History Theatre / DeathOfASalesman

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: In one of the film adaptations, Creator/DustinHoffman plays the character of Willy Loman, who in the play's original script was described as fat and unattractive. The film edits out references to Loman's weight and replaces them with jabs at his intellect and height. Apparently Arthur Miller told Dustin Hoffman his original vision of Willy Loman was a small man, despite how casting for the first play turned out.

* AloofBigBrother: Willy's older brother Ben, who got rich by going to Africa and finding diamonds when he was trying to go to Alaska. He appears in flashbacks as a practically godlike figure in Willy's mind, and is always talking about how rich he is, once offering Willy to join him in Alaska.

* ArcWords: Willy demeans a neighbor he dislikes by saying "he's liked, but he's not ''well liked''. The same phrase is repeated several times over to express the same principle, until eventually it is used to describe the hollowness of such a value system, when Willy's perception of being "well-liked" by his boss and clients did nothing for him once he was down on his luck.

* BrokenPedestal: Biff idolized his father, until he found out that Willy was [[spoiler:cheating on his wife/Biff's mother with another woman]].
* BungledSuicide: Linda thinks the real reason that Willy crashed his car a few months before the play started is that he was attempting to kill himself. Her suspicions are only furthered when she finds out Willy was fiddling with the gas hose, as if he was planning to suffocate himself with it.

* TheCasanova: Happy is an inveterate womanizer. He's certainly not above calling on call girls. [[spoiler:He must get it from his old man, who's been cheating on his wife, although it seems that only Biff is aware of that fact.]]

-->'''Willy Loman:''' He's liked, but he's not ''well liked''.
* CentralTheme: UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream, and how it affects the average working Joe's attitude towards their job and money. Other themes include betrayal of trust, and perception of reality.

* DespairEventHorizon: Biff reached this sixteen years ago when [[spoiler:he discovered Willy's affair.]]
* {{Determinator}}: Deconstructed. Willy Loman will never give up his dream of being a successful salesman. But that also leaves his family perpetually sad and broke, and causes Willy no small amount of undue stress. Several times, it's commented that [[DetrimentalDetermination Willy should see that he needs to quit, but he won't]].
* DetrimentalDetermination: According to the American Dream that Willy is always chasing, anyone can become rich if they work hard enough and never give up. Willy certainly isn't one to give up, and that's his FatalFlaw. The fact that he doesn't know when enough's enough leads to Willy making himself and his family miserable over his dogged pursuit of a dream that [[TragicDream he never really had a chance at achieving]]. Despite throwing everything into his work as a salesman, Willy isn't happy, and he isn't successful. It's implied that he'd be happier if he tried his hand at being a construction tradesman, or if he'd just see that the world of sales is just not cut out for him. At one point, Biff practically grabs Willy and screams in his face that neither Willy nor Biff are going to be massive successes, but Willy still doesn't get it. [[spoiler:And he takes it to his grave, as Willy is DrivenToSuicide in a last-ditch effort to provide for his family without admitting fault.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Willy dies and his sacrifice was AllForNothing as Biff refuses to follow in Willy's ideas for success. The rest of the Loman family continues its proud tradition of sucking at life. Happy intends to continue his father's "legacy", almost getting into a fist fight with Biff when he tries to dissuade him. The only upside might be that Biff has rejected Willy's delusions. Maybe. Linda tearfully tells Willy she has finally paid off the house, but will be living in it alone. "We're free."]]

** Happy thinks he can just do better than his father at his sales career if he just tries hard enough. The point is that Willy ''was'' trying hard; it's just that he wasn't cut out for the line of work and ignored all evidence to the contrary. At one point, Biff practically grabs Willy and screams in his face that neither Willy nor Biff are going to be massive successes, that they don't have what it takes to be massive successes, and ''that's okay'', they don't ''need'' to be massive successes. Willy takes the exact opposite interpretation to what Biff is trying to tell him.
** When Charlie mentions that Bernard is "going to court," Willy thinks he's talking about tennis and teases him. When Bernard himself shows up, Willy's stunned to learned that the young man is actually going to the ''Supreme'' Court to argue a case as a highly successful lawyer.
** Arguably, Willy's view of Dave Singleman's life and death could be this. Willy holds Dave's career up as an example of success, and thinks it's admirable that Dave died the "death of a salesman" on the job, in a train car on the way to his next business stop. But he's blind to the emptiness of it: Dave was still working at eighty-four instead of enjoying a peaceful retirement, died alone in a train car with no loved ones beside him, and there's no mention of a spouse or children or grandchildren...only the other salesmen at his funeral. It all underlines how flawed and hollow Willy's priorities are, and how his life might have been much richer if he'd only quit chasing a version of success he's not cut out for and focus on other things.
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Willy convinces himself crashing his car with him in it will let his family pay off their insurance, making his suicide a HeroicSuicide. His brother, the possibly illusive Ben, points out that suicide would invalidate his life insurance and that his suicide is nothing but selfish, but Willy blocks him out and walks to his car as if in a trance.]]

** Played with in Bernard and Charlie. Charlie has a much more hands-off approach to parenting than Willy, but Bernard is much more successful and responsible despite (or because) of this.
* DysfunctionalFamily: The Lomans are lead by a mentally ill patriarch who values financial success over work, compliance with the law, and intelligence, a wife who refuses to stand up to her husband no matter the scenario, a son who has had every pressure to succeed put on him by his father, and a younger son who has adopted every single one of his father's flaws in his attempts to get any sort of attention. The most down-to-earth of all of Lomans is Ben, who's a hallucination of the father.

* FiringDay: In the second act, there is a HopeSpot where Willy decides to talk to his boss about being transferred to work in New York City, as he accepts that he's too old to be traveling up and down from New Jersey all the way to Massachusetts. While talking to his boss, Willy reminisces about his late boss, the new boss' father, and then brings up the idea of being transferred to only be a salesman in New York City, only for his boss to tell him that his sales numbers have been going down, and has become a liability to the company and fires him. Willy tries to appeal to his, now, ex-boss with the fact that he knew his father, but the ex-boss is unmoved, and when Willy tries negotiating a pay-cut, since he won't be traveling far, the boss just politely asks him to leave his office, and Willy eventually relents and leaves in defeat.

-->''Whenever the action is in the present the actors observe the imaginary wall-lines, entering the house only through its door at the left. But in the scenes of the past these boundaries are broken and characters enter or leave a room by stepping 'through' a wall onto the fore-stage.''

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Willy's conversation with Charley at the later's office:

* HardWorkHardlyWorks: [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]] to hell and back. Willy is a both a believer and doubter of this trope--while he himself toils endlessly in an effort to become wealthy, he thinks that his handsome, muscular, popular sons won't have to work hard because they're so "well-liked." Biff takes this trope to an even further degree: after [[spoiler: witnessing his father having an affair ''and'' failing out of school in the same day]], he had a complete breakdown and came to believe that there was no point to trying to do anything at all, becoming a "lazy bum" instead. Finally, Charlie and Bernard [[SubvertedTrope subvert]] this trope--they both work extremely hard and have achieved success (Charlie owns a lucrative business, and Bernard is a skilled lawyer) and comfortable lives.

* HiddenDepths: Initially, Biff comes across as nothing more than a pathetic loser, but he's the only member of the Loman family who faces and acknowledges certain realities about their situation in life, unlike his parents and brother who deal with problems by denying that they even exist.

* ImmediateSelfContradiction: Willy Loman falls prey to this trope, calling Biff a "lazy bum" and then later saying "There's one thing about Biff - he's not lazy." In a later scene he calls his car the best car in the world, only to yell about how awful it is when a bill for it comes in.
* InsaneTrollLogic: A truly depressing example. Willy's greatest belief is in "the American Dream," which says that if you work hard and long enough, you'll be rich and successful. Despite working extremely hard for decades, he's neither. But rather than criticize the American Dream itself, Willy instead applies fallacious logic to it: since hard work is all it takes to become wealthy, then he must not be working hard enough, because he isn't wealthy yet. Biff desperately tries to shake him out of this cycle in their final scene, [[spoiler: saying that he's "a dime a dozen" and fated to mediocrity. Willy refuses to listen.]]
* IRejectYourReality: All the characters are living in denial, fantasy and illusion, but Willy has it worst of all, as his fantasies and illusions are gradually driving him insane. Biff's CharacterDevelopment is essentially him coming to terms with the fact that he's ultimately not going to amount to much, and that it's okay if he doesn't.

** Willy Loman used to have a better life in his younger years ([[NostalgiaFilter though probably not as great as he thinks it was]]). Now, he's a bitter old man, desperately trying to cling on to his goal, in spite of all evidence that it's just not going to happen.

* JerkJock: Young Biff. That phase abruptly ends when [[spoiler: he catches Willy cheating on Linda, and promptly disowns his father and gives up on success]].

** On the surface, Biff is more cold and cruel towards his father than Happy is. Underneath it all, he just wants his father to face the truth about himself just as he has.

* KnowNothingKnowItAll: Willy Loman criticizes Charlie's poor eating habits as the cause of his heart pain. Charlie tries to ask how he knows this, but Willy only vaguely mentions vitamins affecting bones and the word "chemistry" before getting frustrated and trying to move on.
* KnowWhenToFoldEm: [[FatalFlaw Willy doesn't]]. He's really not cut out to be a salesman at all, and would have had a far better life as a construction tradesman. On the other hand, this is the lesson that Biff learns by the end of the play.

* LonelyFuneral: AvertedTrope. The titular salesman is described as having a funeral where hundreds of his clients from all over the country come and mourn him. For months after, the mood was much sadder on the country's trains. [[spoiler:This is in contrast to Willy's funeral, which is attended by three of his family members, two of his colleagues, and none of his clients.]]

* MeaningfulEcho: "He was liked, but he was not ''well liked''."

** Willy's "hero" is salesman "Dave Singleman" who devotes his whole life to selling, living and dying a single man.

* TheMistress: Willy had one sixteen years in the past. [[spoiler:Biff found out and never forgave him.]]

* NostalgiaFilter: Willy constantly hearkens back to his GloryDays. Trouble is, they weren't all that glorious; they're just better than what was going on now.

* OffendedByAnInferiorsSuccess: Willy believes that he and his sons are great men, destined to do great things, something he expresses by describing other people, including his only friend Charley, as "liked, but not well-liked." As such, Willy won't event consider working for Charley, seeing it as beneath him. Furthermore, Willy cannot fathom the idea that Bernard, Charley's son and whom Willy also sees as just being "liked" is a successful lawyer who is happily married, while Biff, who was "well liked" in high school ended up becoming an unemployed drifter who wandered back home after several years away.

** Linda is a a female example, since she's by far the most emotionally stable member of the Loman family. Partially averted in that she fails to realize (or admit) a few important things about their situation, such as [[spoiler: why Willy and Biff are at odds with each other]].

* PointyHairedBoss: Willy's new boss fails to acknowledge the numerous years of hard work that Willy put in during his period and won't allow him to work in New York City, insisting he stay on the road. Unlike his father, who served more as AFatherToHisMen (at least according to Willy), the new boss only thinks about business and actually comes off as condescending to Willy, referring to him as "kid," despite the fact the Willy was working here before he was born.
* PopularIsDumb: Unpopular but studious Bernard becomes successful, but popularity-obsessed Willy and Biff fail in the real world. Though Played With in that it is primarily because they focus on popularity to the exclusion of anything else, and fail to consider things like enthusiasm and hard work. It is also frequently implied that Willy and Biff are only popular in their own minds and that not many actually respect them. Biff realizes this at the end.
* PosthumousCharacter: [[spoiler: Uncle Ben is mentioned to have died sometime before the events of the play. However he keeps appearing in flashbacks, and his ArcWords keep repeating themselves in Willy's head. Willy, in holding Ben in high esteem, listens to his words most of the time. Sadly, he outright ignores "Ben"'s warnings when he leaves to commit suicide.]]
* {{Pride}}: Willy cannot accept the idea that he, and more importantly Biff, are not great men but just average Joes. Biff even says "Pop, I am a dime a dozen, and so are you!" to Willy at one point, which Willy harshly rebukes.

* RedemptionEqualsDeath: Played with. Willy plans for his death to obtain big insurance money for his family to compensate for all the grief he caused for them, and/or so he can live his ideals through Biff. A defied trope, since he really gains nothing out of it.

* SelectiveObliviousness: This is the main way Linda protects Willy's fragile ego (or, less charitably, enables his worst traits)--by ignoring his flaws and acting as though his meager successes are far more important than they actually are. Some interpretations even suggest that she knows about Willy's affair, but pretends not to in an effort to keep peace; it's notable that one of the few times she genuinely loses her temper is when she snaps at Biff and Happy for sleeping with "whores."

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: On the cynical side. The play is a deconstruction of the American Dream, showing how flawed it can be if someone won't stop pursuing it at the expense of all else.
* SmallNameBigEgo: Willy likes to think of himself as something of a local legend among salesmen in New York and New England, and thinks that when he dies, his former clients and salesmen from across the region will flock to honor his memory. In reality, Willy is a complete no-name working on commission and is eventually fired by his boss, and when he dies only his immediate family and Charley's show up for the funeral.

* StickyFingers: Biff has a tendency to pocket small trinkets and items wherever he goes, almost to the point of kleptomania. It's heavily implied that this habit [[spoiler: was condoned by his father, as shown in Willy's reaction when a teenaged Biff admitted to stealing a football and Willy claimed that it showed initiative. Then he encouraged Biff and Happy to steal some lumber in order to prove their manliness to Ben! The stealing gets worse after Biff discovered his father's affair, but his father was ultimately responsible.]]

* StupidSacrifice: [[spoiler: Willy's suicide.]] He convinces himself that it's a meaningful sacrifice, that [[spoiler: by killing himself, his life insurance will fix his family's problems. Because his death is suicide, the insurance is not paid; Willy was warned of this (by a figment of his own imagination, no less) and ignored it. Even if it were, money would not solve his family's woes: the house is paid off, and Biff has no intention of starting a business. His death accomplishes nothing]].

* ThisLoserIsYou: Willy is meant to represent the Average Joe who's still clinging onto the idea that "ICouldaBeenAContender" if this one thing hadn't happened. Happy and Biff are variations on this theme - with Biff the more self-aware of the two, and Happy as a self-deluded clone of his father.

* {{Tritagonist}}: Linda. Just as prominent as Biff, but ultimately doesn't wind up developing for the better like him, putting her here.
* UnconfessedUnemployment: [[spoiler:Willy has a hard time admitting to his wife he's out of a job.]]
* VicariouslyAmbitious: Despite his delusions, Willy realizes that he's a failure, and so projects all of his hopes and dreams onto his sons, especially Biff. Unfortunately for Willy, neither of his sons seems destined to amount to very much either, at least in part because Willy teaches them the wrong lessons about how to succeed.

** Also Biff and Bernard. They're complete opposites - one the popular high school jock, the other the stereotypical nerd. In spite of this and the fact that both Biff and Willy ridicule Bernard, it's suggested that they were one another's closest friends.

* UnreliableNarrator: Many of the scenes are flashbacks told from Willy's point of view. As is made clear from his actions in the present, Willy has a rather weak grasp on reality, so it's questionable to what extent these flashbacks represent things that actually happened as opposed things as Willy chose to remember them.

* WellDoneSonGuy: Young Biff but he loses faith in his father, and in life, when he [[spoiler: catches Willy in an affair]].
* WhamLine: [[spoiler:After the play has been spent with the Loman men talking about how great they'll become, Biff gets the gall to tell his father, "Pop, I'm a dime a dozen and so are you!"]]

* YankTheDogsChain: For just a moment, it looks like Biff is going to get a job and sort out his life. But no. This turns out for the best though, since it helps him realize what he wants in life and not be trapped in a delusion like Willy.

* OffendedByAnInferiorsSuccess: Willy believes that he and his sons are great men, destined to do great things, something he expresses by describing people as "liked, but not well-liked." As such, Willy he entertain the idea he should work for Charley, seeing it as beneath him. Furthermore, Willy cannot fathom the idea that Bernard, Charley's son and whom Willy also sees as just being "liked" is a successful lawyer who is happily married, while Biff, who was "well liked" in high school ended up becoming a drifter who wandered back home after several years away.

* LoserSonOfLoserDad: It's implied that Happy is bound to follow the same life trajectory as his father, only worse because of his immaturity and irresponsibility.

* NiceGuy: Charley, who gives Willy money and offers him a do-nothing job even though Willy often treats Charley with contempt (to mask his own jealousy).

* VicariouslyAmbitious: Despite his delusions, Willy realizes that he's a failure, and so projects all of his hopes and dreams onto his sons, especially Biff. Unfortunately for Willy, neither of his sons seems destined to amount to very much either.

* TheCasanova: Happy is an inveterate womanizer. He's certainly not above calling on call girls. [[spoiler:He must get it from his old man, who's been cheating on his wife.]]

* AbusiveParents: One of Miller's main arguments is that Willy, despite truly loving his sons and never physically abusing them, caused them a huge amount of mental trauma with his constant praise and insistence that they were destined for greatness. Biff realizes that Willy lied to him all his life and led him to think that he'd be immediately successful in whatever he tried to do, which has only made him unable to stick with anything--the instant a job or hobby gets difficult, he loses all interest in it, turning him into a LazyBum. The ending suggests that this knowledge will give Biff the ability to move on and at least try to improve his flaws, while Happy, [[StepfordSmiler still in denial]], refuses to believe that Willy was anything but perfect.

* FiringDay: In the second act, there is a HopeSpot where Willie decides to talk to his boss about being transferred to work in New York City, as he accepts that he's too old to be traveling up and down from New Jersey all the way to Massachusetts. While talking to his boss, Willie reminisces about his late boss, the new boss' father, and then brings up the idea of being transferred to only be a salesman in New York City, only for his boss to tell him that his sales numbers have been going down, and has become a liability to the company and fires him. Willie tries to appeal to his, now, ex-boss with the fact that he knew his father, but the ex-boss is unmoved, and when Willie tries negotiating a pay-cut, since he won't be traveling far, the boss just politely asks him to leave his office, and Willie eventually relents and leaves in defeat.

* JadedWashout: Willy Loman used to have a better life in his younger years ([[NostalgiaFilter though probably not as great as he thinks it was]]). Now, he's a bitter old man, desperately trying to cling on to his goal, in spite of all evidence that it's just not going to happen.
** Biff also qualifies, indeed he "washed out" even earlier in life.

* StepfordSmiler: Happy (hence the name).

** Happy thinks he can just do better than his father at this career if he tries hard enough. The point is that Willy ''was'' trying hard; it's just that he wasn't cut out for the line of work and ignored all evidence to the contrary. At one point, Biff practically grabs Willy and screams in his face that neither Willy nor Biff are going to be massive successes, that they don't have what it takes to be massive successes, and ''that's okay'', they don't ''need'' to be massive successes. Willy takes the exact opposite interpretation to what Biff is trying to tell him.

* SmallNameBigEgo: Willy likes to think of himself as something of a local legend among salesmen in New York and New England, and thinks that when he dies, his former clients and salesmen from across the region will flock to honor his memory. In reality, Willy is a complete no-name working on commission and eventually fired by his boss, and when he dies only his immediate family and Charley's show up for the funeral.

* ArcWords: Willy demeans a neighbor he dislikes by saying "he's liked, but he's not ''well liked''. The same phrase is repeated several times over to express the same principle, until eventually it is used to describe the hollowness of such a value system.

* ArcWords: Willy demeans a neighbor he dislikes by saying "he's liked, but he's not ''well liked''," a phrase which indicates the great value Willy places on appearances and networking over work and study. The same phrase is repeated several times over to express the same principle, until eventually it is used to describe the hollowness of such a value system.

* OffendedByAnInferiorsSuccess: Willy's philosophy that it's better to "well liked" than just "liked" boils down to him believing that being charismatic will eventually bring success and admiration, and thus more important than working hard. As such, Willy cannot entertain the idea he should work for Charley, whom is more successful despite Willy seeing him as just being "liked," because it would be beneath him. Furthermore, Willy cannot fathom the idea that Bernard, Charley's son and whom Willy also sees as just being "liked" is a successful lawyer who is happily married, while Biff, who was "well liked" in high school ended up becoming a drifter who wandered back home after several years away.

** In addition to their obsession with popularity, Willy and Biff do not realize the amount of effort needed to achieve their dreams. To illustrate, Charlie's son Bernard works hard to become a successful lawyer and Uncle Ben goes into the jungle for four years to find diamonds and come out rich. On the other hand, Willy and Biff are always looking for an easy way out and that's why they ultimately fail in life.

* SmallNameBigEgo: Willy likes to think of himself as something of a local legend among salesmen in New York and New England, and thinks that when he dies, his former clients and salesmen from across the region will flock to honor his memory. In reality, Willy is a complete a no-name working on commission and eventually fired by his boss, and when he dies only his immediate family and Charley's show up for the funeral.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Willy dies, and the rest of the Loman family continues its proud tradition of sucking at life. Happy intends to continue his father's "legacy", almost getting into a fist fight with Biff when he tries to dissuade him. The only upside might be that Biff has rejected Willy's delusions. Maybe. Linda tearfully tells Willy she has finally paid off the house, but will be living in it alone. "We're free."]]