SOURCE: Thompson, Terry W. “Miller's Death of a Salesman.” Explicator 60, no. 3 (spring 2002): 162-63.

In the following essay, Thompson explores the comparisons between Willy Loman's sons and the mythological figure of Adonis in Death of a Salesman.

Early in Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller's most celebrated play, Willy Loman—the financially burdened and emotionally exhausted main character—makes a fleeting reference to a mythological figure who was renowned for his physical beauty. Pronounced during an effusive conversation with his sons, it is an allusion that Willy believes is completely flattering to his two beloved boys, Biff and Happy. However, the reference signifies much more than Willy thinks it does. Like the aging and unenlightened salesman himself, the comparison is superficial and uninformed, tellingly shallow and rather ignorant.

The mythological allusion comes midway through the first act, during one of Willy's rose-tinted recollections of the family's past, when his...