characters

Biff Loman
Biff was a star football player in high school, with scholarships to two major universities. He flunked math his senior year and was not allowed to graduate. He was going to make the credit up during the summer but caught his dad cheating on his mom with some women. This shock changed Biff's view of his father and everything that Biff believed in. Biff then became a drifter and was lost for fifteen years. He was even jail for stealing a suit once. But now, he has come home and the problems begin. Although Biff has an internal struggle between pleasing his father and doing what he feels is right. Biff wants to be outside on a cattle ranch, and Willy wants him behind a corporate deskBiff feels compelled to seek the truth about himself. While his father and brother are unable to accept the miserable reality of their respective lives, Biff acknowledges his failure and eventually manages to confront it Eventually, Biff finally sees the truth and realizes that he is a "dime a dozen" and "no great leader of men." He tells this to Willy who is outraged. Willy shouts, "I am not a dime a dozen! I am Willy Loman  and you are Biff Loman!" At the end of the play, Biff realizes the illusions that Willy lived on. Biff is destined to no greatness, but he no longer has to struggle to understand what he wants to do with his life.

Willy Loman
Willly Loman is an elderly salesmen whose lost in false hopes and illusions. He has been working for more than thirty four years at a sales firm, nut they are no longer paying him salary. Working on straight commission, Willy cannot bring home enough money to pay his bills. After working for so long at the firm they decide to fire him. Willy has two sons, Biff and Happy, and knows they are failures; but Willy doesn't want to believe this. He wants his sons, especially Biff, to succeed where he has not. He believes his boys are great and cannot understand why they are not successful. As Willy has grown older, he has trouble distinguishing between the past and present - between illusion and reality - and is often lost in flashbacks where much of the story is told. . Through the illusions that Willy believes, he cannot see that Biff is a nobody and not bound to be successful as defined by Willy.These flashbacks are generally during the summer after Biff's senior year of high school when all of the family problems began. Willy has had an affair with a women he meets on sales trips and was caught by Biff. After the affair, Biff no longer respects his dad and no longer get along. Willy eventually commits suicide so that Biff can have the insurance money to become successful with, and give his son an opportunity he never had.

Charlie
Charlie is the Loman's next door neighbor, and owns his own sales firm. Willy and Charlie do not get along very well but are still friends. Charlie is always the voice of reality in the play, trying to set Willy straight on the facts of Willy's situation. Happy Loman Hap is the Loman's youngest son. He lives in an apartment in New York, and during the play he is visiting his family. Happy has low moral character; constantly with another woman, trying to find his way in life, even though he is confident he's on the right path towards succes. Hap has always been the " second son " to Biff and tries to be noticed by his parents by showing off. When he was young he always told Willly, "I'm losin' weight pop, you notice?" And, now he is always saying, "I'm going to get married, just you wait and see," in an attempt to redeem himself in his mother's eyes. Hap also tries to be on Willy's good side and keep him happy, even if it means remembering the lies and illusions that Willy lives in. In the end of the play, Hap cannot see reality. Like his father, he is destined to live a fruitless life trying for something that will not happen. "Willy Loman did not die in vain," he says, "…He had a good dream, the only dream a man can have - to come out number one man. He fought it out here, and this where I'm gonna win it for him."

Linda Loman
Linda is Willy's wife and is the keeper of peace in the family. She is always trying to stand between Willy and her sons to ease the tensions of Willy’s allusions. She is protective of Willy. She knows that Willy is tired and is a man at the end of his life and, as he put it, "ringing up a zero." She wants him to be happy even when the reality of the situation is bad. Linda views freedom as an escape from debt, the reward of total ownership of the material goods that symbolize success and stability. Linda knows that Willy has been trying to commit suicide, but does not intervene because she does not want to embarrass him. She lets it continue because she is not one to cause trouble 

Bernard
Bernard is Charlie's goody-two-shoes son who was a childhood friends of Biff. Bernard always studied and eventually became a successful lawyer, something that Willy has trouble dealing with.

Uncle Ben
Ben is Willy's dead brother who appears to Willy during his flashbacks and times of trouble. Ben was a rich man who made it big in the diamond mines  of Africa. Willy once was given the chance to become partners with Ben, but refused and instead choose the life that he currently lives, and for that Uncle Ben is Willy’s symbol of the success that he so desperately craves for himself and his sons.



The Woman
- Willy’s mistress when Happy and Biff were in high school, but then Biff catches Willy in his hotel room with The Woman, he loses faith in his father, and his dream of passing math and going to college dies. Howard Wagner - Willy’s boss, snd is very young. Howard inherited the company from his father, whom Willy regarded as “a masterful man” and “a prince.” Howard treats Willy with condescension and eventually fires him.

Stanley
A waiter at Frank’s Chop House. Stanley is Happy’s friends, or at least acquaintances, and they talk about Miss Forsythe together before Biff and Willy arrive at the restaurant. Miss Forsythe and Letta - Two young women whom Happy and Biff meet at Frank’s Chop House. According to Hap with his comments about them, “on call” they are prositutes.

Jenny
Charley’s secretary.