Willy Loman

• Willy Loman is the husband of Linda Loman and father of his two sons Biff and Happy
• The protagonist of the tragedy represents a man over sixty, with exhaustion from life written all over his face (p. 7)
• Throughout his life, Loman pursues the profession of a salesman, which he does primarily on business trips across the country as a representative of his company
• The peculiarities of the family man are described as follows: he possesses a "mercurial nature" (p. 7, l. 15) and his nature is capricious and he tends to have "massive dreams" (p. 7, l. 16), but he cannot "follow to their end" (p. 7, l. 19)
• His external appearance is described as "dressed quietly" (p. 7, l. 4). Although no further comments are made about Willy's physical size, the description of his character makes it clear that he is a "small" man. Willy is depicted as an insecure and emotionally unstable person who has low self-esteem (p. 98)
• Throughout his life, the travelling salesman always wanted to achieve great success with his business, however, he was never able to fulfil this dream. The reason for this is that he can't follow through with things and instead of realising things, he only ever talks about wanting to do a lot of things
• Partly because of his mental confusion, Willy Loman lets himself go on the outside too. For example, it is mentioned several times how the salesman always wears the same suit. He also goes for a walk, for example, dressed only in slippers and sleeping clothes
• According to Willy, life and success are all about popularity and contacts, less about aspects like ability, ambition and perseverance. He wants to pass on his view of professional success to his two sons, especially Happy shares the opinion about the superficial facet of success with his father
• The protagonist's mental health has deteriorated severely over the years. As a result, he can hardly distinguish between reality and imagination. He finds himself again and again in daydreams and situations that have long since passed and in which he imagines he is talking to people, especially his long-gone brother Ben
• It seems as if Willy desperately wants to realise his failed plan of life as a successful salesman in one of his sons. In Willy's eyes, Biff, in particular, offers the undiscovered potential to become a big salesman
• However, Willy, out of his selfishness, overlooks the fact that Biff is suffering from the pressure of his father's expectations. Therefore, Biff constantly feels that he cannot live up to his father's demands
• When Uncle Ben offers Willy a job, Willy refuses and from then on is annoyed all his life for not having accepted the offer. However, Willy does not learn from his mistakes, as he also refuses Charley's job offer, which is made to him years later

Linda Loman

• Mother of Happy and Biff and wife of Willy Loman. The present work does not mention the pursuit of activity away from the household
• Linda is a selfless wife who loves her sometimes very demanding husband more than anything else, despite his idiosyncrasies and quirks
• Linda is very considerate towards her husband. At times this consideration increases to such an extent that she puts herself second and Willy is her first and most important priority. Behind this excessive consideration lies the fear of hurting or losing her husband
• Even when Willy secretly borrows money from Charley or lies to his wife, Linda does not miss these things and does not confront her husband about them either, because she does not want to endanger his already fragile mental state
• The fact that Linda allows so much to be done to her without talking back to Willy and showing him her limits indicates low self-esteem. She may be a selfless person, but she is also too weak to stand up for herself. Therefore, everything rises and falls with Willy's condition and she even sends her sons away just to preserve harmony in the Loman household
• You could also say that Linda, like Willy, lives in a fantasy world that she has built up in her imagination to escape reality. Therefore, she's far from working with her husband on his apparent problems, instead, she convinces herself that everything is fine

Biff Loman

• Biff Loman, son of Willy and Linda Loman and brother of Happy, is described as "well built" (p. 16, l. 22) and yet an aura of "worn air" (p. 16, l. 23) surrounds him
• Compared to his brother Happy, Biff gets the short end of the stick. His idea of life is "less acceptable" (p. 16, l. 24) than Happy's, which may be because "his dreams are stronger" (p. 16, l. 24)
• The 34-year-old young man ekes out a living with casual jobs and represents Willy's great hope for a successful son. However, the plans as a successful salesman that the father has for his son do not correspond to what Biff wants for himself. Willy's constant expectations cause his son more suffering than motivation
• As a schoolboy, Biff gets bad rather than good grades and is the opposite of hardworking. However, the boy's lack of verve and bite can be explained by the way his father brought him up. Willy raises his sons to put popularity before diligence and ambition. Consequently, it is difficult for his sons to make an effort and go beyond themselves to become successful
• Biff is an honest person who, while not wanting to disappoint his father, also wants to be open with him. In this trait of character, he differs from Happy, as the latter prefers to take the path of least resistance rather than stand up to his father. Biff, on the other hand, can no longer bear to maintain the illusion of a supposedly successful professional future if he doesn't personally support it
• As a young boy, Biff always looked up to his father, as he represented to him someone who lived his life far away from social conventions and constraints and yet was successful. What he did not know at the time was that Willy was only faking his professional success and was very unhappy with his career
• For Biff, the bubble about his father bursts when he catches him in Boston with another woman. The father he had always looked up to and wanted to become like him disappeared all at once through this deception
• Although Biff detests his father's problematic traits, he becomes increasingly aware that he too inevitably carries a part of his father within him
• A key moment in which Biff realises this is his conversation with Oliver. Young Loman realises that he had never been the successful salesman for his boss that he originally thought he was. Instead, he had always been just an insignificant clerk who did not stand out. This is why it is so important for Willy's son to free himself from the idealised image Willy has of him

Happy Loman

• The younger son of the Lomans, called Happy, is considered to be tall and "powerfully made" (p. 16, l. 25). He is surrounded by an aura of masculinity, expressed in his "deep [...] laugh" (p. 18, l. 4) and his attractive charisma (p. 16)
• Unlike his brother Biff, Happy tends to be more "hard-skinned" (p. 17, l. 2) and "never allowed himself to turn his face toward defeat" (p. 16f, l. 28f). Happy inherits his inability to see his own mistakes or failures from his father Willy
• Like his father Willy, Happy is not afraid to embellish about his job, his private life as well as other areas of life in narratives so that he appears in a better light. For example, he tells everyone he is an assistant vendor instead of sticking to the truth, which is that he is only the assistant of the assistant
• The younger son of the Lomans particularly indulges his penchant for the forbidden by entering into love affairs with engaged or married women. Here, too, parallels can be seen between Happy and his father Willy, who had also cheated on Linda when he was on his business trips
• Happy Loman's image of women can be seen as disturbed: In his opinion, a woman only earns her respect when she cannot resist him. The psychological explanation for this is that Happy, like Willy, basically has very low self-esteem and enhances himself by devaluing others
• Although the young man recognises that his behaviour is irresponsible and immature, he does not have the strength to work on himself and break out of this behaviour pattern

Charley

• The Lomans' neighbour "is a large man" (p. 44, l. 7f), who is known for his slow way of speaking, his laconic nature and that there is a hint of "pity" (p. 44, l. 9) in everything he says
• Charley is the father of Bernard, of whom he is very proud. But unlike Willy, Charley doesn't feel the need to reveal his son's talent to everyone everywhere. This clearly shows that Charley has a greater sense of self than Willy, who can't understand why Charley doesn't brag more about his son's success
• He is a very inhibited man who wants to help his long-time neighbour Willy and offer a chance to change his life. So he offers to give him a job that Willy could do from home, just as, just as the neighbour has wanted all his life. Willy's refusal to accept Charley's offer to work for him also suggests that Willy sees Charley as a kind of competitor
• Although he does not approve of Willy lying to his wife and raising his sons to be inconsistent, he nevertheless seems to like the protagonist, or at least to pity him. Because of this, Charley also helps his neighbour out financially again and again, although he can be sure that he will never see the money again
• It also becomes clear that Charley is Willy's only friend when, apart from his own family, only Charley and his son Bernard attend the Loman father's funeral

Bernard

• The young man is described as "quiet, earnest, but self-assured" (p. 96, l. 21)
• Bernard is as much a contrast to Biff and Happy as Charley is to Willy. As a schoolboy, he distinguishes himself by his diligence, so it is not surprising that he always exhorts his schoolmate Biff to study and offers him his help
• Although Bernard looked up to the more popular Biff back in school, it is he who ends up with a stellar career. He has achieved great success without external influences such as popularity but through sheer diligence
• While Biff has moved back in with his parents at the age of 34 to get his life in order, Bernard has in the meantime started a family of his own and has a promising job as a lawyer
• It is important to note that both Biff and Willy always do better than Bernard and Charley, but this is merely a sign that they feel threatened by the success of the more stable personalities of Bernard and his father

Uncle Ben

• Uncle Ben represents Willy Loman's older brother and the uncle of the two Loman sons, who already died years ago but still appears in Willy's daydreams
• Willy's brother does not seem to have possessed a sense of geography, as he ended up in Africa on the way to Alaska, but he was successful. Through a chain of fortunate circumstances, the discovery of diamonds in the African jungle brought the Loman brother a fortune
• Ben also once offers Willy a job: He proposes to accompany him to Alaska, where he wants to search for their common father. For Ben, Willy remains his little brother for life, whom he looks after, for whom he makes decisions and who asks him for his advice
• Uncle Ben is described by the narrator as a "stolid man" who is about sixty years old and owns "an authoritative air" (p. 47, l. 4)
• Willy's brother represents the father figure for the protagonist, which his father was never able to fulfil due to his absence. This also explains why Ben's opinions and advice are so important in Willy's life