Death Of A Salesman Guided Reading Questions

Death of a Salesman, Act 1 Guided Reading Questions* Ms. Laurin *Adapted from Donald Roberts’s A Teacher’s Guide to Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (Penguin). Directions: Use these questions to guide your reading of Arthur Miller’s (1949) play Death of a Salesman. You may type your answers directly into this document in any form you’d like (e.g. paragraph of ideas, list of ideas, list of textual evidence, etc.).

1. What are Willy’s criticisms of Biff? What are his expectations for him? Why might these be important to Willy? Answer ​ Willy said that Biff is a lazy bum because he didn’t work in what Willy considers as a work. He expects him to find a job that earn lots of money and doesn’t need to do anything about farmland. Willy believes that Biff will grow up after he takes lots of different jobs, but he hasn’t made lots of money after ten years of changing jobs around. It’s important to Willy because Biff is his son and he wants to see Biff’s successful in doing particular job. 2. Based on Miller’s description of the two brothers in his stage directions, which son do you think better resembles his father? What quality do they share? How have you already seen that quality in Willy? Answer ​Happy is likely to be similar to his father. He shows the sense of arrogant and aspiration. He talks about himself as his position in his work is high. This actually happens to Willy when he talks to Biff and Happy about his success, but the truth is he was success. 3. Why does Biff feel like he’s wasted his life? How does he measure success? Answer ​ Because there are nothing to do in Texas during spring and he earned only twenty eight dollars a week which it was not enough for him. Furthermore, he had changed twenty to thirty different kinds of jobs which it always turn out to unsuccess. He measures success by relaxing within two weeks vacation that you earn and leading one step ahead than your friends facing fifty weeks of working. 4. How does Happy measure success? How does this differ from his brother’s idea of success? Answer​ Happy measures success by owning the things he want such as, apartment, car and plenty of women. He is different than his brother because his brother is thinking about money that he should earn for his job, but he thinks about what is the thing that he always wants. 5. Biff gets angry at the idea that Linda can hear Willy when he talks to himself. Why? Answer​ He was angry because he was talking to himself that the topic of his conversation might be related to his mother in bad way and he was being sarcastic to Biff about his job.

6. Willy reveals his secret dream to his sons. What is it? Does his dream shape his description of his travels? Or do you think his travels shape his dream? Explain. Answer​ He wants to have his own business, so he doesn’t need to leave home anymore. In my opinion, his dream shapes of his travels because he always goes to work in the other towns, but he wants to be able to work as a salesman in his town. The dream never actually come true yet. 7. How does Biff react when Bernard warns him that he might flunk math? How does Willy react? Why does Willy react this way? Why does Willy take out his anger on Bernard? Answer​ He changed the topic from the math test to explain about his sneaker to his father. Willy orders Biff to study with Bernard, but he was tricked by Biff after he shows his shoe to Willy. Willy reacts by complimenting the design on the shoe. Willy takes out his anger on Bernard because Bernard was talking to Biff’s shoe about the design on the shoe will not help Biff to graduate unless studying. 8. In Willy’s eyes, Bernard and his father Charley share the same flaw. What is it? How does Willy compare his sons to Charley’s son? Answer​ They were both successful in life which they are great sources of jealousy in Willy’s eye. Bernard becomes a successful lawyer in New York which compares to Biff who doesn’t have a particular job to earn lots of money. 9. According to Willy, what is the single greatest quality of “the man who gets ahead”? Do you agree or disagree with him? What does it mean to “get ahead”? Explain. Answer​ “The man who get ahead” is to be able to face the reality of business world and stand up in the reality. Being ​the man who can stand in the business world and earns  interest is the man who gets ahead. I agree with him because it doesn’t matter how good  your grade is during the school, but if you are not able to deal with the reality, you aren’t able  to live in. It means to be in higher level than others. It can be anything for example, you are  ahead of other in Trigonometry topic. You are in advanced level of Trigonometry. 

  10. Willy tells Linda, “people don’t seem to take to [him].” How does this compare to how Willy describes his reputation to his sons? Why is there a difference between how he talks about his feelings to his sons and to his wife? Answer​ This quote that he talks to Linda is he looked down on himself that he deceive himself about his success which it drives him crazy. He wants his sons to be success which he tried to encourage his son to be success in life. Because he wants someone to sooth him which there is no other person than his wife who can do the best in this job, but he talks to his son in another way round because he doesn’t want to show his weakness to his sons and he really wants his son to be success.

11. Based on the short flashback of the “Woman,” how would you describe Willy’s relationship with her? Why do you think Miller put this brief scene in the middle of Willy’s conversation with Linda? Answer ​Willy’s relationship with a Woman is Willy is attracted by the artifice of the woman which she might be his ex-girlfriend or a prostitute. Because he would like to explain how would he deals with his ex when you are with your current wife or girlfriends. 12. How does Willy feel that Biff’s behavior and lifestyle reflect on him? Answer ​Willy believes that Biff doesn’t take anything seriously with his occupation and he worried about his son that he will not success as he doesn’t get high income. He believes that ​money and wealth define success which he didn’t get high income neither. 13. Describe Willy and Charley’s relationship. Why does Willy treat Charley the way he does? Answer ​Willy and Charley have a neighbor relationship, buy Willy is so jealous of Charley. Charley he eagers to help Willy when Willy has a financial problem and he knows. Willy is jealous of Charley that whenever he is a dreamer, Charley can make it become real by himself. 14. How does Ben make Willy feel about himself? What qualities in Ben does Willy want for himself? For his sons? Answer​ Ben made Willy feels he was unsuccessful in teaching his son to be successful like Charley’s son which is Ben. He wants his son to have a permanent job and earns lots of money like Bernard. 15. Biff tells Linda to “stop making excuses” for Willy. How does she defend Willy? Is she really making excuses for him? Explain. Answer ​She tells Biff that Willy is trying to kill himself by using ​a short length of rubber pipe attached to the fuse box which he tried to gas himself. She doesn’t make any excuses for him because his action and hallucination is very dangerous to him which she cares him the most to make Biff believes that Willy is actually in the worst situation. 16. Why is Willy so confident that Happy and Biff’s business plan will work? Why does Willy need their plan to work Answer​ Because he is believing in his sons. Happy and Biff will work for Oliver in Sporting goods business. It likes the last hope for Willy to believe in them, so he fully believes them that this plan will work.