Stockings appear in a number of contexts in Death of a Salesman. The MOST interesting part is that he chooses planting to make up for being a failed salesman – he’s actually better suited to working with his hands, to agriculture, to labor, just like his son Biff. Through planting seeds, Willy wants grow something that will thrive, provide for others and remain after his own death. All of these feelings come to a head in Willy’s seed planting. Willy is additionally preoccupied with being well known and leaving a legacy when he dies. I don’t have a thing in the ground' we have a feeling he’s really talking about his sons and their future. He’s uncertain about how to raise his sons and worries that, like his own father, he will be unable to provide for them. Willy is frequently troubled by feelings of confusion and inadequacy.

The seeds that Willy insists on buying and planting are an important symbol in the play. Willy’s obsession with distant lands further proves that he might prefer a very different livelihood than the one he has. Furthermore, Biff, Happy, and Ben repeatedly suggest that the Lomans are better suited to physical, hands-on kinds of work, an assertion supported by their failure as salesmen. While Willy insists New York is a land of opportunity and abundant success, his idolization of his brother Ben’s adventures and forays into faraway lands shows that he is really not so convinced. If the Lomans’ home symbolizes restriction, both physical and mental, distant locations symbolize escape, freedom, and the possibility of something better. This narrow, and increasingly narrowing setting is contrasted with the vastness of the American West, Alaska, and Africa. Death of a Salesman takes place primarily within the confined landscape of the Lomans’ home.

Death of a salesman full script