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Death of a Salesman
This is a great question and Miller's work, Death of a Salesman is directly related to the the American Dream in an inverse way. In view of this, it is best to define the American dream first and...
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Death of a Salesman
In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman we encounter an ongoing conflict between salesman Willy Loman and his eldest son, Biff. The conflict stems from Willy's parenting philosophy and his...
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Death of a Salesman
Willy Loman has conventional aspirations for himself and his family. Because he believes in a standard version of the American dream, he imagines that he and his sons as reaching the kinds of goals...
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Death of a Salesman
Illusion is addressed constantly within Arthur Miller’s play. One aspect might instead be called “delusion,” as several of the characters are operating with fantastic ideas about what...
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Death of a Salesman
There is little comparison between the two except that they are, indeed, brothers, products of Willy Loman's lost dream. On a literal level, Happy represents just that, happy, a shallow, fleeting...
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Death of a Salesman
Miller's depiction of Willy is highly based in realism. Miller wanted to depict a tragic condition of a "regular guy," someone with whom audiences could identify. Miller, himself, asserted this:...
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Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller begins this play at the point at which all hope is almost gone. Willy has already attempted to commit suicide. The main action of the play is intended to show what pushes him over...
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Death of a Salesman
The answers to both questions lie in the complicated relationships between sons and father. Happy, as the younger son, has grown up in Biff's shadow. He feels a deep-seated need to prove himself to...
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Death of a Salesman
I learned first that certain ideas imbedded in the American Dream can become a temptation that lures people away from their best selves. For example, Willy Loman becomes fixated on the idea that he...
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Death of a Salesman
The way male characters would act as a foil to Willy Loman is by showing direct and indirect characterization traits that highly contrast with Willy's own traits. The character that is most...
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Death of a Salesman
Willy's sales territory is New England. New York would be a much more lucrative area, and Linda tries to encourage Willy in that direction, but Willy's got it into his head that he's not needed...
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Death of a Salesman
Charley is refering to the theme of dreams and their importance in this play. The truth is that if we examine the play carefully, Willy certainly had lots of different other options in terms of how...
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Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman is about the destructive effects of the economic system in the U.S. One can say that the entire play is a kind of symbolic enactment of these effects, but if we are looking for...
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Death of a Salesman
The main difference between the characters of Biff and Happy Loman is that, in the end, Biff gets to realize that his life has been a lie. Although Happy is aware of the same situation, he...
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Death of a Salesman
There really isn't one person who is to blame for Willy's death. There are a combination of factors that led Willy to kill himself. Willy was consumed with his own conception of the American...
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Death of a Salesman
In Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman Harold "Happy" Loman is a near carbon copy of his father, Willy, the modern tragic hero of the play. Hap is self-delusional, with no real sense of...
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Death of a Salesman
I think that you would be searching for some fairly depressing poems. You could try to find poems that accentuate the pursuit and "the chase" to which Willy is indelibly linked. Yet, I think that...
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Death of a Salesman
Salesmanship is the act and ability to convince potential customers to purchase items. The better the salesperson, the more salesmanship he or she will display. The key to salesmanship is not just...
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Death of a Salesman
There is a lot of potential directions that you can go with this writing prompt. You are certainly able to disagree with the statement and say that the most memorable characters are those that are...
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Death of a Salesman
Willy Loman seems to have three primary fears in the play. He fears failure; he fears that Biff will reveal Willy's affair to Linda; and he fears that he will have nothing to leave his sons,...
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Death of a Salesman
To find the source of optimism you need to look at the end of Act I. This "Florida idea" as it is called begins when Happy mentions that Biff is going to ask Bill Oliver for a business loan. The...
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Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller makes it clear that Willy Loman suffers from several mental health issues, but it seems extreme to consider him “mad.” His anxiety and depression are compounded by the...
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Death of a Salesman
One of the strongest display of false values in the drama is the idea that drives Willy in that money and material wealth is what defines success. Willy's primary motivation to be a "something" is...
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Death of a Salesman
"The woman" is a woman in Boston who Willy had an affair with when he was a travelling salesman and his sons were in high school. Read more on "the woman" on eNotes here. In the play, Willy's...
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Death of a Salesman
In the play's Requiem, Linda pauses a moment at her husband's grave to have a moment alone. She sadly tells him "I made the last payment on the house today.Today, dear. And there'll be nobody...
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Death of a Salesman
I suppose you are refering to the inciting incident that caused Willy to commit suicide? Clearly there are a number of different events that work together to prompt Willy to take his own life,...
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Death of a Salesman
I believe so. Happy has become disillusioned with his father and reveals this to his brother Biff when he returns from out west. He is concerned about his forgetfulness, his contradictions and...
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Death of a Salesman
This is a great question. Let me start off with a quote from Miller: "I believe that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were. On the face of it this ought...
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Death of a Salesman
Dave Singleman epitomised success in advertising for Willy. He apparently lived the life that Willy hoped to emulate, and the description which Willy gives of him is where the title from the play...
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Death of a Salesman
I'm not sure that Biff has an idea about the American Dream. It is clear that he has a dream for his life and it is the direct results of his life with Willy. Biff wants to get away from Willy's...
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Death of a Salesman
Technically, nothing is "wrong" with the family ambitions. Willy, Happy, and Biff all want to be successful in their own way. The problem arises in their perceptions - for Willy, to be...
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Death of a Salesman
The realities of the daily lives of the Loman family in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman stand in stark contrast to their dreams and ambitions. Linda in particular has learned through years of...
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Death of a Salesman
Toward the end of the play, Willie Loman can't understand why Bernard has grown up to achieve such great success, while Biff's life has been one failure after another. The contrast between the two...
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Death of a Salesman
Because the play moves back and forth in time and shifts between real action on the stage and the internal workings of Willy's mind, staging it presents special challenges. Fortunately, Arthur...
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Death of a Salesman
This question asks the reader to project the possible futures of the Loman sons, not by predicting the future, but by interpreting how the two sons' personalities are different and how their...
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Death of a Salesman
Linda functions as a surrogate for the audience in this play, offering ways to sympathize with both Willy and Biff. She can be said also to represent a conscience in the play and to function as a...
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Death of a Salesman
eNotes editors are only permitted to answer one of your questions. Each question needs to be posted separately. This response addresses the conflicts in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and...
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Death of a Salesman
Biff was Willy's "golden boy" and his hope to see great success. For a while, Willy lived vicariously through Biff when he was successful at playing football. Willy favored Biff to...
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Death of a Salesman
Willy's fall from grace in his eldest son's eyes can be traced back to when Biff goes to Boston to visit his father and he discovers him with the Woman. This is what changes the course of Biff's...
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Death of a Salesman
Here's Miller's description of Willy's house. It may as well be a depiction of Willy himself: Before us is the Salesman’s house. We are aware of towering, angular shapes behind it, surrounding...
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Death of a Salesman
In discussing the character of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman," the tragedy is overwhelming, the "hero" aspect less clear. Willy Loman is one of the most tragic characters in...
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Death of a Salesman
At the conclusion of the play, Biff has learned, or at least finally acknowledged, the truth about his own life and his father's life. He tells his father that they are both "a dime a dozen" and...
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Death of a Salesman
The hard work of remaining grounded in reality, of planning and carrying out practical domestic tasks to keep the household working and functioning, and of coping with the flaws, fancies, and moral...
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Death of a Salesman
This is a massive theme in each work, so I will just give you a quick sense of it. In King Lear, the king betrays his youngest daughter Cordelia by taking away her inheritance because she will not...
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Death of a Salesman
It depends a lot on what you mean by "worse." Is it worse for Willy to be kept in his fantasy world where he thinks everything is the way that he believes it to be, or is it worse for him to have...
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Death of a Salesman
One of the primary themes of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller is the idea of illusion and reality. Every member of the Loman family spends time and energy clinging to illusions, primarily...
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Death of a Salesman
I think it is that Willy has fallen so far in Biff's opinion since Biff was a teenager, that it is probably that Biff can't take any more reminders of Willy's failings. To Biff, Willy was an idol,...
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Death of a Salesman
The main messages that the audience gets from most of Willy Loman's actions can be summarized in the following: inconsistent contradictory incomplete This is because, as it is evident throughout...
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Death of a Salesman
Act I of Death of A Salesman opens up the door to Willy's mind and personality, especially when he begins to have his vivid flashbacks of better times gone by. When it comes to the Chevy we find...
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Death of a Salesman
I have changed your question as it asked more than one question. The part of the play that you would benefit from analysing is the Requiem, the last section when the characters are together after...
