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?