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4.2.1 Act One
The Story starts as Willy Loman, a salesman who works on commission, returns home from a business trip on which he didn´t sell very much. He is tired of life on the road. Biff and Hap, his two sons, returned home to visit.
Biff returned home after 15 years of trying everything but really doing nothing constantly.
Happy, who lives in a appartment in New York, also came home, but just in order to visit his parents and not like Biff, in order to stay.
Willy, when the conflict in the story takes place, cannot understand why Biff has no job and so he is lost in his own world, he thinks. Willy thinks about the past and the reader gets to know for the first time that Willy somehow lives in two different words, the past and the future. Linda, his wife, suggests Willy to eat something and the go to bed and have a rest.
During this, Biff and Happy are talking to each other in the bedroom they once lived in. They discuss about their father and recognize that he has become an old an tired man. They talk how both of them imagine their own lifes and we get to know that Happy has a low moral standard, because he often changes the women on his side. Meanwhile, Willy stands in the kitchen having a monologue. Willy has a flashback, where he is set into another time and sees and hears things which are gone for several years now. Now he sees a scene 15 years ago, when Biff still went to High School and the leader of the football team, which made Willy being very proud of his son.
Biff is in training with a football, which he has borrowed from the team, he says, but he took it without knowledge of the coach.
Willy tells Linda that his look is responsible for the fact, that he doesn´t sell so much any more because Willy thinks he looks in a way foolish. In this flashback we also get to know that Willy had an affair with a younger woman who he met on one of his business trips.
Now, Bernard, the next-door neighbour boy, reaches the scene and tells Willy that Biff should learn math with him. Otherwise Biff would fail in math and so not be able to graduate High School. Willy starts to go around looking for Biff and during this search, the scene comes back to presence and Happy enters the kitchen, finding his dad talking to himself.
Willy now starts talking about his brother Ben who has died several years ago. Ben is a person, Willy admires for his strength in mind, because he became wealthy by going into the jungle of Africa and building up a mine in order to find diamonds. And exactly this strength in mind and the fact that he makes his aims become reality, regards Willy as higher and more important than knowledge in life.
Willy now begins to discuss with his son about Happy´s way of life and that he spends to much money, has to many women and that his car is too expensive.
Charlie, the neighbour, enters to see what\'s wrong because the two have a loud discussion. When they sit down around the table and begin playing cards and Happy goes upstairs again. During this card game, Charlie, who owns a sales firm, offers a job to Willy which he refuses to accept once more. He starts once more to talk of his brother Bernard. Another flashback appears and soon the scenery has changed once more to the year Biff was about to graduate High School. On this day, Ben visited the family. Willy and Ben talk about their father, who has left the family alone. Willy ,although he never got to know his father, regards him as a strong and successful man. Ben tells Willy how he became wealthy and the leaves for his business trip. Ben explains to Willy, that everything you need are two things to get a lot of money: a vision and the strength to make this vision become reality. Now, the scene switches back to presence and Willy is yelling, \"I was right! I was right!\", because he always told his sons exactly what Ben just told him. When Linda, who woke up by Willy´s shouting, enters the kitchen, Willy decides to walk around the house, still crying out "I was right!". Now also Biff enters the kitchen. He wants to know how long his father has been in this strange mood of talking to himself. Linda tells Biff that Willy is just happy, when Biff is at home or writes something to his family. Everything is fine for Willy because he always just wanted his boys to reach a position in the society he never had.
During this conversation the reader gets to know that Biff and Willy haven´t had a good relationship since the year after Biff´s High School any more, because Biff has not respected his father any more after his affair. Willy has not respected his son any more after not having graduated. Now also Happy enters the kitchen and joins the discussion. Linda accuses Biff and Happy of not thinking of the family, especially their dad. She tells them that Willy is tired of life because all he wanted was that his boys could lead a better life than he does. She explains that he has worked for his boys all his life, and they do not even think about their old dad any more. Linda also tells the boys that Willy has been trying to kill himself either by his car accidents or by gas.
Biff now feels sorry for his behaviour and he wants to do something to make his dad happy and proud of him again. Biff and Happy start an conversation about how each other´s life became a failure and Willy comes to the door. Now Biff and Willy begin argueing. As things start to get hot and heavy, Happy tells Willy that Biff will ask Oliver, his former employer, if he will borrow the Loman brothers money to start a business for sporting goods. Happy now has a vision of how to become rich and Willy suddenly is cheered up. Now his boys are talking the way he wanted them to. But Biff is not happy with this suggestion because he always wanted to have his own farm, but he agrees because his dad is pleased by the idea of his sons starting their own business. In the end of the scene, Biff and Happy start argueing again and Willy once more is depressed and goes upstairs in order to sleep. The boys also go upstairs to cheer him up.
4.2.2 Act Two
Act Two starts in the morning at the next day. Willy is totally lucky as his sons are going to start their own business, and nothing can can lessen his happiness. Willy leaves the house together with his boys in order to meet his boss Howard to ask him whether he may work in a store in and not making business trips any more. The boys are going to see Oliver to borrow money from him.
Willy talks to Howard who tells him that he would lose his job as the firm is going to fire him. Willy now really is confused because he never would have Howard, the son of his friend and former boss of the firm expected to fire him. He starts a monologue about sales. During it Howard leaves the room and in Willy´s mind Ben appears and he is set back to Biff´s senior High School year. He is taken to the day the football game took place. At this day, Willy again refuses to accept Ben´s offer to join his business. Still in this flashback, Willy leaves Howard\'s office and he walks down the street to Charlie.
Having arrived there, Willy meets Bernard and they begin to talk about what has happened to Biff after High School. Biff failed in math and so he never
graduated. Bernard also tells Willy that Biff was completely changed after he once visited his dad on a sales trip, but Willy refuses to talk about that theme.
Now, Willy and Charlie have a talk where we get to know that Charlie gives Willy fifty dollars in order to tell at home this was his pay. Willy gets off, nearly crying, and the reader is taken to Frank\'s Chop, a restaurant where Biff and Happy are waiting for their dad.
In the evening of that day, Willy, Happy and Biff meet in that restaurant for dinner. Happy is already there and once more he talks to a woman when Biff comes in. Biff is totally depressed as he does not get the credit and now has to tell this to his dad. Worse than that, he stole Oliver´s pen and when he wants to tell his dad all the truth, Happy interrupts him because he does not want his dad to become unhappy. Willy is falls into another flashback, taking the reader once more in Biff´s Senior Year, while the boys leave the restaurant in company with some women.
He is in hotel with the woman he had an affair with, as Biff comes in in order to talk to his father about his uncomplete High School. This is the moment he finds out, that his dad has an affair with another woman. Short after this, the reader is taken back to the Chop House when Willy leaves the restaurant.
The two, Biff and Happy return home very late and Linda is still awake, argueing with their sons about their behavior to their dad, while Willy is talking to Ben in the garden during another flashback. Willy has an idea how his sons still can start their own business. He thinks about comitting suicide so that Biff gets enough money to start with. As the discussion goes on, Biff enters the garden and wants to tell his dad that he has decided to leave the family so that no trouble will occur any more.
Both are now argueing in such a strong way they never did before. The climax is that Biff leaves this conversation right in the middle, again telling his dad that he will leave forever.
They all go to bed now, except Willy, who talks again to Ben. Ben tells him that this plan, to kill himself would solve two problems of him. First of all Biff would have enough money to start his own business and the next thing would be that Willy could show his son how much he is loved, as hundreds of people actually will visit his funeral, he thinks. Ben and Willy walk out and Willy uses his car to commit suicide.
The last scene, also called "Requiem" by Arthur Miller, takes place right after Willy´s funeral and only Biff, Happy, Linda, Charlie and Bernard are present. Biff gives the most shocking, but also the most true statement in the whole play: "He had the wrong dreams. All, all, wrong."
The play closes with just Linda on stage talking to her dead husband Willy.
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