Death of a Salesman Nature vs City Quotes

A melody is heard, played upon a flute. It is small and fine, telling of grass and trees and the horizon. The curtain rises. Before us is the Salesman’s house. We are aware of towering, angular shapes behind it, surrounding it on all sides. Only the blue light of the sky falls upon the house and forestage; the surrounding area shows an angry glow of orange.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Even before a character enters or speaks, we are introduced to some of the important themes and figures of speech in these stage directions, the first words of the play. Music is heard and flute is personified, as it tells of a pastoral and idyllic scene of grass and trees. This sets a peaceful tone. When the curtain rises, the house of salesman Willy Loman is revealed. Having a home of one’s own is one of the most frequently cited examples of having attained the American Dream. But the Loman dream and home appear to be under threat. The city has encroached on the house, now surrounded on all sides by towering skyscrapers, suggesting that Willy is trapped in his big dreams. The "angry glow of orange" contrasts with the image of the blue sky, creating an unsettling atmosphere and foreshadowing future events. The color orange is personified here. The passage’s theme of nature vs city symbolizes the conflict within Willy. His love of the great outdoors competes with his salesman’s dream of finding prosperity and building success in the artificial and materialistic world of the city.

I was driving along, you understand? And I was fine. I was even observing the scenery. You can imagine, me looking at scenery, on the road every week of my life. But it’s so beautiful up there, Linda, the trees are so thick, and the sun is warm. I opened the windshield and just let the warm air bathe over me. And then all of a sudden I’m goin’ off the road! I’m tellin’ya, I absolutely forgot I was driving. If I’d’ve gone the other way over the white line I might’ve killed somebody. So I went on again – and five minutes later I’m dreamin’ again.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Having been on the road as a traveling salesman for 34 years, Willy Loman is showing signs of mental instability. In this conversation with his wife Linda, he describes how he lapses in and out of a dream state while driving on his sales trip to New England, almost careering off the road. Willy’s difficulty in distinguishing between reality and illusion is shown here, as his mind constantly oscillates between one state and the other. This speech also deals with the theme of nature vs city. Willy rhapsodizes about the heavenly scenery of rural America that he encounters on his trip – "so beautiful up there…the trees are so thick, and the sun is warm." With his passion for nature, Willy should have taken a job ourdoors, instead of an office job. His decision to opt for a life in New York city clearly seems to be the wrong one. He is a man more in tune with the natural world who in this passage is yearning to escape and be free. Willy’s suicide is foreshadowed here.
Biff finding himself

WILLY: How can he find himself on a farm? Is that a life? A farmhand? In the beginning, when he was young, I thought, well, a young man, it’s good for him to tramp around, take a lot of different jobs. But it’s more than ten years now and he has yet to make thirty-five dollars a week!
LINDA: He’s finding himself, Willy.
WILLY: Not finding yourself at the age of thirty-four is a disgrace!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy is bitterly disappointed at son Biff when he returns home from the West after working as a farmhand for a few dollars a week. He views Biff’s failure to achieve financial success as a kind of betrayal of his own expectations for his 34-year-old elder and favorite son. He feels Biff is wasting away his life working on a Texas farm. The irony is that Willy himself often yearns for the simpler life away from the city and close to nature, the one his son has been living. Linda defends Biff saying he is still trying to find himself.

The street is lined with cars. There’s not a breath of fresh air in the neighborhood. The grass don’t grow any more, you can’t raise a carrot in the back yard. They should’ve had a law against apartment houses. Remember those two beautiful elm trees out there? When I and Biff hung the swing between them?

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy to Linda. Willy bemoans that what’s left of the natural environment in Brooklyn, New York, is being overtaken and swallowed up by urbanization. The expanding city with its apartment blocks is encroaching on the fresh air, the grass, the gardens and the trees. Willy sees this kind of rampant capitalist growth and commercialism as destroying nature.

There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining this country! Population is getting out of control. The competition is maddening! Smell the stink from that apartment house! And another one on the other side.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy is commenting on how out of control post-war American capitalism is with rampant urbanization is destroying the country. He feels trapped in his city home with tall apartment blocks built all around him, leading to the denudation of nature in urban centers like Brooklyn.
Biff Loman - all you really desire is to be outdoors, with your shirt off

To suffer fifty weeks of the year for the sake of a two-week vacation, when all you really desire is to be outdoors, with your shirt off. And always to have to get ahead of the next fella. And still – that’s how you build a future.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. After returning home from Texas, Biff rails against the endless grind of having to work his way up in business in order to achieve prosperity and success. He is no longer a believer in Willy’s American Dream but instead wants to work at something that makes him happy. Biff’s true inclination is to be close to nature and work outdoors with his hands, something contrary to what Willy expects of him.

This farm that I work on, it’s spring there now, see? And they’ve got about fifteen new colts. There’s nothing more inspiring or – beautiful than the sight of a mare and a new colt. And it’s cool there now see? Texas is cool now, and it’s spring. And whenever spring comes to where I am, I suddenly get the feeling my God, I’m not getting anywhere. What the hell am I doing, playing around with horses, twenty-eight dollars a week! I’m thirty-four years old, I oughta be making my future. That’s when I come running home.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. In Biff’s monologue his love of nature and the countryside vs his father’s life in the city is shown. He speaks lovingly to Happy about the work he does with horses on a Texas ranch. He believes that there is nothing more inspiring than watching the new-born colts with their mothers. But in springtime Biff confesses to becoming restless and returns to his parents’ home in New York. Confused, he realizes that he doesn’t have a proper settled job, earns little money and needs to think seriously about his future.

BIFF: Sure, maybe we could buy a ranch. Raise cattle, use our muscles. Men built like we are should be working out in the open.
HAPPY (avidly): The Loman Brothers, heh?

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Disillusioned with their lives, an unfulfilled Biff and Happy Loman come up with their version of the American Dream. As they chat during a visit to their parents in New York, Biff suggests to his brother that he come out West with him and buy their own cattle ranch. He believes that being outdoors and in close touch with nature, instead of being confined to an office, is a more rewarding and fulfilling life.

They’ve laughed at Dad for years, and you know why? Because we don’t belong in this nuthouse of a city! We should be mixing cement on some open plain or – or carpenters. A carpenter is allowed to whistle!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Biff is not happy with the life Willy made for him in New York city. He doesn’t like the idea that his dad was made fun of because he wasn’t successful in business. Here Biff reveals that he would be more at home in the open plain and working with his hands.

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.

WILLY: Gee, on the way home tonight I’d like to buy some seeds.
LINDA (laughing): That’d be wonderful. But not enough sun gets back there. Nothing’ll grow any more.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy discusses with Linda the idea of planting some seeds in the backyard. His wife laughingly suggests that her husband’s plans are unlikely to succeed because the yard is so dark as it is surrounded by city apartment blocks. The image of seeds relates to Willy’s American Dream of material prosperity and also his love of nature vs city life.

WILLY: Before it’s all over we’re gonna get a little place out in the country, and I’ll raise some vegetables, a couple of chickens…
LINDA: You’ll do it yet, dear.
WILLY: You wait, kid, before it’s all over we’re gonna get a little place out in the country, and I’ll raise some vegetables, a couple of chickens…And they’ll get married, and come for a weekend. I’d build a little guest house…I could build two guest houses, so they’d both come.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy Loman appears happiest when he is in the great outdoors, in close communion with nature, and building things with his hands. Is it any wonder he is discontented when he is part of the rat race living in New York City and working as a salesman.

You’ve got a new continent at your doorstep, William. Get out of these cities, they’re full of talk and time payments and courts of law. Screw on your fists and you can fight for a fortune up there.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. In this imagined scene by Willy, his brother Ben urges him to abandon the city for the opportunities and prosperity of the West. Ben tells him that he has bought some timberland in Alaska and he needs a man to look after things for him. Willy is tempted by his offer: "God, timberland! Me and my boys in those grand outdoors?"

WILLY: No, wait! Linda, he’s got a proposition for me in Alaska.
LINDA: But you’ve got – (To Ben) He’s got a beautiful job here.
WILLY: But in Alaska, kid, I could – .
LINDA: You’re doing well enough, Willy!
BEN (to linda): Enough for what, my dear?
LINDA (frightened of Ben and angry at him): Don’t say those things to him! Enough to be happy right here, right now.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. When Ben proposes that Willy go to Alaska to look after some timberland for him there, Linda objects. She argues that her husband is already doing well in his current job as a salesman. Linda is in denial about Willy’s failings and his struggles to keep his job, which goes to the theme of self-deception. The theme of nature vs city is also found in this passage.

I’ve got to get some seeds. I’ve got to get some seeds, right away. Nothing’s planted. I don’t have a thing in the ground.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. After his sons leave him in Frank’s Chop House, Willy becomes fixated on buying seeds to plant in his tiny dark city backyard. Seeds are an important symbol in the play. In this dialogue between Willy and waiter Stanley, the seeds stand for a frustrated Willy’s desire to leave behind some legacy after he is gone. His sons have abandoned him in the restaurant, his sales career has failed, and the great hope of Biff achieving Willy’s American Dream of material prosperity hasn’t come to pass. The seeds symbolize Willy’s failed American Dream and his preference for country life over city life, which he also never realized.

WILLY (suddenly conscious of Biff, turns and looks up at him, then begins picking up the packages of seeds in confusion.): Where the hell is that seed? (Indignantly.) You can’t see nothing out here! They boxed in the whole goddam neighborhood!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy cuts an absurd figure when, after speaking to his hallucination of brother Ben, he begins planting seeds by flashlight in his tiny backyard "in the blue of the night." He has just told Ben of his cash for suicide plan, whereby his family will come into twenty thousands dollars life insurance after he kills himself. The seeds represent hope and prosperity: having failed to provide these for his family in life he will do so in death. The theme of nature vs city is highlighted here, as Willy complains about the high rise apartments of the city boxing in his New York home.

I stopped in the middle of that building and I saw – the sky. I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. In Biff’s epiphany at Bill Oliver’s office, he rejects his father’s version of the American Dream and Willy’s attempt to live vicariously through him. Biff realizes that life as a salesman and working in an office is not for him. In his final confrontation with Willy, he tells him that after his failed interview with Oliver he ran down eleven flights of stairs with Oliver’s stolen fountain pen in his hand. The pen symbolizes Willy’s American Dream of material success. Biff tells how he looked out at the expanse of the sky and the great outdoors and saw the things he loves in this world. In that moment he dismissed his father’s false values as represented by Oliver’s pen. This is Biff’s moment of catharsis and transfiguration, his moment of clarity, a declaration of independence from city living and the world of business. Biff refuses to live a lie to please his father and wants to be true to who he is.
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