Death of a Salesman and the Prevalence of Popularity in Capitalism

In the play Death of a Salesman, the author Arthur Miller uses the juxtaposing characterizations of Biff and Bernard in the present as well as in flashbacks to show their different dynamic in the past in order to present Bernard as a foil to Biff, ultimately conveying how while social popularity can be emphasized in school situations, in the capitalist society, it has little impact on success.

In the “present” time of the play, Biff is characterized to be lazy and unsuccessful, while Bernard is seen as quiet but confident and successful in both his career and overall life. Firstly, in the first scene of the play after Willy comes home, he and Linda agree that Biff is not making any money due to his position on a farm, even though he has such “personal attractiveness”. Because the society is capitalist and so has a great emphasis on making money, people’s worth is often measured based on their salary, and so Biff not making money shows him as unsuccessful within the capitalist framework. This is in spite of Biff’s good looks and apparent charm, which suggests that this “personal attractiveness” has very weak correlation with monetary success. In contrast, Bernard is now characterized as humble and hardworking lawyer for the Supreme Court and has a wife and two boys. Bernard’s job as a lawyer is very high ranking and makes a lot of money, fulfilling the largely monetary part of success. In addition, Bernard has a wife and two boys, displaying his stable relationship and own family, another part of success, which contrasts to how Biff is now less confident with women and is single. As a whole, by the modern capitalist framework, Bernard is much more successful than Biff in the play’s “present”, demonstrating that being “attractive” or “well-liked” doesn’t really influence success.

Miller also uses Willy’s “flashbacks” (his hallucinations of the past) as a way to explore the very different dynamic between Biff and Bernard, where Biff was the confident “leader” and the less-liked Bernard followed him around. For one, right before the football game, Happy and Bernard squabble over who gets to hold Biff’s things for him, and Biff graciously decides to let Happy hold his helmet and Bernard hold his shoulder guards. Biff’s “graciousness” here is characterizing how confident he is– when he has other people hold his things, he believes he is doing them a favor, which is in direct contrast to now, where he is much less confident. Plus, Bernard’s wanting to hold Biff’s things for him depicts how Bernard was of a much lower social standing than Biff, even being seen as a servant to him, which accentuates how Bernard’s success in the present day was not affected by his social standing at all and Biff’s popularity did not benefit him in the long run. Another example is how, when Bernard came to help Biff study for math, Willy and Biff mocked Bernard for being such a nerd and being too serious about his studies, even calling him “anemic”, and laugh about how Bernard is not well-liked and thus will not be successful later on. Willy and Biff’s mocking of Bernard and how he just takes it depicts how Bernard really does not have much power in this dynamic, and their remark on how his not being well-liked being a downfall for is future is dramatic irony because the readers know he will be much more successful than Biff, who is very well liked. In fact, Bernard’s dedication to his studies is what allowed him to become so successful in the future, as he has the abilities that appeal to the skill-based preference of capitalist society. Therefore, because the predictions of success from the past based on popularity did not correctly forecast actual success, it can be concluded that being popular is not very impactful on capitalist success.

By juxtaposing past and present characterizations of Biff and Bernard, Arthur Miller presents this pair of characters as foils, with one being well-liked but unsuccessful and the other being not as well-liked but much more successful. Through this, Death of a Salesman illustrates how though being well-liked may be important in school environments, it rarely influences success in the capitalist society.

Tracy Lei