Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman

The scene of the story is the United States in the 1950-s and 1960-s and the main character is the Loman family which consists of four members, the parents Linda and Willy Loman and their sons Biff and Happy Loman.

The father is Willy Loman a sixty year old salesman, so he is an average Ameri-can mundane citizen. He wants to be successful and he wants to be "great". He is susceptible to form an identikit about the person as he would like to be. He indulges in day dreams continually, so he deceives himself and he deceives his family and he tries to believe that everything is in order. It is a kind of escape from reality and from the real world. The failures derives from the lies.

His wife is Linda Loman. She is obedient and dutiful and she loves her husband. She usually knows her husband's aspirations, dream and falsehood but, naively she also accepts them and she encourages Willy, so she is unable to face reality and she is the one person who supports Willy Loman, despite his often reprehen-sible treatment of her.

Actor Dustin Hoffman with Lee J. Cobb, who origina...

1st edition cover (Viking Press)

Death of a Salesman (1951 film)

Moreover Willy was unfaithful to her. So Willy Loman failed as a husband.

Willy Loman would like to be proud of his sons, but nothing turned out as Willy Loman expected, because Biff is thirty-four year old. He was a star high school athlete with a scholarship to UVA, but he did not attend college after failing his high school math course and not attending summer school. Since then, Biff has been a continual failure, stealing every job he has had and spending time in jail. Despite his failures and anger towards his father, Biff still has great concern for what his father thinks of him.

The other son of Willy Loman...