Catch In The Rye Essay, Research Paper

Death of a Salesman is a play by Arthur Miller. It takes place in New York. It is about a

man named Willy Loman. He has been traveling salesman for the Wagner Company for 34

years. He has a wife named Linda, and two sons named Biff and Happy. Happy lives in

New York, and works in a department store. After 14 years, Biff finally comes home,

looking for a job in New York. Willy is so happy that his sons are with him, that he

decides to ask his Boss if he can have a job in New York, rather than New England.

Instead, Willy gets fired. Willy then asks his friend Charley for fifty dollars, and Charley

offers Willy a good job in New York. Willy refuses, and leaves to go meet his sons in a

restaurant. Later on, after they have gone home, Willy commits suicide, because with the

insurance money, he feels that Biff could be such a magnificent person. Willy Loman came

back home after having left for New England one day. He is a traveling salesman for the

Wagner Company. His wife Linda is at home, and he tells her how he hasn?t been able to

keep his mind on driving. He starts daydreaming, and his car just swerves off to the side of

the road. He asks about their son Biff, who hasn?t been home in over 14 years. He is

visiting in New York, and is staying with them. Willy starts daydreaming about when Biff

was a senior in high school, and was in a big football game. People were coming from all

over to offer him scholarships. But something happened that year, because Biff was never

able to find himself. Now that Biff is in New York, him and his brother Happy are trying

to think of a job that Biff could get in New York. They decide that he could ask Mr.

Oliver, a man Biff used to work for. He wants to ask him for a loan of ten thousand

dollars, so that Biff can start his own business. When they tell their father about their

plans, Willy is ecstatic. He thinks they could conquer the world. He reminds them that the

most important thing in life is to be well-liked and to have personal attractiveness. Willy is

so happy that his two sons are going to have a business together, that he decides to go ask

his boss, Howard Wagner, for a job in New York. Howard tells him there is no room for

Willy in New York, and then tells him that he can no longer work in New England

because he is doing harm for the company. Willy goes to an old friend to borrow money.

His name is Charley. Willy tells Charley that he has been fired, and Charley offers him a

job in New York. But Willy declines. Earlier, Biff had gone to see Oliver about the loan.

He waited all day to speak to Oliver, and then when he finally got to see him, Oliver didn?t

even recognize Biff. Biff then realizes that his whole life has been a ridiculous lie. Later

on, when Biff meets Happy in a restaurant, he tells Happy about what happened. Happy

suggests that Biff not tell Willy about it, and instead tell him a nice story instead. When

Willy gets to the restaurant, Biff tries to explain to him that he had never worked as a

salesman with Oliver, and that he was only a shipping clerk. But Willy tells his boys he

wants to hear something good, because he just got fired. Biff can?t believe that the

company fired Willy. He keeps trying to tell Willy the truth about the interview, but Willy

doesn?t listen. He pretends that Oliver had remember Biff after all those years, and how

Oliver threw his arm around Biff. Biff screams out that he can?t talk to Willy. Willy leaves

and goes to the bathroom. Biff asks Happy to stay and wait for him. Biff leaves, and

Happy follows. He brings along two girls that he picked up earlier. When Willy come out

of the bathroom, he sees that his boys left. He leaves the restaurant, and goes to the store

to look for seeds. Biff finds Willy in the garden planting the seeds. Biff explains to him

that he has to leave, and he wont be coming back. Biff tells him that he has stolen himself

out “of every good job since high school”. Biff starts crying, and then Willy sees that he

was wrong when he thought that Biff had been intentionally hateful towards him. He then

realizes that Biff loves him. Later that night, Willy kills himself in a car accident. A few

days later, at Willy?s funeral, no one came. Willy died a forgotten man. Death of a

Salesman was a great book. It was a little hard to follow, because it had a lot of

flashbacks, and sometimes it was difficult to figure out what time period it was in. At the

end of the book, Willy kills himself, and no one but his family came to his funeral. All his

dreams about being well-liked were phony, because the truth was that he wasn?t very

well-liked at all. It is a book about the “common man being defeated by a society which

drains the common man of his energy, and then drops him”.