Death of a Salesman Questions and Issues

Motifs

  • The Woods/jungle
  • The Garden
  • The Sky/Stars
  • Unrealized Frontier
  • Debt
  • Brotherhood

Themes

  • Superficiality of Society
  • The False Promise of the American Dream
  • Denial/Repression
  • Tension between “professional” work and labor

Character Questions

Willy Loman

  • Can Willy be a tragic hero?
  • Is he the embodiment of the potential tragedy of every person?
  • Is he more authentic than Hamlet? Creon?

Linda Loman

  • The most paradoxical character in the play?
  • Is she the mother or Medea archetype?
  • Is she the moral center of the family or the root of its downfall?

Biff Loman

  • Is he responsible for his downfall or is it, as he claims, the result of Willy’s decision to constantly inflate his self-worth?
  • Does Biff experience anagnoresis at the end of the play?
  • Are Hap/Biff=Ben/Willy and Cain/Abel?
Print Friendly, PDF & Email
/by