Death of a Salesman Irony Quotes

Death of a salesman quote

HAPPY: He stops at a green light and then it turns red and he goes. (He laughs.)
BIFF: Maybe he’s color-blind.
HAPPY: Pop? Why he’s got the finest eye for color in the business. You know that.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Happy and Biff joke about their father’s growing mental instability. Making light of Willy’s bad driving, his unsympathetic sons prefer to see the funny side of his inability to see reality rather than the danger. This passage is full of irony and foreshadowing of Willy’s suicide by car crash.

All I can do now is wait for the merchandise manager to die. And suppose I get to be merchandise manager? He’s a good friend of mine, and he just built a terrific estate on Long Island. And he lived there about two months and sold it, and now he’s building another one. He can’t enjoy it once it’s finished. And I know that’s just what I would do. I don’t know what the hell I’m workin’ for.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Although Happy is making money, he like brother Biff is not fully satisfied with his life. The emptiness of pursuing an American Dream based on material success alone and having all the random women he needs is spelled out here. Happy knows that this kind of success will never be enough to make him happy. The fact that he is named Happy is an example of verbal irony by Miller.

I don’t know what the hell I’m workin’ for. Sometimes I sit in my apartment – all alone. And I think of the rent I’m paying. And it’s crazy. But then, it’s what I always wanted. My own apartment, a car, and plenty of women. And still, goddammit, I’m lonely.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Happy Loman appears to have it all: he earns good money in his job, has his own apartment, owns a car and enjoys all the girls he could ever want. But in this speech to his brother Biff he reveals his loneliness and disillusionment with an American Dream based on material success. It is not enough to satisfy him and there is a hole in his life. It is ironic that Miller should choose the name Happy for someone who is far from that.

WILLY: Don’t say? Tell you a secret, boys. Don’t breathe it to a soul. Someday I’ll have my own business, and I’ll never have to leave home any more.
HAPPY: Like Uncle Charley, heh?
WILLY: Bigger than Uncle Charley! Because Charley is not – liked. He’s liked, but he’s not – well liked.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. In a scene from the past, Willy proudly tells his sons how he is going to live out the American dream by being a successful business owner. But he is just deluding himself in this first flashback in the play, never amounting to anything more than a struggling salesman. He also reveals his belief that being well liked is the key to success, which his neighbor Charley is not, he claims. However, the irony is that Charley becomes the successful business and Willy does not.

He’s liked, but he’s not well liked.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. In this flashback scene between Willy and his two sons, Biff is talking about Charley’s son Bernard. Bernard has just left after Willy tells him not to be a pest and calls him "anemic." When Willy asks if Bernard is liked, Biff says that he is "not well liked." Here he is repreating the same words his father used moments before about Charley. For Willy the recipe for success is having a good personality and being "well liked." We see how Willy transfers his beliefs and values to his young sons and doesn’t prove to be a good role model to them. The irony is that Bernard will go on to become a successful lawyer, while Biff flunks math, loses his scholarships and ends up as a low paid farm workers who struggles to find himself.

Bernard can get the best marks in school, y’understand, but when he gets out in the business world, y’understand, you are going to be five times ahead of him. That’s why I thank Almighty God you’re both built like Adonises. Because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want. You take me, for instance. I never have to wait in line to see a buyer. "Willy Loman is here!" That’s all they have to know, and I go right through.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. This speech showcases a delusional Willy’s tendency towards self-deception. Typical of the Loman men’s inflated view of themselves and their own abilities, Willy shows a false pride in his sons and himself. Using a simile he compares Biff and Happy to Adonis, the beautiful mortal lover of the goddesses Aphrodite and Persephone of Greek mythology. He convinces himself that he is some sort of super salesman that buyers cannot wait to buy from, when nothing can be further from the truth. Willy is contemptuous of educational pursuits being the key to delivering the American Dream. Instead he argues that success is achieved by looking good and being well liked, not by study and hard work. He is having a dig at Biff’s studious friend Bernard, who ironically goes on to be a highly successful lawyer. During this scene Willy is experiencing one of his hallucinatory episodes, imagining himself talking to his young sons Biff and Happy, as well as Bernard.

You want him to be a worm like Bernard? He’s got spirit, personality.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy says this to Linda about Biff, after Bernard warns that if Biff "doesn’t knuckle down he’s flunk maths." Willy doesn’t want his son to become a book worm and nerd like Bernard. But the irony is that Bernard is the one who succeeds as a lawyer as a result of his hard work. After failing high school maths and not graduating Biff doesn’t amount to very much career-wise. His academic failure is foreshadowed here.

Even your grandfather was better than a carpenter…Go back to the West! Be a carpenter, a cowboy, enjoy yourself!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. When Biff states that they don’t belong in the city and they should have been on some open plain mixing cement or carpenters, Willy reacts with arrogant pride. Looking down his nose on manual labor, he boasts that Biff’s grandfather was better than a carpenter. Sarcastically he urges his son to go back West and be a carpenter or cowboy. The theme of nature vs city is illustrated here. Willy’s words are also ironic. His own love of nature and working with his hands is shown throughout the play, suggesting that perhaps Willy should have chosen that life instead of being a salesman in New York city.

Biff, you’ll save his life.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Linda looks to her son Biff to save Willy from killing himself, thus placing an intolerable burden on him. Linda is desperate for Biff to reconcile with his father and also set himself up in a successful job or business, so that Willy will abandon his attempts to commit suicide. Ironically Biff is part of the reason Willy ends up taking his life, believing that the twenty thousand dollar life insurance payout will provide financial security for his family and a leg up in life for Biff.

When he died – and by the way he died the death of a salesman, in his green velvet slippers in the smoker of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford, going into Boston – when he died, hundreds of salesmen and buyers were at his funeral. Things were sad on a lotta trains for months after that.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy pays homage to mythical salesman Dave Singleman, who he aspires to be like in life and in death. Dave is the epitomy of everything Willy wants to be, liked by everyone, successful, with hundreds of salesman and buyers attending his funeral. Singleman represents Willy’s American dream. Here we witness Willy’s search for identity, as he fantasizes about what will happen when he dies. Ironically only five mourners will turn up at his funeral, for Willy is no Dave Singleman but a mediocre salesman who has only made big sales in his imagination. Willy’s death is foreshadowed here. In his blind admiration for Singleman, we see another example of Willy deceiving himself. There are no family members mentioned being at Singleman’s funeral because he appears to have had none. The name "Singleman" is ironic in that it suggests he was probably a lonely man, not the perfect and fulfilled person Willy imagines him to be.

HOWARD: Where are your sons? Why don’t your sons give you a hand?
WILLY: They’re working on a very big deal.
HOWARD: This is no time for false pride, Willy. You go to your sons and tell them that you’re tired. You’ve got two great boys, haven’t you?
WILLY: Oh, no question, no question, but in the mean time…

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. In this sad scene Howard tells Willy that he no longer has a job and suggests that he take it easy. His statement that he forget false pride and let his "two great boys" take care of him is ironic. For Willy does not have two great sons he can rely on. In raising them, he has taught them his own defective formula for success, which is a formula for failure in life.

Without a penny to his name, three great universities are begging for him, and from there the sky’s the limit, because it’s not what you do. It’s who you know and the smile on your face! It’s contacts, Ben, contacts! The whole wealth of Alaska passes over the lunch table at the Commodore Hotel, and that’s the wonder, the wonder of this country, that a man can end with diamonds here on the basis of being liked! (He turns to Biff) And that’s why when you get out on that field today it’s important. Because thousands of people will be rooting for you and loving you. (To Ben, who has again begun to leave) And Ben! When he walks into a business office his name will sound out like a bell and all the doors will open to him! I’ve seen it, Ben. I’ve seen it a thousand times! You can’t feel it with your hand like timber, but it’s there.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. A hallucinating Willy imagines that he is talking to dead brother Ben in this rant about rising star Biff. He deceives himself into believing that a glorious future awaits young Biff, the high school sports hero, because he looks good and is well liked. Willy’s creed is that these, and not hard work, are what bring prosperity and material success. He is unable to distinguish between dreams and reality. In this speech Willy uses diamonds as a metaphor for wealth and success. There are also two examples of similes. Biff’s name being spoken is compared to a bell that will open doors for him in the future. Willy talks of success as something real, even though you cannot grasp it in your hand "like timber." The sad irony is that Biff will not have a successful and prosperous career, but will fail math and won’t graduate from high school.

WILLY (small and alone): What – what’s the secret?
BERNARD: What secret?
WILLY: How – how did you? Why didn’t he ever catch on?
BERNARD: I wouldn’t know that, Willy.
WILLY (confidentially, desperately): You were his friend, his boyhood friend. There’s something I don’t understand about it. His life ended after that Ebbets Field game. From the age of seventeen nothing good ever happened to him.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy had high aspirations for his high school football star son Biff and expected him to go on and be a great success in life. But the opposite happened. Bernard was the one who became a successful lawyer and did far better than Willy expected. This is an example of situational irony. Willy asks Bernard to explain the secret of success to him and why Biff was a failure.

I’m not interested in stories about the past or any crap of that kind because the woods are burning, boys, you understand? There’s a big blaze going on all around. I was fired today.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy uses the metaphor of the woods on fire to describe how his life is falling apart after being fired from his job. He is telling his sons that he is not interested in stories about the past. But ironically it is because of his past, and how his delusions have finally caught up with him, that his life is now burning down.

A man can’t go out the way, he came in, Ben, a man has got to add up to something. You can’t, you can’t – You gotta consider, now. Don’t answer so quick. Remember, it’s a guaranteed twenty-thousand-dollar proposition. Now look, Ben, I want you to go through the ins and outs of this thing with me. I’ve got nobody to talk to, Ben, and the woman has suffered, you hear me?…It’s twenty thousand dollars on the barrelhead. Guaranteed, gilt-edged, you understand?

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy has a conversation with his hallucination of brother Ben in a passage filled with despair and hope. A man has to accomplish something, he points out to Ben. Having failed in life, Willy hopes to be successful in death by leaving his family a financial legacy. His plan is to commit suicide and give his family twenty thousand pounds through his life insurance. There is irony in Willy saying that his wife Linda has suffered, because killing himself will prolong her suffering. Willy’s suicide is foreshadowed here.

Why did you ever do that? Help me Willy, I can’t cry. It seems to me that you’re just on another trip. I keep expecting you. Willy, dear, I can’t cry. Why did you do it? I search and search and I search, and I can’t understand it, Willy. I made the last payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there’ll be nobody home. (A sob rises in her throat.) We’re free and clear. (Sobbing more fully, released.) We’re free. (Biff comes slowly toward her.) We’re free…We’re free.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Requiem. Linda feels abandoned by Willy after his suicide and tries to make sense of what he did. Speaking directly to him at his graveside, she begs him to help her understand. To Linda they had achieved their American Dream by owning their own house, she having made the final mortgage payment the day of his funeral. They were finally free and clear of debt, she sobbingly tells her dead husband. But it’s a hollow kind of freedom, with no Willy home to enjoy it with her. Linda feels lost and there is a bitter and tragic irony in these last words spoken in the play by her. Willy felt he was doing something good by killing himself in a car crash, because of the financial security the insurance money would provide for his family. But Willy’s final act was resented by his family, who simply wanted the father and husband they loved to be with them. By killing himself he betrayed them.
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