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Death of a salesman

1. Major Characters in the Book Death of Salesman

These characters include; Willy Loman, Biff Loman, Happy loman, Linda loman, Charley, Benard and Howard Wegner (Miller 6-11).

Willy Loman: He is a self-deluded, an insecure traveling salesman. Willy believes fully in the American dream of easy success and wealth acquisition. He has not changed or grown.

Biff Loman: He led enchanted life in high school as a footballer star full of scholarship chances, flattering female friends alongside good male friends. He failed in math and later never graduated (Miller 20-99). He later changed his life after visiting Belly Oliver’s office that made him break free from lies and decided to begin his life afresh. He later chose living in reality. He, therefore, shown some changes in the play.

Linda Loman: Even though she occasionally shares Willy’s self-delude hopes for future glory and success, more often than not, she seems more realistic and less fragile than Willy. She has tried to nurture her family amidst Willy’s misleading attempts to success. Her stronger emotional strength made her grow and change in the play.

Happy Loman: Although he works as an assistant to an assistant buyer, he always represents himself as supremely important being. He never grew up because he practiced bad business practices and constantly had sex with girlfriends of his seniors.

2. What is revealed about the characters through dialogue?

Miller while writing his book chooses not to rely on spoken images, but rather creates them practically on the stage. Instead of merely leaving a character to tell the story, he decided to show it to readers (Miller 100-115). Dialogue has been significantly used in this book to show the images of characters. Dialogue has clearly shown to readers Willy’s insanity. Without dialogue, the readers would not have seen clearly how Willy’s broken speech and his constant up and down movement indicating how shattered he is.

3. Verbal irony, dramatic irony, how irony has been conveyed in the book and importance of irony.

Yes, the play includes both verbal and dramatic irony. Verbal irony is depicted on Willy’s last name ‘’Loman’’pronounced Low- Man, suggesting his low place in the society even though he insist the opposite.

Dramatic irony comes out clearly in Linder’s line in the play ‘’we’re free’’. It’s ironical because they think that they are finally free to pay off all the debts and any burden, only to find that Willy is taking his life because of the insurance money (Miller 140-142).

4. How irony is conveyed

What seems very ironical in this book is that Willy Loman is a loser in life, but he constantly advises his children on how to become successful in life (Miller 40-45). He was advising his sons how to become success as early as they were in school, and he still continues advising then on how to be success when they reached their thirties. This is happening as Willy is getting old and old and worn out. Willy himself does not know how to succeed in life. In his imaginations, he keeps on asking his brother Ben the secrets of success that give a clear indication that Willy does not know the secrets of success and yet he insists on teaching his sons.

5. What is revealed about characters through their actions?

Willy Loman’s actions reveal that he is a man of big dreams, precisely, American Dream (Miller 20-22). He wants greater things in life and trust that for him to advance great to opportunities and move the ladder of success he must be liked and known by the big and wealthy people in the society.

Linder’s action has portrayed her as loving and devoted wife. She seems to be an easy going woman. She always goes with the flow and always tries to calm Willy whenever he is upset.

Charly’s action has proven that he is a true friend. Despite being mocked by Willy and his sons, Charley still goes ahead to help them in their financial problems.

Bliff: despite too much pressure to bring success home, he repents the reflection of true life as what his father wanted never to come true despite being forced to follow his own dreams in life.

Happy’s characters depict him as a happy man. The fact that Willy does not expect a lot as opposed to his brother Bliff, he lives a free life making him to have ample time to make friendships both with male and females.

Reference

Miller, A. (1994). Death of a salesman. Oxford: Heinemann.