Death of a Salesman

Willy returns from an aborted sales trip, Linda manages his fragility, the boys come home, and Willy's first extended hallucination carries us to the backyard fifteen years earlier — the golden era before the Boston hotel room.

Willy tries to plant seeds in the dark garden he can no longer grow anything in. The boys plan a business venture. Willy's memory returns to the Chevrolet era, the stockings, and Biff's question about 'a woman laughing.'

Willy's dead brother Ben walks into the kitchen from his memory — the man who walked into the jungle at seventeen and came out rich at twenty-one. Ben is the path not taken, the alternative American Dream that makes Willy's chosen path look small.

Willy wakes optimistic, goes to see Howard to ask for a New York job, and is fired by a man who doesn't remember naming his son after him. The wire recorder scene is the play's cruelest piece of dramatic irony.

Biff and Happy meet Willy at a restaurant. Biff tries to tell the truth about Oliver; Willy slides into the Boston memory and can't come back. The Woman laughs. Happy takes girls home and leaves Willy alone at the table.

Biff forces the truth — he is ordinary, he has always been ordinary, and that is enough. Willy hears only triumph. Happy retreats into fantasy. Ben appears one last time, telling Willy the jungle is dark but full of diamonds. Willy drives away.

The day after Willy's funeral. Only five people came. Linda cannot cry at the grave. Biff will leave — he will not replicate his father. Happy will stay and fight for the dream. Charley delivers the elegy. The mortgage is paid off.