Death Of A Salesman: The Forgotten Plant, Lost To The Passage Of Time
Throughout the duration of the play, the whole concept of “placing a seed where grass/plants will no longer grow” has been presented rather often. Whether the concept was brought up as a reality check for Willy, or a reminder of purpose to Biff and Happy, there is always a recurring conceptualization of the “grass/seed not growing in the soil aymore” relating to Willy’s unreasonably high hopes for success.
In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, the reason the idea of grass/plant seeds placed in the ground work so well in relation to Willy’s irrationally high hopes for success is because it not only describes his attempt to make it in life, but also his attempts to set his “legacy” in his sons and set them up for success in life. With the introduction of Willy comes not only the impression that Willy is a failure in life, but also the first signs of confirmation that Willy is a failure in life. This sign comes in the form Willy telling Linda that “the grass don’t grow any more, you can’t raise a carrot in the backyard”. Willy telling Linda that nothing will grow there anymore implies that plant life did grow there once before, but ultimately couldn’t survive and died, similar to Willy having big ambitions and dreams, but couldn’t put in the work and effort required, and those dreams went. Willy later in the play also tells Linda that “on the way home tonight, he’d like to buy some seeds”. With Linda telling him, “that’d be wonderful. But not enough sun gets back there. Nothing’ll grow anymore”. Willy is showing that he wants to attempt to make a change in his life and try to achieve something, but Linda reminds him that nothing grows there anymore, signifying that Willy had a chance to make something out of his life, but in the end wasn’t able to.
Another symbol of the plant/grass in relation to Willy is his attempted failure to reinstate any form of legacy in his sons and set them up for future success. As Willy goes to get some seeds to plant in the garden spot out back, he remembers that “nothing’s planted. He doesn’t have a thing in the ground”. He is again reminded that he not only failed to plant some sort of legacy in his sons, as they grew up to become disappointments, but also failed financially (as a salesman), meaning that there most likely won’t be anything left behind for his sons when he passes. Willy also asks Linda in the beginning of the play, “remember those two beautiful elm trees out there? When I and Biff hung the swing between them?” Willy is reminiscing about the times when Biff and him had a much better and more positive relationship with each other, another reminder to Willy that he failed in raising his sons to be as successful as possible in their futures.
So while Willy does show that he wants to grow as a person and make something out of himself that he can be proud of, he ultimately fails in his quest to do that as his dreams were objectively obliterated by the passage of time, as shown with him wanting to purchase seeds for the garden, but being constantly remind that nothing will ever grow in that garden anymore. His failure to make something of himself has caused him to create a fantasy of himself where he is successful to base his parenting methods off of when raising his two sons and preparing them to be as successful as possible. While he does well with positive intentions by setting high expectations for his sons and “painting a good image of himself, ” he ends up setting the wrong impression on his sons and they ultimately fail, symbolized by the realization that there is nothing in the garden and the two elm trees being cut down after fond memories made by those trees.
