Death of a salesman sparknotes pdf

Charley, concerned about Willy, offers him a job, but Willy is insulted by the offer. Ben appears on the stage in a semi-daydream. He cuts a dignified, utterly confident figure. He alternates between conversing with Charley and his dead brother. Willy gets angry when Charley wins a hand, so Charley takes his cards and leaves. He is disturbed that Willy is so disoriented that he talks to a dead brother as if he were present. Willy immerses himself in the memory of a visit from his brother.

Ben left home to look for their father in Alaska but never found him. Willy begs Ben to stay longer, but Ben hurries to catch his train. Analysis Just as the product that Willy sells is never specified, so too does The Woman, with whom Willy commits adultery, remain nameless. Indeed, she is more a symbol than an actual human being: she regards herself as a means for Willy to get to the buyers more efficiently, and Willy uses her as a tool to feel well liked.

Biff sees her as a sign that Willy and his ambitions are not as great as Willy claims. Willy is unable to do so and thus fails to accept the love that Linda and his sons offer him.

Willy was first abandoned by his father and later by his older brother, Ben. Ben presents their father as both an independent thinker and a masculine man skilled with his hands. Unlike his father, Willy does not attain personal satisfaction from the things that he sells because they are not the products of his personal efforts—what he sells is himself, and he is severely damaged and psychically ruptured. His professional persona is the only thing that he has produced himself.

One can interpret his decision to become a salesman as the manifestation of his desperate desire to be the good father and provider that his own salesman father failed to be. Willy despairs about leaving his sons nothing in the form of a material inheritance, acutely aware that his own father abandoned him and left him with nothing. When Ben declares that he must leave soon in order to catch his train, Willy desperately tries to find some way to make him stay a little longer.

He proudly shows his sons to Ben, practically begging for a word of approval. Biff asks Linda how long he has been talking to himself, and Happy joins them outside. Linda knows that Willy borrows fifty dollars a week from Charley and pretends it is his salary. Linda claims that Biff and Happy are ungrateful. Linda says that he cannot fight with Willy all the time.

She explains that all of his automobile accidents are actually failed suicide attempts. Willy overhears Biff, Happy, and Linda arguing about him. When Biff jokes with his father to snap him out of his trance, Willy misunderstands and thinks that Biff is calling him crazy.

Happy mentions that Biff plans to ask Bill Oliver for a business loan. Willy brightens immediately. One moment, he tells Biff not to crack any jokes; the next, he tells him to lighten things up with a couple of funny stories. Linda tries to offer support, but Willy tells her several times to be quiet. Before they fall asleep, Linda again begs Willy to ask his boss for a non-traveling job.

Biff removes the rubber hose from behind the fuse box before he retires to bed. Thus, he offers endless praise, hoping that Biff will fulfill the promise of that praise in his adulthood. It is also likely that Willy refuses to criticize the young Biff because he fears that, if he does so, Biff will not like him. The myth of the American Dream has its strongest pull on the individuals who do not enjoy the happiness and prosperity that it promises. Willy pursues the fruits of that dream as a panacea for the disappointments and the hurts of his own youth.

The men who should have offered him the affirmation that he needed to build a healthy concept of self-worth—his father and Ben—left him. Therefore, Willy tries to measure his self-worth by the standards of an American myth that hardly corresponds to reality, while ignoring the more important foundations of family love, unconditional support, and the freedom of choice inherent to the American Dream.

Linda is far more realistic and grounded than Willy, and she is satisfied with what he can give her. She sees through his facade and still loves and accepts the man behind the facade. She likewise loves her adult sons, and she recognizes their bluster as transparent as well. If Willy were content finally to relinquish the gnarled and grotesquely caricatured American tragic myth that he has fed with his fear, insecurity, and profound anxiety and that has possessed his soul, he could be more content.

Instead, he continues to chase the fame and fortune that outruns him. He has built his concept of himself not on human relationships that fulfill human needs but on the unrealistic myth of the American hero. That myth has preyed on his all-too-common male weaknesses, until the fantasy that he has constructed about his life becomes intolerable to Biff. Willy replies that they will have to get a house in the country. Linda reminds Willy to ask his boss, Howard, for a non-traveling job as well as an advance to pay the insurance premium.

They have one last payment on both the refrigerator and the house, and they have just finished paying for the car. Howard is playing with a wire recorder he has just purchased for dictation. As Willy tries to express admiration, Howard repeatedly shushes him. Howard replies that there is no opening available. He looks for his lighter. I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want. Desperate, Willy tries to relate an anecdote about Dave Singleman, an eighty-four-year-old salesman who phoned his buyers and made his sales without ever leaving his hotel room.

Willy reveals that his acquaintance with this venerable paragon of salesmanship convinced him to become a salesman himself rather than join his brother, Ben, on his newly purchased plot of timberland in Alaska.

Willy laments the loss of friendship and personality in the business, and he complains that no one knows him anymore. An uninterested Howard leaves the office to attend to other people, and he returns when Willy begins shouting frantically after accidentally switching on the wire recorder.

Eventually, Willy becomes so distraught that Howard informs him that he does not want Willy to represent his company anymore. The first thing Willy thinks about is planting a garden in his yard; he then muses to Linda that they should buy a house in the country, so that he could build guesthouses for Biff and Happy when they have families of their own.

These hopeful plans seem to illustrate how ill-suited Willy is to his profession, as it stifles his natural inclinations. Indeed, the competitive, hyper-capitalist world of sales seems no more appropriate for Willy than for Biff. Willy seems happiest when he dreams of building things with his own hands, and when his instincts in this direction surface, he seems whole again, able to see a glimmer of truth in himself and his abilities.

He does not seem to like living in an urban setting. However, his fascination with the frontier is also intimately connected to his obsession with the American Dream. In nineteenth-century America, the concept of the intrepid explorer entering the unknown, uncharted wilderness and striking gold was deeply imbedded in the national consciousness.

These new intrepid explorers plunged into the jungle of business transactions in order to find a niche to exploit. Ben, whose success involved a literal jungle in Africa, represents one version of the frontier narrative.

Dave Singleman represents another. Mourning for him was limited to the sphere of salesmen and train passengers who happened to be there at his death—the ephemeral world of transience, travel, and money, as opposed to the meaningful realm of loved ones.

Willy seems to transfer his familial anxieties to his professional life. Ben asks Willy to go to Alaska and manage a tract of timberland he has purchased. Linda, slightly afraid of Ben, says that Willy already has a nice job. Ben departs as Willy tries desperately to gain a word of approval from him, comparing the intangible success of the honorable Dave Singleman to the concrete possibilities of timber. Bernard arrives to accompany the Lomans to the big football game at Ebbets Field.

He begs Biff to allow him to carry his helmet. Happy snaps and insists on carrying it. Biff generously allows Bernard to carry his shoulder pads. Charley ambles over to tease Willy a little about the immature importance he is placing on the football game, and Willy grows furious.

Bernard converses with Willy and mentions that he has a case to argue in Washington, D. Willy replies that Biff is working on a very big deal in town.

Bernard mentions that Biff failed math but was determined to go to summer school and pass. Charley exits his office to say goodbye to Bernard. He mentions that Bernard is arguing a case before the Supreme Court.

Willy, simultaneously jealous and proud of Bernard, is astounded that Bernard did not mention it. In his office, Charley counts out fifty dollars. With difficulty, Willy asks for over a hundred this time to pay his insurance fees. Broken, he admits that Howard fired him. Charley replies that Willy cannot sell that sort of thing. Willy retorts that he has always thought the key to success was being well liked. Exasperated, Charley asks who liked J.

He angrily gives Willy the money for his insurance. Willy shuffles out of the office in tears. He assumes there is some secret to success that is not readily apparent. If he were not wearing the rose-colored glasses of the myth of the American Dream, he would see that Charley and his son are successful because of lifelong hard work and not because of the illusions of social popularity and physical appearances.

Willy believes so blindly in his interpretation of the American Dream that he has constructed a veritable formula by which he expects Biff to achieve success. Biff struggles with this formula in the same way that he struggles with the formulas in his textbook.

Charley refuses to relate to Willy through blustering fantasy; instead, he makes a point of being frank. Willy chooses to reject a well-paying, secure job rather than let go of the myth of the American business world and its ever-receding possibilities for success and redemption.

For Willy, the American Dream has become a kind of Holy Grail— his childish longing for acceptance and material proof of success in an attempt to align his life with a mythic standard has assumed the dimensions of a religious crusade. Happy is flirting with a pretty girl named Miss Forsythe when Biff arrives to join him. After she responds to his pick-up line by claiming that she is, in fact, a cover girl, Happy tells her that he is a successful champagne salesman and that Biff is a famous football player.

Happy invites her to join them. Biff explains to Happy that he waited six hours to see Oliver, only to have Oliver not even remember him. Biff asks where he got the idea that he was a salesman for Oliver. When Willy arrives, he reveals that he has been fired and states that he wants some good news to tell Linda. Despite this pressure, Biff attempts to tell the truth. Disoriented, Willy shouts that Biff cannot blame everything on him because Biff is the one who failed math after all.

A desperate Biff backs down and begins to lie to assuage his frantic father. Miss Forsythe returns with her friend, Letta. Willy wanders into the restroom, talking to himself, and an embarrassed Happy informs the women that he is not, in fact, their father.

Biff angrily tells Happy to help Willy, accusing him of not caring about their father. He hurries out of the restaurant in a vortex of guilt and anguish. Biff has also experienced a moment of truth, but he regards his epiphany as a liberating experience from a lifetime of stifling and distorting lies. Willy, on the other hand, wants his sons to aid him in rebuilding the elaborate fantasies that deny his reality as a defeated man.

Willy drives Biff to produce a falsely positive report of his interview with Oliver, and Happy is all too willing to comply. When Biff fails to produce the expected glowing report, Happy, who has not had the same revelation as Biff, chimes in with false information about the interview. In his moment of weakness and defeat, he asks for their help in rebuilding his shattered concept of his life; he is not very likable, and he is well aware of it. Happy and Linda wish to allow Willy to die covered by the diminishing comfort of his delusions, but Biff feels a moral responsibility to try to reveal the truth.

Biff is outside knocking on the hotel room door, after telephoning the room repeatedly with no result. The Woman, who is dressing, pesters Willy to answer the door. Willy, who is clearly nervous about his surprise visitor, finally consents to her appeals to answer the door. He orders her to stay in the bathroom and be quiet, believing it may be a nosy hotel clerk investigating their affair. Willy answers the door, and Biff reports that he failed math. He asks Willy to persuade the teacher, Mr.

Birnbaum, to pass him. Willy tries to get Biff out of the room quickly with promises of a malted drink and a rapid trip home to talk to the math teacher. She exits the bathroom, wearing only a negligee, and Willy pushes her out into the hallway. Willy promises to talk to the math teacher, but Biff tells him to forget it because no one will listen to a phony liar. Biff leaves, with Willy kneeling and yelling after him.

Stanley pulls Willy out of his daydream. Willy is on his knees in the restaurant ordering the teenage Biff to come back. In this reckoning, Willy again conflates the personal with the professional. His understanding of the American Dream as constituting professional success and material gain precludes the idea that one can derive happiness without these things.

Poor and now unemployed, Willy has no means to pass anything on to his sons. Indeed, he has just given Stanley a dollar in a feeble attempt to prove to himself, by being able to give, that he does indeed possess something.

The act of giving also requires someone to whom to give, and Stanley becomes, momentarily, a surrogate son to Willy, since Biff and Happy have abandoned him. Similarly, in desperately seeking to grow vegetables, Willy desires tangible proof of the value of his labor, and hence, life. She knocks the roses to the ground and shouts at them to pack and never come back. Happy claims that Willy had a great time at dinner.

Linda calls her sons a variety of names and accuses them of abandoning their sick father in a restaurant bathroom.

Willy retorts that since he has always paid the premium, the company cannot refuse. He says that Biff will realize how important he is once he sees the number of people who attend his funeral. Ben warns that Biff will call him a coward and hate him. Willy is, of course, contemplating suicide, which would allow his family to cash in on his life insurance policy. Biff tells Willy that he is leaving for good and that he will not keep in touch.

Biff wants Willy to forget him. Willy curses his son and declares that Biff is throwing his life away and blaming his failures on him out of spite. Biff confronts Willy with the rubber hose. Biff states that he has stolen himself out of every job since high school and that during the threemonth period when he was completely out of touch with his family he was, in fact, in prison for stealing a suit.

He reproaches Willy for having filled him with so much hot air about how important he, Biff, was that he was unable to take orders from anyone. Biff is determined to know who he is and for his father to know likewise who he is.

Crying and exhausted, Biff trudges upstairs to bed. Linda and Happy tell him that Biff has always loved him, and even Happy seems genuinely moved by the encounter. Everyone retires to bed, except Willy. He urges Linda to sleep and promises that he will join her soon. Suddenly, Willy realizes he is alone; Ben has disappeared. Linda calls from upstairs for him to come to bed, but he does not. Happy and Biff listen.

They hear the car start and speed away. Biff wants Willy to forget him as a useless bum. But Willy cannot let go of the myth around which he has built his life. He has no hopes of achieving the American Dream himself, so he has transferred his hopes to Biff. Each man is struggling with the other in a desperate battle for his own identity. During the confrontation, Biff makes no attempt to blame anyone for the course that his life has taken.

He could not start from the bottom and work his way up because he believed that success would magically descend upon him at any moment, regardless of his own efforts or ambitions. Not only does it validate his salesmanship, as argued above, but it also renders him a martyr, since he believes that the insurance money from his sacrifice will allow Biff to fulfill the American Dream.

Suicide, for Willy, constitutes both a final ambition to realize the Dream and the ultimate selfless act of giving to his sons. In this way, Willy does experience a sort of revelation: he understands that the product he sells is himself and that his final sale is his own life. A kind of perverse, American working-class Christ-figure, Willy dies not only for his own sins but also for the sins of his sons, who have failed to achieve their potential within the American Dream. A salesman is got to dream, boy.

She wonders where all his supposed business friends are and how he could have killed himself when they were so close to paying off all of their bills. Biff recalls that Willy seemed happier working on the house than he did as a salesman.

She reports to Willy that she made the last payment on the house. The flute music is heard and the high-rise apartments surrounding the Loman house come into focus.

His words serve as a kind of respectful eulogy that removes blame from Willy as an individual by explaining the grueling expectations and absurd demands of his profession. One can argue that, to a certain extent, Willy Loman is the postwar American equivalent of the medieval crusader, battling desperately for the survival of his own besieged faith. Just as Willy is blind to the totality of the American Dream, concentrating on the aspects related to material success, so is the salesman, in general, lacking, blinded to the total human experience by his conflation of the professional and the personal.

He acquired a home and the range of modern appliances. He raised a family and journeyed forth into the business world full of hope and ambition. Nevertheless, Willy has failed to receive the fruits that the American Dream promises.

His primary problem is that he continues to believe in the myth rather than restructuring his conception of his life and his identity to meet more realistic standards. The values that the myth espouses are not designed to assuage human insecurities and doubts; rather, the myth unrealistically ignores the existence of such weaknesses.

Willy bought the sales pitch that America uses to advertise itself, and the price of his faith is death. It seems inevitable that the trip toward meaningful death that Willy now takes will end just as fruitlessly as the trip from which he has just returned as the play opens.

And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want. In so highly esteeming Singleman and deeming his on-the-job death as dignified, respectable, and graceful, Willy fails to see the human side of Singleman, much as he fails to see his own human side. He envisions Singleman as a happy man but ignores the fact that Singleman was still working at age eighty-four and might likely have experienced the same financial difficulties and consequent pressures and misery as Willy.

I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and the time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and I thought, what the hell am I grabbing this for? He sees the stupidity of stealing the pen and renounces the commercial world, content to enjoy the simple necessities of life. A diamond is hard and rough to the touch. Willy latches onto this appealing idea, relieved to be able finally to prove himself a success in business. Though his figurative roots are in sales Ben claims that their father was a successful salesman , Willy never blossomed into the Dave Singleman figure that he idolizes.

When Willy and Linda purchased their home, the neighborhood was quieter than they now find it. The house was surrounded by space and sunlight. Willy was a young man with ambitious hopes for the future, and his house represented a space in which he could expand his dreams. In the present, the house is hemmed in on all sides by apartment units.

Willy is a much older man, and his chances of achieving his dreams are much slimmer. His home now represents the reduction of his hopes. There is less room to expand, and the sunlight does not even reach into his yard. In the past, the house was the site of hopeful departure and triumphant return.

Willy would set out each week to make a load of money. When he returned, his worshipful sons greeted him, and he whispered into their eager ears his hopes to open his own business. When the play opens, Willy returns to his home a defeated man, unable to complete his latest business trip, and with his argument with Biff left unresolved. Since his father left him with nothing, Willy feels an acute need to put his sons—especially Biff—on the right path in life.

He convinces himself that he is capable of doing so, which leads to his inflated sense of self-importance as when he tells his young sons about how well known he is in New England. As an additional consequence of being abandoned, Willy knows little about his father and thus has to ask Ben to tell Biff and Happy about their grandfather. Somewhat childlike, Willy craves approval and reacts to any perceived hint of dislike by either throwing a tantrum or retreating into self-pity.

When Ben notes that he has to leave to catch his train, Willy begs him to stay a little longer. Howard abandons Willy by firing him, and after Happy and Biff abandon him in the restaurant, Willy returns home like a dejected child. How are their explanations different? On the other hand, Biff believes that he failed to succeed in business precisely because Willy sold him so successfully on the American Dream of easy success. By the time he took his first job, Biff was so convinced that success would inevitably fall into his lap that he was unwilling to work hard in order to advance to more important positions.

Biff did not want to start at the bottom and deal with taking orders. What evidence can we find to show that the past is not as idyllic as Willy imagines it to be? What evidence can we find to show that Willy may have chosen a profession that is at odds with his natural inclinations?

What evidence can we find to show that Willy misses the distinction between being loved and being well liked? How does it function as a way for Willy to cope with the failure to realize his ambitions? What was Biff doing in the West before the play begins? Laying railroad tracks B.

Selling dishwashers C. Working on a farm D. Robbing banks 2. A crate of basketballs B. A wire recorder C. A suit D. A car 3. A trophy B. Seeds C.

Money D. A pen 4. What product does Willy sell? Bibles B. Appliances C. Sporting goods D. For what region is Willy responsible in his sales? New England B. Brooklyn C. Queens and Long Island D. How old is Happy? Flutes B. Dictionaries C. Pizzas D. False teeth 8. Alabama B. Spain C. Alaska D. Las Vegas 9. Where did Ben end up when he went looking for his father? Africa B. Alaska C. Brooklyn D.

Boston Where does Biff find Willy with The Woman? Manhattan B. Hartford C. Providence D. How old was Dave Singleman when he died? What is the name of the restaurant where Happy and Biff take Willy? Divine Seafood D. The Carnegie Deli How much money does Charley usually give Willy each week? What subject did Biff fail in high school? Math B. English C. Physics D. History Where does Happy work? In a factory B. In a store C. At a restaurant D. On Wall Street Salesman B. Manager C. Window dresser D.

Shipping clerk On what day of the week does Willy die? Saturday B. Sunday C. Tuesday D. On the sales trip that immediately precedes the beginning of the play, which city did Willy reach before turning back?

Boston B. Buffalo D. Yonkers How long has Willy worked for his sales firm? Between thirty-four and thirty-six years B. Thirty-two years C. Forty years D. Twenty-five years What does Howard show Willy in his office? His pen B. His typewriter C. His wire recorder D. A picture of his family Police officer B. Lawyer C. Doctor D. Writer What does Biff allow Bernard to carry to the Ebbets Field game? His helmet B. His football C. His cleats D. His shoulder pads Michelle B. Jill C. Jenny D.

What does Happy order from Stanley at the restaurant? Lobsters B. Steak C. Veal D. Read our full plot summary and analysis of Death of a Salesman , scene by scene break-downs, and more.

Here's where you'll find analysis of the literary devices in Death of a Salesman , from the major themes to motifs, symbols, and more. Find the quotes you need to support your essay, or refresh your memory of the book by reading these key quotes. Test your knowledge of Death of a Salesman with quizzes about every section, major characters, themes, symbols, and more. Go further in your study of Death of a Salesman with background information, movie adaptations, and links to the best resources around the web.

SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Summary Read our full plot summary and analysis of Death of a Salesman , scene by scene break-downs, and more. Literary Devices Here's where you'll find analysis of the literary devices in Death of a Salesman , from the major themes to motifs, symbols, and more.