Death Of A Salesman Essay Plan

A plan for a 45 minute essay for the Higher exam should fit comfortably on one side of an A4 sheet if its typed, or both sides if it's handwritten. I've chosen a fairly typical drama question. This plan features topic sentences and bullet points. You should probably include at least three longer quotes in your plan, and make sure you have memorized these before the exam.

Question -

Choose a play in which one scene or moment determines the fate of a main character. Explain fully why you think this is the key moment in the character’s fortunes. In your answer you must refer closely to the text and to at least two of: key scene, characterization, climax, dialogue, or any other appropriate feature.

A scene of a play which made a strong impression on me was the scene from ‘Death of a Salesman’ by Arthur Miller when Willy Loman meets his sons Biff and Happy in the restaurant. In this essay I will show why I think this is the key moment in the character’s fortunes.

In this scene, Willy’s problems come to a head.

• The start of the play: the first line of the play is ‘It’s OK. I came back.’
• His age and health
• He asked his boss, Howard, for a different position so that he did non have to travel – the boss let him go instead. Willy’s response was to tell a ‘story’
• He has ‘no stories left’ in his head – he can no longer fool himself or the people around him
• He refused a job offer from his neighbour Charley out of pride

At the start of the scene, we are reminded of the characters of Biff and Happy.

• They are drinking and trying to pick up some women
• Willy always thought Biff would be a great sportsman and sees his son as a success
• Biff failed to get the loan from his old boss, Oliver, for a sports goods company and stole a fountain pen instead
• Biff has realized that his whole life has been a lie, and tells Happy he wants to tell Willy the truth

This scene shows Biff trying to have an honest relationship with Willy.

• Biff is adamant he was a ‘shipping clerk’ instead of a ‘salesman’
• Willy has met Biff’s school friend, Bernard, who was not athletic but has turned out to be a success. Bernard tells Willy about how Biff had flunked maths, and Willy lied to Bernard about Biff’s success

This scene features flashbacks which tell us the truth about Willy.

• Biff catches Willy cheating on Linda with a woman: the audience sees him in a hotel room
• Shows the audience why Willy and Bif's relationship deteriorated, as well as Willy's declining mental state

The importance of this scene is that …

• Biff has tried to confront Willy with the reality of their lives
• We have learned that Willy is a liar and a cheat
• Willy returns home and begins planting grass seeds in his back yard, showing he is deluded
• Willy decides to commit suicide, to give his family money

Death Of A Salesman Essay

One of the most common Drama texts for Higher, 'Death of a Salesman' essays will nearly always focus on the restaurant scene and the confrontation between Willy and Biff. This essay could be written in 45-minutes for a Higher exam. I've chosen a fairly straightforward question.

Question -

Choose a play which involves a tragic theme and show how the dramatist makes the play a moving experience for the audience. You may refer to structure, characterisation, key scene(s) or any other appropriate feature.


‘Death of a Salesman’ by Arthur Miller has often been described as a modern tragedy. In this essay I will show how the playwright makes the downfall of the hapless Willy Loman a moving experience for the audience. Loman is an aging salesman at the end of his career. The first line of the play, ‘It’s alright. I came back’ is addressed to his long-suffering wife, Linda, who has always supported him despite his faults. He is too old to be driving the long distances from New York and in danger of crashing his car. The pay focuses on the last days of his life and his dysfunctional relationships with Linda and his sons.

Willy has always believed in his son Biff, thinking of him as a great sportsman and a success in life. However, the truth is that Biff is unable to keep a job or have a happy relationship with a woman. In Act I, Willy and his sons come up with a solution to the family’s problems. Biff agrees to visit a former employer to ask for a loan, so that he can set up a sporting goods company with Happy. At the same time, Willy will visit his boss in order to ask for work with less travelling. However, instead of letting Willy work from New York, the boss tells him Willy is no longer useful due to his age and health. At the same time, Biff fails to get the loan from his old boss and instead, steals his fountain pen and runs away.

The restaurant scene is where the problems of Willy’s life and relationships come to a head. At the start of the scene Biff and Happy are drinking and trying to ‘pick up’ two women. Biff has come to a crisis where he feels that he and Willy have never told the truth to one another. When Willy arrives, Biff tries to have a serious conversation with him:

Biff: Who ever said it, Pop? Who ever said I was a salesman?
Willy: Well, you were!

Biff is adamant that he was a shipping clerk rather than a salesman. However, Biff and Willy do not have the honest discussion that he wants. The father says ‘I haven’t got a story left in my head.’ Willy has spent his life trying to charm people and be ‘well liked’ so stories are important to who he is. This reminds the audience of the previous scene when Willy met his boss. He told the story of the old salesman who inspired him. However, in the play Willy is shown to be dishonest and self-deluded.

The tragedy of this situation is emphasized by the author’s use of flashbacks. As Biff begins to talk to Willy, voices from the past come from off stage. Soon, Willy’s memories take over and he relives a scene from his past. He is caught in a hotel room with a woman by Biff, who has travelled up to tell his father about why he flunked maths and was unable to graduate. This shows the audience how Biff lost respect for his father and become a failure in life. It also reveals Willy’s guilt and growing struggle with reality.

The consequences of the restaurant scene are that father and son have a confrontation, followed by Willy’s suicide. Biff admits that after he stole the fountain pen, he realized he did not want to live a city life and would be happier working on a farm. He tells his father ‘you were so busy filling my head with hot air …’. This suggests that Biff is prepared to reject his father’s values, of city living, money and ‘being liked’ in order to find some happiness when his father never did. Despite the confrontation, Biff tries to get his father to go to bed: instead Willy slips out and crashes his car. This shows that like Linda, he loves his father despite his faults and it emphasizes the tragedy of the ending.

In these ways, ‘Death of a Salesman’ is the story of an ordinary man who is unable to live up to his own fantasies, and whose relationships finally break down. The playwright uses characterization, flashbacks and the climax in order to make this a moving experience for the audience.