By Kristine Tucker
"Death of a Salesman" is a play written by Arthur Miller that premiered on Broadway in New York City in 1949. The main protagonist, Willy Loman, is an unhappy and disgruntled businessman. His expectations for his adult son Biff are largely unmet, so Loman is disappointed that neither he nor his son have been successful at obtaining the American Dream of wealth, success and fame. When Biff doesn't get a loan to start a new sporting goods store, he steals a fountain pen from the loan officer's desk.
The fountain pen symbolizes corruption and shallowness -- traits associated with greed and materialism in the business world. After stealing the pen, Biff realizes he doesn't want the same unhappy and dissatisfying life his father has clung to all these years. Biff understands that chasing the American Dream only leads to emptiness and frustration. The fountain pen symbolizes a changing point for Biff, and he returns the pen before he leaves the loan office. Biff wants to reconcile with his dad, even though he's been bitter and angry with his father ever since Biff caught him in an extramarital affair. The fountain pen helps Biff sympathize with his dad over the older man's unfulfilled dreams.
Death of a Salesman, written by Arthur Miller portrays Biff as a main character in the play who tried to work at many different jobs, and failed at each one due to the fact that he stole. Biff steals because from a young age, Biff was not taught the difference between right and wrong or illusion versus reality. He was taught that it was okay to steal as long as success comes from the stealing. Biff also feels as though the world owes him something, so when the people around him do not give him what he’s owed, he steals from them to punish them in a passive aggressive manner. Even though Biff stole while he was a teenager and was not old enough to know better, he can’t come up with an excuse for stealing a suit in Kansas City as a grown man. The items that Biff stole represent how Willy Loman had never thought his son Biff that stealing was not okay and that being well liked is not an excuse for such thing as stealing. Everytime something goes wrong, Biff now thinks that stealing is a way out of it. As a result, now Biff’s tendency to steal, constantly stands in the way of his path to a job. Throughout the book Biff steals a suit, football, and a pen because it is his passive-aggressive way of getting back at people he feels have unfairly done better in life than he has, but also because stealing gives him an excuse to quit whatever bad job he happens to be in that moment.
While many would say that he wasn’t old enough to know better when he stole as a teenager, not even Biff can come up with an excuse for stealing a suit in Kansas City as a grown man. Amazingly, his family did not know about this incident, but Biff comes clean to his parents when he explains, “You know why I had no address for three months? …I was in jail. I stole myself out of every good job since high school! And I never got anywhere because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking orders from anybody! I had to be boss big shot in two weeks, and I’m through with it”. In this instance Biff’s excuse here is that he had to steal because it was a completely reasonable way to cope with his father’s high expectations. Biff broke the law, which isn’t a good way for dealing with personal issues or stress. As a matter of fact, Biff is most responsible for his failure to live a good and rich life, unlike Bernard. Some might think that Willy put a lot of pressure on Biff, but Happy had the exact same pressures growing up and he managed to avoid legal trouble, unlike Biff. Biff stealing the suit symbolizes Biff’s lack of stability in his life in combination with the need to keep up appearances.
The football, that Biff stole, resembles youth, strength and leadership. The ball itself is touched often by the quarterback. However, in regards to stealing a ball in terms of the game, this would suggest an interception in which the game is now shifting 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Biff’s life follows this pattern as it is apart from Willy’s view of the direction his son should be heading. Willy was proud of Biff when he stole the football instead of getting angry due to the fact that he states that ‘Sure, he’s gotta practice with a regulation ball, doesn’t he? Coach’ll probably congratulate you on the initiative’. Since he was never disciplined properly in this moment, this kind of kleptomaniacal attitude followed him into his adult years where he finds himself in a similar situation. The football symbolizes deceit and lies and throughout the play, football is used to attract attention, though Biff has only ever desired to run the opposite direction.
By Biff stealing, especially the pen, could mean that Biff uses these actions as a source of control and to get back at the people who he feels have mistreated him. Biff expects to be treated a certain way and tries to avoid working towards things and putting in the effort to achieve the things he desperately wants to. Rather, he behaves in a dishonest manner. He doesn’t realise that to be successful and to be happy with his life he will have to be committed and work hard. Also, Biff may steal as it distracts from his own self-loathing and it gives him a sense of power and getting pay back. The fountain pen itself, symbolizes corruption and shallowness. These traits are associated with greed and materialism in the business world. It is also a symbol of his job and failure because he failed at being a traveling salesman. Biff explains to his dad that “I just – wanted to take something I don’t know”. This shows that Biff has no control over himself at certain times. After Biff stole the pen, he realizes he doesn’t want the same unhappy and dissatisfying life his father has had for all of these years, but instead he wants to be a normal man. Biff understands that chasing the dream of business leads to frustration. The fountain pen symbolizes a changing point for Biff and it helps him sympathize with his dad over his father’s unfulfilled dreams.
As can be seen, the items that Biff stole represent and symbolize different things. The pen symbolizes a changing point for Biff, the football symbolizes deceit and lies, and the suit symbolizes Biff’s lack of stability in his life. As a matter of fact, all of these items represent Biff’s passive-aggressive way of getting back at people he feels have unfairly done better in life than he has, like Bernard and Oliver. Biff steals because it gives him a source of control in life and he can be considered as a kleptomaniac. A kleptomaniac is someone who has an inability to refrain from the urge for stealing items and is usually done for reasons other than personal use or financial gain. He essentially cannot help himself when he steals Bill Oliver’s fountain pen and runs out of the room. Willy has raised Biff to be a selfish, superficial individual with very little moral values and he has been stealing various items ever since he was a child. As a result, Biff has no moral compass in his life and has never been told anything different. He was also never taught the value of hard work. Instead, Biff tries to cheat his way to becoming a success. Stealing is often an easy way to get what one wants, but is not the right thing to do and is illegal.
The scene in Frank’s Chop House
Happy banters with the waiter, Stanley. Happy is flirting with a pretty girl named Miss Forsythe when Biff arrives to join him. After she responds to his pick-up line by claiming that she is, in fact, a cover girl, Happy tells her that he is a successful champagne salesman and that Biff is a famous football player. Judging from Happy’s repeated comments on her moral character and his description of her as “on call,” Miss Forsythe is probably a prostitute. Happy invites her to join them. She exits to make a phone call to cancel her previous plans and to invite a girlfriend to join them. Biff explains to Happy that he waited six hours to see Oliver, only to have Oliver not even remember him. Biff asks where he got the idea that he was a salesman for Oliver. He had actually been only a lowly shipping clerk, but somehow Willy’s exaggerations and lies had transformed him into a salesman in the Loman family’s collective memory. After Oliver and the secretary left, Biff recounts, he ran into Oliver’s office and stole his fountain pen.
Happy advises Biff to tell Willy that Oliver is thinking over his business proposition, claiming that eventually the whole situation will fade away from their father’s memory. When Willy arrives, he reveals that he has been fired and states that he wants some good news to tell Linda. Despite this pressure, Biff attempts to tell the truth. Disoriented, Willy shouts that Biff cannot blame everything on him because Biff is the one who failed math after all. Confused at his father’s crazed emphasis on his high school math failure, Biff steels himself to forge ahead with the truth, but the situation reaches crisis proportions when Willy absolutely refuses to listen to Biff’s story. In a frenzy as the perilous truth closes in on him, Willy enters a semi-daydream state, reliving Biff’s discovery of him and The Woman in their Boston hotel room. A desperate Biff backs down and begins to lie to assuage his frantic father. Miss Forsythe returns with her friend, Letta. Willy, insulted at Biff’s “spite,” furiously lashes out at his son’s attempts to explain himself and the impossibility of returning to Oliver. Willy wanders into the restroom, talking to himself, and an embarrassed Happy informs the women that he is not, in fact, their father. Biff angrily tells Happy to help Willy, accusing him of not caring about their father. He hurries out of the restaurant in a vortex of guilt and anguish. Happy frantically asks Stanley for the bill; when the waiter doesn’t respond immediately, Happy rushes after Biff, pushing Miss Forsythe and Letta along in front of him and leaving Willy babbling alone in the restroom.
Analysis
Willy’s encounters with Howard, Bernard, and Charley constitute serious blows to the fantasy through which he views his life; his constructed reality is falling apart. Biff has also experienced a moment of truth, but he regards his epiphany as a liberating experience from a lifetime of stifling and distorting lies. He wishes to leave behind the facade of the Loman family tradition so that he and his father can begin to relate to one another honestly. Willy, on the other hand, wants his sons to aid him in rebuilding the elaborate fantasies that deny his reality as a defeated man. Willy drives Biff to produce a falsely positive report of his interview with Oliver, and Happy is all too willing to comply. When Biff fails to produce the expected glowing report, Happy, who has not had the same revelation as Biff, chimes in with false information about the interview.
Read important quotes about self-deception.
Willy’s greatest fear is realized during his ill-fated dinner with Biff and Happy. In his moment of weakness and defeat, he asks for their help in rebuilding his shattered concept of his life; he is not very likable, and he is well aware of it. Biff and Happy’s neglect of him fits into a pattern of abandonment. Like Willy’s father, then Ben, then Howard, Biff and Happy erode Willy’s fantasy world. The scene in Frank’s Chop House is pivotal to Willy’s unraveling and to Biff’s disillusionment. Biff’s epiphany in Oliver’s office regarding Willy’s exaggeration of Biff’s position at Oliver’s store puts him on a quest to break through the thick cloud of lies surrounding his father at any cost. Just as Willy refuses to hear what he doesn’t want to accept, Biff refuses to subject himself further to his father’s delusions.
Read an in-depth analysis of a scene where Biff confronts his father about his delusions.
Willy’s pseudo-religious quest for success is founded on a complex, multilayered delusion, and Biff believes that for his father to die well (in the medieval, Christian sense of the word—much of the play smacks of the anachronistic absurdity of the medieval values of chivalry and blind faith), he must break through the heavy sediment of lies to the truth of his personal degradation. Both Willy and Biff are conscious of the disparity between Dave Singleman’s mythic “death of a salesman” and the pathetic nature of Willy’s impending death. Willy clings to the hope that the “death of a salesman” is necessarily noble by the very nature of the profession, whereas Biff understands that behind the veneer of the American Dream’s empty promises lies a devastatingly lonely death diametrically opposed to the one that Singleman represents and that the Dream itself posits. Happy and Linda wish to allow Willy to die covered by the diminishing comfort of his delusions, but Biff feels a moral responsibility to try to reveal the truth.