Schedule
Others on Death of a Salesman
What American novelist and professor Joyce Carol Oates says on her page
Bert Cardullo in the Columbia Journal of American Studies
Wikipedia - Tragedy and Aristotle (7.1): You connect to what it has to do with DoS
Close Study
Timeline
| 1870-1890 |
Period of Western Expansion in US when Willy's dad travels west, making and selling flutes |
| 1871 |
Ben is born. |
| 1885 |
Willy is born. |
| 1903 |
Alaska gold strike. Willy follows Dave Singleman's path instead. |
| 1912 |
Willy joins Wagner company. |
| 1914 |
Biff is born. Bernard is born. |
| 1916 |
Happy is born. |
| 1923 |
Lomans move to Brooklyn. Begin 25-year mortgage. |
| 1928 |
Willy's best year. Year of driving the red Chevvy. |
| 1931 |
Biff fails to graduate and heads west. |
All questions pertain to the sequence or page, many can and should reach beyond.
Act One - Sequence 1 (12-19)
Present (night)
Brooklyn (Willy's and Linda's bedroom)
What does sequence 1 do? How does it extend to the rest of the play?
- Flute establishes atmosphere. P. 13 fades out; p. 18 returns as Willy drifts into memory of 1928 and the Chevvy.
- Setting established: New York area and evening
- Other exposition: Introduce Willy's tendency to daydream
- Reveal pattern of smashing car/driving off the road: remembering the past/daydreaming - liberty, freedom - Willy wants to cling to that memory
- Willy "tired to death" (13)
- Show Linda's devotion to Willy
- Show Linda's love of being surrounded by viral men
- "Life is a casting off": irony of Willy's suicide (a full-scale "casting off" although he has an inability to during his life)
- Willy's honesty with Linda
- Convey Willy's faith in past: Old man Wagner, Biff's glory days, house when it wasn't cramped
- Significance of "if" in Willy's life - irony of hopeful future, only to continue residing in dreams
- Establish Willy's self-contradictions: erasing of line between dreams and reality (Biff hardworking)
- Establish frustration with Biff, ie, becoming a carpenter, knowing who he "really is", etc.
- Willy: "No, I see everything"
- Flora/fauna symbols, Elm trees, rural New England imagery, lost
- Willy's belief in being attracitve/well-liked
- Paradigm shift in society - Willy's failure to accept a success-based society
- Establish 1928 as "the big year" for Willy - historical?
How is the set design significant?
How is conflict created within the first 5 lines of the play?
What is foreshadowed in the first 8?
What do you learn from the stage direction on page 13?
What causes Willy to daydream so much on his way up to New England?
Sequence 2 (19-26)
Present (night)--Happy's and Biff's bedroom
At same time, down in kitchen, Willy lost in 1928
- Show Happy's concern & admiration for Willy
- Willy's sight: he sees but doesn't keep "his mind on it"
- Happy's belief that Willy is a great salesman
- Happy reveals that Willy's ailing mind has to do with Biff
- Characterization of Happy: make money, lonely, womanizer
- Characterization of Biff
- wants a physical life and outdoors
- wants a ranch
- wants to "build" a future: physical, mechanical
- Bill Oliver and stealing
- a different kind of Loman, understands & feels socieities pressures
- More water imagery: parting of seas
- Stealing: Happy steals executives' wives, Biff physically steals
What is Biff alluding to (bottom p. 21)?
How have Biff and Happy inherited Willy's positive and negative traits?
How are Biff and Happy different?
What does Happy's line "Somebody with character, with resistance! Like Mom, y'know?" reveal about Happy?
How is Happy's language like Willy's?
Sequence 3 (26-37)
Past (day)--1928 Brooklyn (house and garden)
In Present, boys are upstairs
- Remember that all that Willy is saying is out loud--and alone
- Flora/faunca: more elms (28)
- Contradiction with Willy: stealing, laughing, "give it back" (30)
- Willy: "I have friends" - funeral indicates this later (31)
- Willy's lies sets his sons up for failure
- Quality = Biggest ads (35)
- Repetition of well-liked
- Willy says he's "fat" ยค Happy is trying to lose weight
- As boys stop talking and Willy's recollection dominates, the houses are covered in leaves, and the "music insinuates itself as the leave appear" (27).
How important is it to Willy to be well-liked?
To Willy, what is its power?
What does the play reveal about its power?
What is the significance of the trees?
What does Bernard reveal about the Lomans?
What is the significance of the Chevvy?
Is Biff well-liked?
What do we learn about Willy?
Sequence 4 (37-39)
Past (night), Boston (hotel room)--a memory within a memory
- Memory of Linda darning stocking triggers memory of Willy's mistress
- Dramatically, Willy leaves the kitchen to "enter" this memory stage left
- Mention of stockings brings Willy back to original digression, and returns to young Linda in the kitchen
- In present, the boys are still listening upstairs
What does the woman offer?
Sequence 5 (39-41)
Past (day), Brooklyn (kitchen)
- Bernard enters 1928 memory
- Woman laughs off-stage (40)
- Young Bernard and young Linda leave.
- Leaves are gone.
How are the stockings significant?
How do the various scenarios interact?
What is the purpose and effect of this?
How is Willy afflicted by the past?
Sequence 6 (41-44)
Present (night)
Brooklyn (Kitchen)
- Now in present, Happy comes downstairs.
- Introduce Alaska and Brother Ben
- Introduce Willy's doubt in Happy
- Charley on stage for first time
- Hyperbolic language of Willy
- Happy: "Well, there's no use--" (41) (...dwelling in the past)
- Flora/fauna: "The woods are burning" (41).
- Charley offers Willy a job (43).
- "A man who can't handle tools is not a man" (44).
- Talk of working with hands instigates Ben's entrance.
What drives Willy's unwillingness to let Biff go back to Texas?
Sequence 7 (44-47)
Present (night), Brooklyn (kitchen)
Willy imagines a former conversation with Ben before Ben leaves for Alaska.
- First time seeing Ben.
- Stage description of Ben (44)
- Ben's music
- Charley is confused and worried (45).
- Old Charley exits (47).
Why is he Uncle Ben instead of Brother Ben?
Why does Ben have music?
When have we also had music?
What two major stressors led to Willy's recent mishap with the car?
Dramatically, how does Miller display the height of Willy's confusion?
Whose question is this: "How did you do it?"
Sequence 8 (47-52)
Past (day), Brooklyn (garden and house)
Are these from the past or imaginings?
When does Happy ask Willy's question?
What is the flute's significance?
What significance does Willy's father's absence play?
What is significant about Biff sparring with Ben?
Activity: read only Willy's lines on pages 47-52
Why does Miller bring in young Charley and Bernard?
What is Willy teaching his sons?
What has Willy determined he is right about?
Sequence 9 (52-69) END OF ACT
Willy in present but talking about the past. Linda in present. (garden and house)
- Star
- Biff enters, then Happy (53).
- Develop Linda's character with boys--strength, realism, dependence.
- Biff and Linda introduce truthful discourse.
- Miller speaks through Linda (56). Quotable.
- Concurrent line foreshadows revelation of woman (59)
- Expose Willy's suicide attempts.
- Biff says doesn't fit in business...wants to work with hands (60-61)
- Willy enters house (61)--he's been listening.
- Develop Bill Oliver and sporting goods scheme
- Willy incessantly cuts Linda off
- Loman worldview efficiently revealed (63-68)
- Linda hums a lullaby.
- Golden pool of light on Biff as light on Willy fades.
- Star/moon
- Act closes with Biff and pipe, Linda humming, and Biff looking toward Willy's room as Willy says act's last line.
When is willy at his best and worst (54)?
Is the conversation Willy has with Ben recollection or wholly imagined?
ACT TWO - Sequence 1 (71-76)
Present (day)
Brooklyn (kitchen)
Next morning
Seeds
Biff off to Bill Oliver's
Willy off to Howard Wagner's
Payments on car, refrigerator, and house
Dinner plans with boys
Sequence 2 (76-84)
Present (day)
New York (Howard Wagner's office)
Tape recorder
Dave Singleman
Willy Fired
Sequence 3 (84-90)
Past (day)
Brooklyn (garden and house)
Ben returns
Along with Young Linda, Biff, Bernard, and Charley
What is the significance of the tension between Charley and Willy?
Compare and Contrast Ben and Charley.
Sequence 4 (90-98)
Present (day)
New York (Charley's office)
Bernard in Charley's Office
Willy shows up lost in memory, arguing with "memory Charley"
What is the significance of the overlapping memories?
How would you stage Willy from Oliver's to Charley's?
What would you want to convey?
What is Miller doing when he has Willy ask Bernard "What -- what's the secret?"
Willy: ... That questions has been trailing me like a ghost for the last 15 years" (93).
What makes Willy defensive?
Why doesn't Bernard mention the Supreme Court?
Why does Charley's "grow up" line sting so much?
Why won't Willy take a job from Charley?
Sequence 5 (98-109)
Present (evening)
New York (restaurant)
At restaurant
DOS 98-112.mp3 (Chester's recording)
Why have Ms Forsythe in the play?
What does Biff realize at Oliver's?
What is Biff's response?
How is Happy's solution emblematic of the Lomans?
How is "the woods are burning" fit with some of the play's motifs?
With Willy and Biff being honest, who is left to protect?
What is Happy's role in this scene?
Sequence 6 (109-111)
Past (night)
Brooklyn (exterior of house)
Still at restaurant
Trumpet note
Young Bernard announces Biff flunked math
Sequence 7 (111-115)
Present (evening)
New York (restaurant)
Operator at Standish Arms
When in this sequence does Biff begin to lie and why?
How is Biff's line -- "Pop, how can I go back?" -- significant?
What woman?
What door?
Sequence 8 (116-121)
Past (night)
Boston (hotel room)
Willy at restaurant, but...
Willy's mind at hotel room
The music ends. When did it begin? What do you make of its timing?
How does Miller show Biff's changed regard for Willy?
Sequence 9 (121-122)
Present (evening)
New York (restaurant)
Willy at restaurant
Asks Stanley where a seed store is
Sequence 10 (122-125)
Present (night)
Brooklyn (house and garden)
Long pause
Flute
Flowers
Happy and Biff return Home
A fierce Linda
Sequence 11 (125-127)
Present (night)
Brooklyn (house and garden)
Willy hammering and planting his garden
Ben returns
$20,000
Boys' music
Sequence 12 (127-136)
Present (night)
Brooklyn (house and garden)
Biff comes out to garden
Rubber tube
Happy's true job
Biff tells truth
Willy moved
Ben returns
Ben's music
Music changes
Shift to funeral
Why doesn't Willy want to see Linda?
What does Willy mean Biff "cut down [his] life for spite" (129)?
How is the phrase "cut down" significant?
Why does Happy say he's getting married?
REQUIEM
Hands
Biff's clarity
Charley's defense
Happy's resolve
Flute
Linda
Buildings
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