Death of a Salesman Metaphors and Similes Quotes

LINDA: Well, dear, life is a casting off. It’s always that way.
WILLY: No, no, some people – some people accomplish something.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Linda is speaking to Willy about their two adults sons who have returned to live with them. She uses a knitting metaphor to compare life to finishing a completed, knitted item with a tying off stitch to prevent it from unraveling. As the voice of reason, she tries to get her husband to understand that not everything in life can be controlled. But Willy subscribes completely to the American Dream of prosperity and success and cannot fathom why he has achieved so little in this regard.

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.

There was a man started with the clothes on his back and ended up with diamond mines!…The man knew what he wanted and went out and got it! Walked into a jungle and comes out, the age of 21, and he’s rich! The world is an oyster, but you don’t crack it open on a mattress!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy is envious of his brother Ben becoming rich by discovering a diamond mine in Africa at the youthful age of 21. Ben is a symbol of the American Dream for Willy. In this conversation with son Happy, Willy uses the metaphor of the world as an oyster to describe how Ben succeeded in cracking it open to find diamonds not by sitting "on a mattress" but through hard work.

Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You’ll never get out of the jungle that way.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy’s dead brother Ben, appearing in Willy’s daydream, offers this advice to Biff during a fight with his nephew. Ben trips Biff up and speaks these words as he stands over him with the point of an umbrella near Biff’s eye. He means that success does not come to those who play fair. Ben is metaphorically comparing life to a jungle where you make your own rules if you wish to succeed.

BEN: William, when I walked into the jungle, I was seventeen. When I walked out I was twenty-one. And, by God, I was rich! (He goes off into darkness around the right corner of the house.)
WILLY: …was rich! That’s just the spirit I want to imbue them with! To walk into a jungle! I was right! I was right! I was right!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. In this imagined conversation with his dead brother, Willy sees Ben’s financial success as the American Dream becoming a reality, hoping his two boys will be inspired by it. Willy wants young Biff and Happy to be like Ben, and not to be afraid to go into life’s metaphorical jungle and create their own success.

I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall in his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. In one of the play’s most famous speeches, Linda makes this impassioned appeal for the ordinary human being to be respected and afforded their dignity. Accepting her husband’s weaknesses, she strongly defends him to her two sons after Biff calls him crazy and says he has no character. Her soliloquy admonishes and pleads with them not to abandon him. It is her cry of insistance on the dignity of the weak, those cast aside by the system, and not just the strong. The life and death of the little man is of as much importance as that of the great man, she believes. The message of her speech is that every human being matters and no one is disposable. This includes an insignificant person like Willy, betrayed and abandoned by a capitalist system that has no further use for him. Miller uses pathos throughout the play but here it is heightened as Linda, who is devoted to Willy, asks for respect to be shown to her flawed husband. During this key moment we hear in Linda’s voice the rage of Miller as he questions the morality of a society that uses people as tools for profit and then discards them. Employing a graphic simile, Linda pleads with Biff to reconcile with his father and not abandon him so that he dies "like an old dog." Linda appears to accept the inevitability of Willy’s imminent death, which is foreshadowed here. The passage shows her deep devotion to Willy.

Like a young god. Hercules – something like that. And the sun, the sun all around him. Remember how he waved to me? Right up from the field, with the representatives of three colleges standing by? And the buyers I brought, and the cheers when he came out – Loman, Loman, Loman! God Almighty, he’ll be great yet. A star like that, magnificent, can never really fade away!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. A manic Willy switches from depression to elation when son Biff tells him plan to ask former boss Bill Oliver for a loan to buy a ranch. Using similes to compare his son to a "young god" and "Hercules," Willy deceives himself that Biff is invulnerable to failure. Recalling Biff’s high school football hero days, he thinks that his son is too great to fail.

And have a nice time with Dad. He may have big news too!…That’s right, a New York job. And be sweet to him tonight, dear. Be loving to him. Because he’s only a little boat looking for a harbor. (She is trembling with sorrow and joy.)

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. In a phone conversation with Biff ahead of Willy’s job interview, Linda shows that she shares her husband’s tendency towards self-deception and false hope. She is convinced that Willy will get the job in New York and also that Biff can be sweet and loving towards his father despite the animosity between them. In a metaphor foreshadowing Willy’s suicide, Linda likens her husband to a small boat lost at sea and in search of a harbor. Linda’s great love and loyalty towards Willy are demonstrated here.

WILLY: I don’t need much any more. If I could take home – well, sixty-five dollars a week, I could swing it…Howard, all I need to set my table is fifty dollars a week…If I had forty dollars a week – that’s all I’d need. Forty dollars, Howard.
HOWARD: Kid, I can’t take blood from a stone, I…

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy cuts a pathetic figure as he begs Howard to give him a non-traveling job on a modest salary. At first he says that he could get by on 65 dollars a week, but as Howard remains impassive to Willy’s pleas, Willy drops his price to 50 and finally 40 dollars. Howard uses a "blood from a stone" metaphor to say that he has no job available. Thoughout the exchange the younger Howard repeatedly calls Willy "kid" and adopts a condescending tone to him.

You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away – a man is not a piece of fruit!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy is talking to his boss Howard about getting a non-traveling postion with the company, after spending 34 years working for it. When Howard refuses, Willy uses a fruit metaphor to describe how Howard has treated him like an orange. His boss has consumed the best years of his life and when he is of no further use he throws him away like a peel. This is symbolic of an unsentimental capitalist system that treats employees as expendable, discarding them when they are no longer needed. Themes of betrayal and abandonment, found throughout the play, are present here.

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.

Why? Why! Bernard, that question has been trailing me like a ghost for the last fifteen years. He flunked the subject, and laid down and died like a hammer hit him!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy responds to Bernard’s question as to why Biff failed math in high school and dropped out of summer school. Personification is used by Miller to describe how the question trailed Willy like a ghost, emphasizing his anguish and puzzlement over his son’s behavior. In a simile Willy compares Biff’s depression and giving up on everything to a hammer hitting him.

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.

Nobody dast blame this man. You don’t understand: Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a Shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back – that’s an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Requiem. In this graveside eulogy to Willy, neighbor Charley empathizes with his friend’s dreams and elevates them to a heroic level. Summing up Willy’s life, he speaks poetically about the spirit that drives a salesman, giving him almost a mythic quality. He uses metaphorical language "out there in the blue" to compare Willy to the heroic sailor riding the waves with only a smile and a shoeshine to carry him towards a successful sale. Charley’s funeral monologue is a fitting tribute from a sympathetic friend. He defends Willy and understands the enormity of the challenge faced by the salesman. Charley recognizes that the American Dream can be difficult, when people stop smiling back in support of that dream it’s as devastating as an earthquake, he says in a metaphor.
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