Death of a Salesman recap

Exhausted salesman Willy Loman returns to his Brooklyn home as his career and grasp on the present fail. He clings to memories of his sons' promising youth and believes Biff can still become a business success. Biff, now a restless adult, agrees to seek financing, but the meeting fails; on the same day Willy is fired. At dinner Biff tries to tell the truth, while Willy retreats into the memory of Biff discovering his affair in Boston, the event that destroyed the boy's trust and ambitions. Back home Biff rejects the family's inflated dreams and insists that both men accept their ordinary selves. Willy sees Biff's tears as renewed faith in him and kills himself in a car crash so Biff can receive the insurance money. The funeral is sparsely attended. Biff abandons Willy's dream, while Happy vows to continue it, and Linda mourns beside a house whose mortgage has finally been paid.

Sixty-three-year-old salesman Willy Loman returns to his Brooklyn home after abandoning a trip because he could no longer drive safely. His wife Linda urges him to ask his employer for local work. Their adult sons, Biff and Happy, are visiting. Biff has spent years drifting among outdoor jobs and feels unable to meet Willy's expectations; Happy has a business job but is dissatisfied. Willy slips between the present and memories of the boys' adolescence, when he celebrated Biff's athletic popularity and dismissed warnings about study and theft. His successful brother Ben appears in these recollections as the model of wealth Willy never achieved. Neighbor Charley lends Willy money that Willy pretends is salary, though Willy rejects Charley's offer of a job. Linda tells the sons that their father's crashes may be deliberate and that she found a rubber hose suggesting another suicide plan. Ashamed, Biff agrees to ask former employer Bill Oliver to finance a sporting-goods business with Happy. The plan and a temporary reconciliation restore Willy's hope.

Willy asks Howard Wagner for a non-traveling position, but Howard dismisses his claims of past service and fires him. Willy then meets the now-successful Bernard, who asks why Biff abandoned his future after visiting Willy in Boston. Willy avoids the answer. Charley again offers him a job and gives him money, but Willy's pride lets him accept only the loan. At a restaurant Biff tries to explain that Bill Oliver barely remembered him and never considered him a salesman; after waiting all day, Biff impulsively stole Oliver's fountain pen. Willy refuses this correction to the family's story and announces that he has been fired. As the conversation collapses, Happy leaves with two women and denies that Willy is his father. Willy relives Boston, where teenage Biff discovered him with another woman. Biff's admiration broke, and he abandoned the summer school needed for graduation. At home Linda condemns both sons for deserting Willy. Biff confronts his father, rejects their fantasies of greatness, and says he will leave. His tears convince Willy that Biff loves him. Believing his life-insurance money will make Biff successful, Willy consults the imagined Ben and drives away to kill himself.

Willy dies in the planned car crash. Despite his belief that personal popularity would bring a great public farewell, only Linda, Biff, Happy, Charley, and Bernard gather at his grave. Charley argues that a salesman's work depends on dreams and that Willy was destroyed when those dreams ceased to sustain him. Biff believes Willy misunderstood himself and spent his life pursuing the wrong kind of success; he plans to leave the business world and return to work outdoors. Happy instead vows to remain in the city and demonstrate that Willy's ambition was valid. Linda cannot reconcile the suicide with the family's new financial position: the mortgage has just been paid, and she had imagined that they were finally secure. She says goodbye at the grave, left with an empty, fully owned house. Willy's death ends his struggle but passes the conflict over his values to his sons.

After Biff finally states that neither he nor Willy is destined for exceptional business success, he breaks down and weeps in his father's arms. Willy recognizes Biff's love but misunderstands the confrontation as proof that Biff can still fulfill his ambitions. Convinced that the insurance payment from his death will give Biff the capital and status he lacks, Willy drives away and deliberately crashes his car. Only Linda, Biff, Happy, Charley, and Bernard attend the funeral. Biff concludes that Willy pursued a mistaken dream and intends to return to the outdoor life that suits him. Happy rejects that judgment and vows to prove that Willy's vision of success was right. Charley defends the hopes on which a salesman depends. Linda, unable to understand why Willy died just after the last house payment was made, addresses him at the grave. The family is free of the mortgage but divided over the meaning of Willy's life and death.