linda intensifies from a woman who is a flat character in
the play to the partial moral center. Later in the play, Linda reprimands her sons when
they disrespect Willy; however, she sometimes closes her eyes to Willy’s actions and
often sides with him. “You invite him for dinner. He looks to it all day- and then you
desert him there. There’s no stranger you’d do that to!“Don’t say those things to him…
Why must everybody conquer the world? You’re well liked, and the boys love you, and
someday-why, old man Wagner told him just the other day that if he keeps it up he’ll be a
member of the firm, didn’t he, Willy?” When Biff was younger, he revered his father
and tried to meet his expectations; however, after the discovery of his father’s affair, Biff
changes into a man who has no respect for his father or his opinions. Instead of being
dependent on his father, he becomes independent and goes to the West to look for jobs.
As the play develops, Willy’s personalities are revealed further to the audience through
his schizophrenic episodes and situations in reality.
One of the most significant scenes is when Willy gets fired from his salesman job.
Willy goes into Howard’s office to talk to him about getting a promotion. Howard not
only rejects his proposition, but also fires him. Willy argues that he needs a way to make
a living, to which Howard mentions that his sons should be helping him. Willy realizes
at that moment that his sons are a failure. Even at their age, his sons are not able to
support themselves, let alone their father. It shows how much Willy values respect and
how this contributes to his hamartia, his pride. His flaw is that he cannot suppress his
ego since he values respect and believes that others should respect him the most because
of how much time and effort he has spent at the office.
Willy’s revelation is that Biff actually loves him, which causes him to breakdown.
Biff explains to Willy how there was no deal. As Biff rushes out of Oliver’s building, he
realizes that he was the approaching the problem incorrectly. Biff further explains that he
is “not a leader of men” and is unable to make money despite working hard. At the peak
of the moment, Biff breaks down and tells his father that he still loves him. The only
reason that he can’t approach Willy is that he cannot live up to Willy’s expectations.
Syntax
A lot of Willy’s dialogues are ramblings. Stichomythia is used throughout the
play in dialogue between Biff and Willy. It is especially evident in their argument in
Biff’s future. Their thoughts are impromptu and the characters do not really form their
thoughts carefully. They base their dialogues off their emotions at the time. The
sentences tend to be more simple rather than compound or complex.
“Carrots…quarter-inch apart. Rows… one-foot row. One foot. Beets. Lettuce.
One foot-. What a proposition, ts, ts. Terrific, terrific. ‘Cause she’s suffered, Ben, the
woman suffered. You understand me? A man can’t go out the way he came in, Ben, a
man has got to add up to something. You can’t, you can’t-. You gotta consider, now.
Don’t answer so quick. Remember, it’s a guaranteed twenty-thousand dollar
proposition. Now look, Ben, I want you to go through the ins and outs of this thing with
me. I’ve got nobody to talk to Ben, and the woman has suffered, you hear me?”
When Willy is planting seeds, his dialogue is very disconnected and like a stream
of consciousness. The short phrases and fragments make the reader read the segment
much more quickly than the other parts and emphasize Willy’s frantic emotion. The lack
of coherency shows his confusion and disorientation, his anger at his disposition so late
in life. Repetition of “can’t” and other negative words show his disillusionment at life.
“I’ve got a job”-Willy
“Without pay? What kind of a job is a job without pay? Now, look, kid, enough is
enough. I’m no genius but I know when I’m being insulter.”-Charley
“Insulted!”
“Why don’t you want to work for me?”
“What’s the matter with you? I’ve got a job.”
“Then what’re you walkin’ in her every week for?”
“Well, if you don’t want me to walk in her---“
“I am offering you a job.”
“I don’t want your goddam job!”
“When the hell are you going to grow up?”
“You big ignoramus, if you say that to me again I’ll rap you one! I don’t care
how big you are!”
This passage is an example of Miller using stichomythia. The dialogue goes back
and forth between Charley and Willy. The sentences are rather short with strong emotion
and a lot of the phrases are actually questions. The pace between the speech is fast and
emphasizes the intensity of the situation.
“Forgive me, dear. I can’t cry. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t cry. I don’t
understand it. Why did you ever do that? Help me, Willy, I can’t cry. It seems to me that
you’re just on another trip. I keep expecting you. Willy, dear, I can’t cry. Why did you
do it? I search and search and I search and I can’t understand it, Willy. I made the last
payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there’ll be nobody home. We’re free and
clear. We’re free. We’re free… We’re free…”-Linda
This is an example of a soliloquy which is very rare in this passage. In this
specific passage, Linda’s thoughts and feelings towards Willy’s life and death are
revealed to the reader/audience. Linda repeats the phrase “I can’t cry” over and over
again emphasizing her feelings of expectation and detachment. She also uses rhetorical
questions directed towards a dead Willy. Miller uses this to show that Linda is
condemning Willy’s actions.
Diction
The language in this play tends to be informal since all characters are familiar
with each other and the work is structured like an extended conversation. Miller uses a
fair amount of imagery especially through narration segments. His use of imagery is
utilized to clarify the scene for the actors and actresses to play. Willy is both an ironic
and metamorphic character in that he changes through the course of the play. Despite all
his years of hard work, it is ironic that he has never experienced in any aspect of life.
This shows contradiction to the American Dream which states that hard work brings
success. Willy shows metamorphic characteristics because at the beginning he seems
like a normal family man. However, as the play develops, his psychological state begins
to fall apart as seen through the author’s diction. The language is somewhat simple but
reveals the characters’ emotions and feelings effectively. The diction is plain because
Miller tries to portray the characters as ordinary people. Also, the characters seem to not
have attained a high level of education. The diction shows that the family is probably
middle to lower class in society. The language used during arguments tends to be
cacophonous, while normal dialogue is neutral. However, after the death of Willy, the
language becomes more euphonious further portraying grief and sorrow during the
requiem.
“I gave you an order!”-Willy
“Don’t touch me, you—liar!”-Biff
“Apologize for that!”
“You fake! You phony little fake! You fake!”
“I gave you an order! Biff, come back here or I’ll beat you! Come back here!
I’ll whip you!”
This quote comes from when Biff confronts Willy about his affair. The language
is very harsh and uses strong emotion. It almost shows a child-like regression of Biff.
Miller uses alliteration during Biff’s line repeatedly using the “f” sound. This
emphasizes Biff’s anger as well as his disappointment for his father. Willy’s dialogue is
solely commands and threats. He takes on his fatherly role and tries to use it to control
Biff and defend his actions. However, Biff has already lost respect for his father and
deems him as a fake.
“Oh, Ben, how do we get back to all the great times? Used to be so full of light,
and comradeship, the sleigh-riding in winter, and the ruddiness on his cheeks. And
always some kind of good news coming up, always something nice coming ahead. And
never even let me carry the valises in the house, and simonizing, simonizing that little red
car! Why, why can’t I give him something and not have him hate me?”-Willy
In this passage, Willy uses a lot of imagery and figurative language. He compares
his past as “full of light” and happiness. Miller uses this to reveal a passage of time and
how Willy has changed. Willy also repeats words twice such as “why” and
“simonizing”. This is used to emphasize Willy’s idea and to show stronger emotion
towards the subject. In this quote, Willy uses words with a lot of positive connotations.
This is also to contrast Willy’s past with his current situation.
“Forgive me, dear. I can’t cry. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t cry. I don’t
understand it. Why did you ever do that? Help me, Willy, I can’t cry. It seems to me that
you’re just on another trip. I keep expecting you. Willy, dear, I can’t cry. Why did you
do it? I search and search and I search and I can’t understand it, Willy. I made the last
payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there’ll be nobody home. We’re free and
clear. We’re free. We’re free… We’re free…”-Linda
This quote is found at the very end of the play and reveals Linda’s conflicting
emotional state after Willy’s death. She constantly repeats the phrase, “I can’t cry.” This
shows her sorrow but the “can’t” reveals that she is still in a state of shock. This
emphasizes that she still expects Willy to return home just as he had always done for
business trips. The repetition of “we’re free” shows that Linda still sees herself with
Willy even though he’s dead. It is ironic that being “free” means that Linda is free from
debt, but Willy is free from his psychological struggles.
Formalist/Structuralist Criticism
1. The work is written and meant to be performed as a play. It is split into two acts
and a requiem, which is the aftermath of Willy’s death. The play begins with
Willy coming home and dialogue between characters while the reader is unaware
of the overall situation. However, since this work is a play, the viewer is able to
get physical descriptions of the characters while their personalities and behaviors
are not revealed. At the start, Willy returns from his failed venture to Boston
due to several auto accidents. The beginning dialogue already starts to show
Willy as unstable and this foreshadows the overall conflict of the play. Biff, one
of Linda and Willy’s sons, reveals how he has had “twenty or thirty different
kinds of jobs” all leading to nowhere. Biff and Happy resolve to build their own
ranch and discuss their future career aspirations. Willy begins to experience
episodes of schizophrenia. In his first episode, the author reveals that Happy and
Biff have a profound reverence for Willy. Bernard is introduced as the boys’ foil,
as he puts more importance into education than into the physical and social
aspects of school. Throughout the play, Willy is shown to us as a boastful and
prideful man who believes that he holds a high status in society, thus pushing his
dreams onto his sons. Through another flashback, it reveals that Willy regrets his
stubbornness and arrogance towards Ben’s proposal to go to Alaska, believing
that he was in a better position at the moment. Willy is offered jobs in the past
and the present, but each time, he rejects the offer because of his pompous
attitude. Wanting his sons to be in a better position, Willy impresses the idea of
opening a sports store upon his sons. Biff decides to get a job from Oliver to save
up for startup cost of the sport store. Biff, Happy, and Willy plan a dinner date
the day that Biff has an interview with Oliver as a preemptive celebration. Willy
waits at the restaurant after getting fired from his job, expecting good news.
However, Biff arrives with more bad news that he tries to cover but gives into the
guilt of the lie. Happy and Biff leave with two women they had just met, leaving
Willy behind. Later at home, Biff and Willy make up, where Willy finds out that
Biff loves him. This leads him to losing his final grasp on reality. The end of the
play is marked by Willie’s untimely death and the aftermath reactions of his
family. At the end, the story becomes more confusing to the readers, showing
Willy’s chaotic mind. Even the characters from his schizophrenic episodes leave
him. In general, the flashbacks portray Willy’s schizophrenic states of mind, as
well as Biff’s loss of innocence. With each flashback, the personalities and
characteristics of Willy, Biff, and Happy are revealed. Also to mark the
flashbacks, leaves, or “the light of green leaves,” are frequently mentioned.
Whenever the flashback is about the boys, the music changes to the “gay music of
the boys.”
2. Act 1 is primarily used for exposition and rising action. The author hints at the
underlying problems of events that are soon to come. It shows an idealistic view
of the characters disposition and relationships between people. Act 2 contrasts
the idealistic view of Act 1 and portrays the reality of the situation. For example,
in Act 1, the sons revered Willy. By Act 2, the readers see that this is not reality
and that the sons harbor a lot of bitterness and resentment due to Willy’s affair.
The requiem is Willy’s funeral and shows the other characters’ reflections upon
Willy’s life.
3. N/A
4. The major characters are Biff and Willy. The minor characters are Happy, Linda,
Bernard, Ben, and Charley. Biff and Happy represent childlike innocence, revering Willy.
However, the reader can see that Willy favors Biff more, as Willy frequently tells Happy
to "stop interrupting." As the play develops, though, we can see that this greatly affects
the relationship between Willie and his two sons. Between Willie and Biff, Biff loses his
reverence for his father once he finds that Willie was cheating. Consequently, he reflects
upon his father's and his own dispositions, realizing that Willie is not actually the perfect
example to follow. In contrast, Happy remains blinded by Willie's false sense of reality
for
his family. At the end of the play, Biff resolves to put out all the lies, frustrated that the
family
never "told the truth for ten minutes in [the] house." Happy, during the Requiem,
dedicates
his life to "come out [as] number one man". He still believes that Willy had a "good
dream."
The moral center of the play is Linda. After the scene where Biff and Happy abandon
Willy
in the restaurant for two women, Linda scolds the boys for their unintelligible actions. As
the play develops, the reader gradually finds that Linda is not as ignorant as she is
portrayed
to be in the beginning. However, her problem is that she does confront Willy for his
suicidal
tendencies. Bernard is a voice of reason for Biff; he consistently tries to direct him to a
better
future and motivate him to putting more effort in academics. Willy’s personality can be
describes as quixotic as seen through his behaviors and actions. His prideful attitude led
him to reject Ben and Charley’s job offers which leaves him missing out on good
opportunities. Ben and Charley represent hope and opportunity which Willy rejects due
to his hamartia. All of these supporting characters function to make Biff and Willy realize
the problems with their situation.
5. The play is set in New York in an undefined time-period. Due to the technology
mentioned (typewriter, refrigerator, Chevy, etc.), the reader can assume that it
takes place in the mid-twentieth century. Willy talks about his travels to justify
his “high status” in society and his “successful accomplishments”. Each act marks
a new day.
6. The author uses colloquialisms and language that conveys the casual relations
between the characters. The lack of figurative language in the play makes the
dialogue between the characters more down-to-earth and realistic. The crash is
constantly mentioned throughout the play and symbolizes Willy’s deteriorating
mentality.