|
1
|
- Willy Loman returns to his house in Brooklyn from a sales trip. He is exhausted and has failed to sell anything. His wife Linda presses him to ask his boss, Howard Wagner, for a position in New York, closer to home.
- They discuss a recent argument between Willy and his elder son Biff, who has come home after working for ten years as a farm laborer in the West. Willy believes Biff is wasting his potential to do something great and financially lucrative.
- Upstairs, Biff tells his younger brother Happy that he felt constrained as a shipping clerk and loves working outdoors, but feels nonetheless that his life is on the wrong track. Happy commiserates, saying that he takes bribes and sleeps with whomever he wants, but still isn’t content.
- Willy becomes lost in a memory of when Biff and Happy were boys and he returned from a business trip with stories of how everyone in New England liked him and bought from him. Privately to Linda, he reveals that he hardly made enough commission to cover their bills, and doubts his abilities as a salesman.
- When Linda comforts him, Willy remembers his recent adulterous dalliance in Boston with The Woman, whom he gave stockings to. He sees Linda darning her old stockings and becomes upset.
- The neighbor boy Bernard comes by and warns Biff that he is in danger of flunking math. Willy and Biff laugh him off, and Willy tells his boys that being well liked is more important than being studious like Bernard.
- Willy is shaken out of his memories when Happy comes downstairs, and his neighbor Charley comes by to play cards. Charley, who knows Willy is struggling, offers him a job, but Willy is insulted and turns it down.
- Willy remembers his recently deceased brother Ben, who left home at seventeen to make his fortune in rugged locales like Alaska and Africa. On one of Ben’s few visits to Brooklyn, he told Willy about their salesman father, who made flutes and abandoned them when Willy was very young. Ben leaves Willy with the idea that one needs to take fearless risks in order to be successful.
- Willy wanders out into the yard. Biff, Happy and Linda discuss his mental health. Linda reveals that he has lost his salary and is borrowing fifty dollars a week from Charley to make ends meet. He has tried to kill himself by crashing his car and by inhaling fumes from a rubber hose that she has found attached to the heater in the basement.
- Biff agrees to stay at home and get a job, in order to support Willy and keep an eye on him. He and Happy launch the scheme of asking Biff’s old boss, Bill Oliver, for money to start a sporting goods business.
- Willy, excited by the idea, gives Biff conflicting advice on how to ask for the money.
- When everyone else has gone to bed, Biff finds the rubber hose behind the heater and puts it in his pocket.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2
|
- In the morning, Willy is in a better mood and tells Linda that he’d like to plant some seeds in the back yard. Linda, while encouraging, reminds him of all the payments they owe: the appliances, the car, the mortgage.
- Willy goes to see Howard Wagner and asks for a job in New York. Howard tells him that nothing is available. Agitated, Willy reminds Howard that he has been with the company since before Howard was born, and tells a story of a salesman who was successful until he died on the job at eighty-four. Howard is unmoved, and ends up firing Willy.
- Willy remembers Ben again, who offered him the opportunity to come to Alaska long ago. Ben asked Willy what the tangible product of his work was. Willy responded that his product was being liked.
- Willy also remembers Biff’s high school football game. He referred to it as the greatest day of Biff’s life, but Charley tried to convince him to put less importance in it.
- Willy goes to Charley’s office, as he does every week, to borrow money. There he encounters Bernard, who is now a successful lawyer on his way to argue a case before the Supreme Court. Willy asks Bernard why Biff never became successful, and Bernard says that after a trip to Boston just after high school, Biff seemed to give up on everything.
- Charley offers Willy a job again, but Willy refuses. He accepts Charley’s money and leaves his office humiliated.
- At Frank’s Chop House, where Biff and Happy are to meet Willy for dinner, Biff confesses to Happy that he was never able to get a meeting with Bill Oliver, but stole his pen instead. Happy advises him to lie to Willy about what happened. They chat up a call girl, Miss Forsythe, before Willy arrives.
- Willy tells his sons that he has been fired, making it difficult for Biff to give him the bad news about Bill Oliver. While they are arguing, Willy is unable to tell his memories from reality and his sons are frightened by his unbalanced behavior.
- Willy goes to the restroom, where he remembers Biff’s visit to Boston. Willy and The Woman had been in a hotel room together, and Biff discovered them. The trauma of this incident caused Biff to lose all faith in his father and give up on the course Willy had set for him.
- Biff and Happy leave with Miss Forsythe and her friend Letta, abandoning Willy in the restroom.
- When the boys return home, Linda is furious and accuses them of not loving their father. Biff is filled with guilt.
- Willy, in the back yard trying to plant seeds at night, converses with Ben’s ghost about leaving a $20,000 life insurance policy to his family.
- Biff tells Willy that he will never be the great man Willy wants him to be, but at least he knows who he is. He suggests Willy give up on his delusions of the American Dream before it is too late.
- Out of a desire to see Biff succeed, Willy leaves the house to drive into traffic and kill himself.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Requiem
|
- Willy’s funeral is attended only by his family, Charley and Bernard. Biff reminds everyone of the craftsman’s projects his father used to do around the house, and says there is more of him in the front stoop than in a lifetime of sales.
- Charley says that Willy can’t be blamed for what he did, because the only product a salesman really has is his smile, his dreams and himself.
- Happy announces that he is going to honor Willy’s death by becoming rich. The look Biff gives him implies that Biff has learned a deeper lesson from what happened.
- Linda says goodbye to Willy’s grave, telling him that the last payment on the house has been made and now there will be nobody to live in it.
|
