DEATH OF A SALESMAN SUMMARY
Willy Loman, the old salesperson, returns early from a business trip. After nearly crashing multiple times, Willy now realizes he should not be driving at all. Realizing that her husband is no longer able to do his job as a traveling salesman, as he so did for many previous years, Willy’s wife, Linda, recommends that her husband approach his boss, Howard, to give him a local office job in their New York headquarters. Confident that he will get the job because he thinks himself as a valuable sales clerk Willy plans to ask his boss. We also begin to learn more about the background of the family and learn about Willy and Linda’s two grown sons, Biff and Happy. Biff has just recently returning home from working as a farmhand in the West. Willy feels that Biff could have been a rich and successful man, but chooses to waste his talents instead of getting his life on track and is only trying to spite him by destroying his future.
That very night, Willy begins to have flashbacks and begins to talk to imagined images as though they were real people. Moreover, yeah something is wrong all right. He starts yelling so loudly that both his sons Happy and Biff wake up. The brothers are genuinely worried, having never seen their father like this. Leading Biff, to think that he should stay close to home and fix his relationship with his dad, in making this choice he decides to talk to a former employer, Bill Oliver, about financing a new business.
Once again, In the middle of the night, Willy is talking to himself loud enough to wake everyone else up. At this point Linda admits to her boys that she and Willy are lacking money and to make matters worse will is now trying to commit suicide. Due to all her stress she seems to take out her stress on the boys by accusing Biff of being the cause of his furthers unhappiness. Now Willy gets in on the family discussion and the situation goes downhill. He and Biff begin to argue, but Happy interjects that Biff plans to see Oliver the following morning. Willy is overjoyed. Everyone goes to sleep believing that tomorrow will fulfill his or her dreams: Willy expects to get a local job, and Biff expects to get a business loan. The next day, of course, everything goes wrong. Willy feels happy and confident as he meets with his boss, Howard. Rather than give him a transfer to the New York office, Willy ends up fired. Destroyed by the news, he begins to hallucinate and, yes, once again speak with imaginary people as he heads out to meet his sons at a restaurant.
Waiting for their dad at the restaurant, Biff explains to Happy that Oliver would not see him and did not have the slightest idea who he was. Distressed, spiteful, and something of a kleptomaniac, Biff stole Oliver’s fountain pen. By now, Biff has realized that he was crazy to think he would ever get a loan, and that he and his family have been lying to themselves for their entire lives. When Willy comes into the restaurant demanding good news, Biff struggles to explain what happened without letting his father down. Willy, who cannot handle the disappointment, tries to pretend it is not true. He starts drifting into the dreamy past again, reliving the moment when Biff discovered his (Willy’s) affair with a woman in Boston. While their dad is busy, and detached from reality, Biff and Happy ditch him for two girls.
Biff and Happy return home from their dates to find their mother waiting for them, fuming mad that they left their father at the restaurant. A massive argument erupts. No one wants to listen to biff, but he manages to get the point across that he cannot live up to his dad’s unrealistic expectations and is just a failure. He is the only one who sees that they have been living a lie, and he tells them so.
The night’s fight ends with Willy realizing that Biff, although a "failure," really do love him. Unfortunately, Willy cannot get past the "failure" bit. He thinks the greatest contribution that he himself can make toward his son’s success is to commit suicide. That way, Biff could use the life insurance money to start a business. Within a few minutes, there is a loud crash. Willy has killed himself. In the final scene, Linda, sobbing, still under the delusion that her husband was a much-liked salesperson, wonders why no one came to his funeral. Biff continues to see through his family’s lies and wants to be a better man who is honest with himself. Unfortunately, Happy wants to be just like his dad.
