Whilst I was reading Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, I wrote down some revision notes as I discussed the play with some friends. This eventually transformed itself into the Readers Theatre script which we presented to a class.
We decided to concentrate on Biff and Happy, so hopefully these notes will help you as you revise for your IB English exams by helping you get some more ideas. The page numbers may not be accurate due to different book versions, but you should probably be familiar with these popular quotes already.
If you wish to discuss this further, do comment!
Introduction
The play could refer to the death of the salesman inside of Biff.
Thesis
Biff and Happy Loman personify the internal struggles of Willy Loman as he struggles to achieve the American Dream. Happy represents the illusion of the Dream that Willy tries to force upon his family,
Biff (Dynamic-ish)
After the game, Biff failed Math. His life continued on a downward spiral. Essentially, Biff’s life ends after this event.
Significance of Name
Represents Biff’s fall, or “biff”, from the dreams pushed upon him by Willy. He is the only person in the play to escape from Willy’s american dream and illusion by accepting his true self. In contrast with Happy, who is falsely Happy, Biff has fallen into the real world and accepted reality.
Biff’s name symbolizes the rough time it took for him to realize the truth about himself and the life he tried to lead.
Strengths
- Cares for Linda
- Biff- “Don’t yell at her, Pop, will ya?”
- Willy, angrily: “I was talking, wasn’t I”
- Biff- “I don’t like you yelling at her all the time, and I’m tellin’ you, that’s all” (modesty)
- Willy- (yells at Linda some)
- Biff, furiously: “Stop yelling at her!”(65)
- From the above dialogue Biff’s weakness of not being able to hold his vulgarities can be seen as well as his care for Linda and the defiance he has against Willy’s tyrannical illusion.
- p.123- Biff picks up the flowers on the ground while egotistical Happy does not
- Cares for Willy
- SD: a look of pain crosses Biff’s face. (27). This stage direction is given when Willy starts hallucinating in the yard. This gives Biff more sympathy as a character.
- “I’m takin’ one play for Pop. You watch me, Pop, and when I take off my helmet, that means I’m breakin’ out”(32, 88 flashbacks)
- Biff- “Don’t you give a damn about him, Hap?”(115)
- Depth as a Character because he has a secret-
- Lit. Device [Chekov's gun] pg.59:
- LINDA: It seems there’s a woman…She takes a breath as
- BIFF, sharply but contained: What woman?
- LINDA: simultaneously:… and this woman…
- LINDA: What?
- BIFF: Nothing. Go ahead
- LINDA: What did you say
- BIFF: Nothing. I just said what woman?
- Realistic:
- Biff: “Ten(thousand), I think, would be top though”(65)
- Well Liked:
- Everyone wants to carry Biffs helmet. Bernard: “Biff, I’m carrying your helmet, ain’t I…Oh Biff your promised!”(87)
- Only Person to Break out of WIlly’s/Linda illusion:
- Biff- “Hello, kid(Hap). Sorry I’m late”(101). The use of ceasura and emphasis on “kid” by Miller shows a shift in Biff’s character. He has grown up while Happy and Willy have not after his epiphany after meeting Bill Oliver. Requiem “I know who I am, Kid(Happy)”(138)
- Biff-”I just realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been! We’ve been living in a dream for fifteen years”(104)
- IMPORTANT Biff pulls out hose- “You’re going to hear the truth-what you are and what I am”(130)
- Biff- “We never told the truth for 10 minutes in this house!”(130) Happy is assistant to assistant.
- IMPORTANT: p.115. Biff begs Happy to help Willy before Willy kills himself. Biff also pulls out the rubber hose in this scene. This is the beginning of the end.
- Biff- “Pop, I’m a dime a dozen, and so are you!”(132)
- Realist:
- “What the hell am I doing playing around with horses twenty-eight dollars a week?” (p. 22)
- “Pop, I’m a dime a dozen, and so are you!” (p. 132)
- Caring:
- “Will you let me go, for Christ’s sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?” (p. 133)
- “Where’d you go this time, Dad? Gee, we were lonesome for you.” (p. 33)
- Willing to Learn from Experience:
- “No, you’re going to hear the truth– what you are and what I am!” (p. 130)
- “How the hell did I ever get the idea that I was a salesman there? I even believed myself that I was a salesman for him! And then he gave me one look and—I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been!” (p. 104)
Weaknesses
- Foul Mouth
- Biff swears on countless occasions. Willy does not approve of his language in the house.( )
- No Ambition- Lost confidence in the American dream.
- Hap- “What happened, Biff? Where’s the old humor, the old confidence? “(21). Biff-”Yeah.Lotta dreams and plans”(20).
- Hap- “I remember the time that the idea [that a woman was too good] would never come into your head. Where’s the old confidence, Biff?”(102) -Biff’s confidence is gone, but he is no longer dillusional.
- Biff-”Screw the Business world!”(61)
- Illusion
- Hap-”You’re a poet, you know that, Biff? You’re a–you’re an idealist”(23)
- Biff-”Because we don’t belong in this nuthouse of a city! We should be mixing cement on some open plain, or-or carpenters. A carpenter is allowed to whistle!”(61)
- Chronic Stealing:
- Biff – “The next thing I know I’m in his office-paneled walls, everything. I can’t explain it. I Hap, I took his fountain pen”(104)
- Letta-having you been infront of a jury?
- Biff- “No, but I been in front of them!”(114)
- Biff- “You know why I had no address for three months? I stole a suit in Kansas City and I was in jail”(131)
- Trying to Appease his Dad:
- “Dad, I’ll make good, I’ll make good.” (p. 111)
- “This Saturday, Pop, this Saturday—just for you, I’m going to break through for a touchdown.” (p. 32)
- with reserve, but trying, trying: “[Bill Oliver] always said he’d stake me. I’d like to go into business, so maybe I can take him up on it.” (p. 62)
- Stealing Stuff:
- “Well, I borrowed it from the locker room.” He laughs confidentially (p. 29)
- “Listen, if [Biff and Happy] steal any more from that building the watchman’ll put the cops on them!” (p. 50)
- “The next thing I know I’m in his office… I—Hap, I took [Bill Oliver’s] fountain pen.” (p. 104)
- “I stole a suit in Kansas City and I was in jail.” (p. 131)
Character Problems
- Lack of Success
- SD- “He has succeeded less, and his dreams are stronger and less acceptable than Happy’s“(19)
- “And whenever spring comes to where I am, I suddenly get the feeling, my God, I’m not gettin’ anywhere!”(22).
- Willy’s Mental Trap
- Biff- “hap, he’s got to understand that I’m not the man somebody lends that kinf of money to. He thinks I’ve been spiting him all these years and it’s eating him up”(105)
- Biff- “Listen, will you(Willy) let me out of it, will your just let me out of it!”(109). Biff is reaching a mental trap climax in the restaurant.
- Willy’s dream is Biff’s trap-crying, broken” Will you let me go, for Christ’s sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?”
- Lack of Confidence:
- Biff is two years older than his brother Happy, well built, but in these days bears a worn air and seems less self-assured. (p. 19)
- “What happened, Biff? Where’s the old humour, the confidence?” (p. 21)
- “Finally, about five o’clock, he comes out. Didn’t remember who I was or anything. I felt like such an idiot, Hap.” (p. 104)
- No Sense of Purpose
- “I’ve always made a point of not wasting my life, and every time I come back here I know that all I’ve done is to waste my life.” (p. 23)
- “Biff Loman is lost.” (p. 16)
- “I stole myself out of every good job since high school!” (p.131)
Reasons for Problems
- Restlessness-
- Biff cannot find a job and keep it (16)
- Dad:
- In the flashback (30), Willy keeps hyping his life as a salesman to his children as they naively listen. This is the cause for the falseness and not telling the truth for 10min Biff is referring too and has ruined both children. “Be liked and you will never want”(33)
- Willy-”Like a young god. Hercules-something like that”(68). SD:He(Biff) comes downstage into a golden pool of light(60). It is interesting that Biff is the only person in the light, here he makes the decisive decision to inflict “change” at the end of ACT I. This moments starts him off in his heroic journey to as author miller puts it “those who act against the scheme of things… from this total examination of the ‘unchangeable’ environment”. He breaks the fourth wall as Biff walks downstage and takes to rubber hose. His path of change begins.
- P.118- Biff goes to Boston to seek help from Willy. He finds out that Willy is sleeping with another woman. Thus, he falls from Willy’s dream and no longer seeks to go to U of V. Biff’s fantastic life ends here. As he weeps(120), young Biff gains sympathy from the audience for the climax of the play. This secret is revealed to make sure the audience is on Biff’s side during the final argument of the play.
- NOTE: Biff is constantly being cut off by Happy and Willy in his dialogue. Not only is this a reflection of the self created illusion that Happy and Willy are in, but it also serves dramatic purpose as by making the audience side with Biff because he can never get his word in and thus more empathetic as a character.
- ex) p101-103, Biff’s dialog is short and interrupted by Happy. Biff is trying to show reason about the pen while Happy is trying to change the subject by lying, and giving immoral facts to Ms. Forsythe.
- Believing Willy’s Standards for a Successful Life:
- “[Bernard’s] liked, but he’s not well liked.” (p. 33)
- “Because if [Birnbaum] saw the man you are, and you just talked to him in your way, I’m sure he’d come through for me.” (p. 118)
- Losing His Respect for Willy after the Standish Arms Incident:
- “Don’t touch me, you—liar!” (p. 121)
- “And [Biff] came back after that month and he took his sneakers—remember those sneakers with ‘University of Virginia’ printed on them? He was so proud of those, wore them every day. And he took them down in the cellar, and burned them up in the furnace. “(p. 94)
Relevant Symbols
- Sneakers: They symbolize the Dream Biff had for life after high school, and their burning represents Biff’s rejection of the Dream.
- Failing Math Class: This is a metaphor for Biff failing to add up the necessary things and attitudes required to lead a truly successful life.
Happy (static-ish)
Happy continues to be a kid. He doesn’t change from the flashbacks.
Happy shares none of the poetry that erupts from Biff and that is buried in Willy—he is the stunted incarnation of Willy’s worst traits and the embodiment of the lie of the happy American Dream. As such, Happy is a difficult character with whom to empathize. He is one-dimensional and static throughout the play. His empty vow to avenge Willy’s death by finally “beat[ing] this racket” provides evidence of his critical condition: for Happy, who has lived in the shadow of the inflated expectations of his brother, there is no escape from the Dream’s indoctrinated lies. Happy’s diseased condition is irreparable—he lacks even the tiniest spark of self-knowledge or capacity for self-analysis. He does share Willy’s capacity for self-delusion, trumpeting himself as the assistant buyer at his store, when, in reality, he is only an assistant to the assistant buyer. He does not possess a hint of the latent thirst for knowledge that proves Biff’s salvation. Happy is a doomed, utterly duped figure, destined to be swallowed up by the force of blind ambition that fuels his insatiable sex drive. (sparknotes)
Hap is the Loman’s youngest son. He lives in an apartment in New York, and during the play is staying at his parent’s house to visit. Hap is of low moral character; constantly with another woman, trying to find his way in life, even though he is confident he’s on the right track.
Hap has always been the “second son” to Biff and tries to be noticed by his parents by showing off. When he was young he always told Willly, “I’m losin’ weight pop, you notice?” And, now he is always saying, “I’m going to get married, just you wait and see,” in an attempt to redeem himself in his mother’s eyes. Hap also tries to be on Willy’s good side and keep him happy, even if it means perpetuating the lies and illusions that Willy lives in.
In the end of the play, Hap cannot see reality. Like his father, he is destined to live a fruitless life trying for something that will not happen. “Willy Loman did not die in vain,” he says, “…He had a good dream, the only dream a man can have – to come out number one man. He fought it out here, and this where I’m gonna win it for him.”
Note: Hap-”you’re a poet, you know that, Biff? You’re a–you’re an idealist”(23). Happy recognizes Biff’s dreamy flaw that Willy has infused within him.
Is he staying with women and demeaning them so that he can boost his own self-esteem?
Significance of Name
Happy – The ideal dream
Loman – Low-man
Strengths
- Seemingly confident
- “I bet you forgot how bashful you used to be. Especially with girls.” (21)
- “Oh, I still am, Biff.” (21)
- “I just control it, that’s all. I think I got less bashfall and you got more so. What happened, Biff? Where’s the old humor, the old confidence?” (21)
- Self-sufficient
- Has his own apartment.
- Physically formidable
- “Happy, well built” (19)
- “Happy is tall, powerfully made” (19)
- Good at seducing women
- “Sexuality is like a visible color on him, or a scent that many women have discovered.” (19)
- Idolizes Dad
- “Pop? Why he’s got the finest eye for color in the business. You know that.” (20)
- “I’m losing weight, you notice, Pop?” (29)
- Just don’t call them crazy!” (56)
- Deceptive
- “Biff is quarterback with the New York Giants.” (102)
- “That’s name. Hap. It’s really Harold, but at West Point they called me Happy.”(102)
- “Why? He had a swell time with us. Listen, when I desert him I hope I don’t outlive the day!” (123)
- There is foreshadowing and irony in Happy’s last comment about his father as he has always deserted Willy.
- “He had no right to do that. There was no necessity for it. We would’ve helped him.” (Requiem 137)
Weaknesses
- Bad business ethics
- sleeps with fiancées of his superiors
- “That girl Charlotte I was with tonight is engaged to be married in five weeks.” (25)
- “Maybe I just have an overdeveloped sense of competition or something, but I went and ruined her, and furthermore I can’t get rid of her. And he’s the third executive I’ve done that to. Isn’t that a crummy characteristic? And to top it all, I go to their weddings!” (25)
- “All I can do now is wait for the merchandise manager to die.” (23)
- Egotistical
- “… and I got more in my pinky finger than he’s got in his head.” (24)
- “I gotta show some of those pompous, self-important executives over there that Hap Loman can make the grade.” (24)
- Demeaning towards women
- “Yeah that was my first time—I think. Boy, there was a pig! They laugh, almost crudely.” (21)
- “I get that any time I want, Biff. Whenever I feel disgusted. The only trouble is, it gets like bowling or something. I just keep knockin’ them over and it doesn’t mean anything.” (25)
- “Because I don’t want the girl, and, still, I take it and—I love it!” (25)
Character Problems
- Dead end life
- “I don’t know what the hell I’m working for. Sometimes I sit in my apartment—all alone. And I think of the rent I’m paying. And it’s crazy.” (23)
- “That’s what I dream about, Biff. Sometimes I want to just rip my clothes off in the middle of the store and outbox that goddam merchandise manager. I mean I can outbox, outrun, and outlift anybody in that store, and I have to take orders from those common, petty sons-of-bitches till I can’t stand it anymore.” (24)
- “See, Biff, everybody around me is so false that I’m constantly lowering my ideals…” (24)
- Lonely
- “And still, goddamit, I’m lonely.” (23)
- “Naa. I’d like to find a girl—steady, somebody with substance.”
- “That’s what I long for.” (25)
- “Happy, well built, but in these days bears a worn air and seems less self-assured. He has succeeded less”
- ?? “He, like his brother, is lost, but in a different way, for he has never allowed himself to turn his face toward defeat and thus more confused and hard-skinned, although seemingly more content”
- Dad
- “Something’s—happening to him. He—talks to himself. … It got so embarrassing I sent him to Florida. And you know something? Most of the time he’s talking to you.” (21)
- “You gotta stick around. I don’t know what to do about him, it’s getting embarrassing.” (27)
- “Pop, I told you I’m going to retire you for life.” (41)
- Self-delusional / Tentative
- Biff:Why don’t you do something for him? / Happy: Me! / Biff: Don’t you give a damn for him, Hap? / Happy: What’re you talking about? I’m the one who – / Biff: I sense it, you don’t give a goddam about him. (115)
- When trouble arises, Happy is not willing to take the initiative to deal with it.
- “No, that’s not my father. He’s just a guy.”
- Happy is not willing to associate himself with his father, and there is foreshadomwing of how Willy Loman is simply an average man, nothing more.
- Biff: He had the wrong dreams. All, all, wrong. / Happy, almost ready to fight Biff: Don’t say that!
- When Biff say’s all of Willy’s dreams are wrong, he is also stating that Happy’s life has been a lie.
- In Happy’s dialogue when talking about his plan of the ‘Loman Brothers’ to Biff and Willy, his language when utilizing the word ‘see’ makes it seem as if he is trying to please his master (Willy / Biff) such as a dog would.
- “We train a couple weeks, and put on a couple exhibitions, see?” “Wait! We form two basketball teams, see?” (63)
- In Happy’s dialogue with the waiter Stanley before the arrival of Biff and Willy, Happy is rather tentative in his use of language as he commonly uses words such as “think / thought”. Happy’s character is shown to be insecure on the inside, but at the appearnace of women, his cocky attitude returns immediately.
Reasons for Problems
- Always lived in the shadow of Biff
- “Terrific. Terrific job, boys. Good work, Biff.” (29)
- “There’s a crowd of girls behind him everytime the classes change.” (31)
- “You’re supposed to pass.” (32)
- Clinging to philosophy of “well-liked”
- “Because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want. You take me, for instance.” (33)
Literary Devices
Repetition
Willy and Biff constantly refer to Happy as a “kid” or a “boy” which emphasizes his youthful immature nature.
Flashbacks and Juxtaposition (Literary and Dramatic)
Foreshadowing/Chekhov’s Gun
p59: “Biff: What woman? / Linda: … and this woman … / Linda: What? / Biff: Nothing. Go ahead.”
This adds a sinister, dark element into the play and it enhances characterization by creating sympathy through irony.
Dramatic Devices
Dramatic tension
The usage of dramatic tension draws the audience into the play and it helps create a dark atmosphere throughout the play, suggesting that the American Dream is not as ideal as it seems.
Stream of Consciousness
The play’s structure resembles a stream of consciousness account: Willy drifts between his living room, downstage, to the apron and flashbacks of an idyllic past, and also to fantasized conversations with Ben. When we are in the present the characters abide by the rules of the set, entering only through the stage door to the left; however, when we visit Willy’s “past” these rules are removed, with characters openly moving through walls. Whereas the term “flashback” as a form of cinematography for these scenes is often heard, Miller himself rather speaks of “mobile concurrences”. In fact, flashbacks would show an objective image of the past. Miller’s mobile concurrences, however, rather show highly subjective memories. Furthermore, as Willy’s mental state deteriorates, the boundaries between past and present are destroyed, and the two start to exist in parallel. (Paragraph source: Wikipedia)
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