Suicide In Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman

Death of a Salesman details salesman Willy Loman’s path to suicide. Willy comes home from a business trip exhausted. His wife Linda is concerned about his strange behavior and a recent car accident. He is complaining about his son Biff’s failure to do anything with his life. Biff had potential as a football player, but he failed at math and can’t go to a university. Biff and his younger brother, Harold, also known as Happy, are staying with their parents. Biff and Happy discuss their childhood and their father’s poor mental state. Willy had been daydreaming and talking to himself. He constantly imagines past things happening in the present. He also imagines that his dead brother, Ben, is giving him advice on what to do. Ben often bragged about getting rich in Africa.

He goes to see his boss the next day but gets fired instead. Because of Willy’s bad emotional state, Biff tries to get a job in business to make Willy proud but gets turned down as well. Biff, Happy, and Willy all go to dinner afterward and Willy refused to listen to Biff’s bad news. He begins to have a flashback to the point Biff changed into disliking his father. Willy was cheating on his wife with a woman he called “Ms. Francine” when Biff comes to visit. He sees that Willy is having an affair with the random person and calls him a liar and a fraud. Because of this, Biff dropped out of summer school. Biff tires of arguing and leaves. Happy, and the two girls he brought along, leave as well. When Biff and Happy come home, Linda is not happy with them leaving Willy there alone. When Willy came home he went outside and started talking to himself. In his head, Ben agreed that suicide was a good idea, so Willy went in his car and killed himself. The only people that attended Willy’s funeral were his family, his friend Charley, and his son