Question

Oh, yeah, my father lived many years in Alaska. He was an adventurous man. We’ve got quite a little streak of self-reliance in our family. I thought I’d go out with my older brother and try to locate him, and maybe settle in the North with the old man. And I had almost decided to go when I met a salesman in the Parker House. His name was Dave Singleman. And he was eighty-four years old, and he’d drummed merchandise in thirty-one states. And old Dave, he’d go up to his room, understand, put on his green velvet slippers—I’ll never forget—and pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, he made his living. And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want. ’Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go, at the age of eighty-four, into twenty or thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many different people? Do you know? When he died—and by the way he died the death of a salesman, in his green velvet slippers in the smoker of the New York, New Haven and Hartford, going into Boston—when he died, hundreds of salesmen and buyers were at his funeral. Things were sad on a lotta trains for months after that. (He stands up. Howard has not looked at him.) In those days there was a personality in it, Howard. There was respect, comradeship, and gratitude in it. Today, it’s all cut and dried, and there’s no chance for bringing friendship to bear—or personality. You see what I mean? They don’t know me any more.

Write a paragraph in which you address Willy's attitude about Dave (and/or about salesmen in general).

Answer 1

Willy Loman holds Dave Singleman as the ideal salesman, admires the connections and respect Dave garnered and yearns for the past when salesmanship involved personal relationships.

Step-by-step explanation:

Willy Loman's attitude towards Dave Singleman and salesmen in general is one of deep admiration and aspiration. He idolizes Dave's ability to work effortlessly from his room, earning respect and love over the phone, and envisions this as the pinnacle of success in sales.

For Willy, the appeal of being a salesman lies not merely in the act of selling but in the relationships forged and the personal gratification that comes from being remembered and loved by clients.

However, he also expresses a nostalgia for the bygone era where personality and friendship played a critical role in the profession, contrasting it with the present, which he perceives as impersonal and lacking opportunities for personal connection.

In the play Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman has a positive attitude towards Dave Singleman and salesmen in general. Willy admires Dave Singleman, an elderly salesman, for his ability to make a living by simply making phone calls from his room. Willy sees selling as the greatest career because it allows a person to travel to different cities and be remembered and loved by many different people.

He believes that in the past, salesmanship had more respect, comradeship, and gratitude, but today it has become cut and dried with no chance for personal connections.