The speech of the characters of Death of a Salesman belies their posts in life, concerning both class and family station. Ben has very precise language, filling in the gaps in Willy’s memories with perfect recall in clipped sentences. He also has language more associated with the upper class (such as an advanced vocabulary of multi-syllabic words) and addresses Willy formally as “William”.
While Willy strives toward the ideal that Ben represents, his language betrays his true nature as a common man. He uses words like “goddammit”, “y’know”, “goin'”, and “don’t” instead of “doesn’t”. Willy also skips around from idea to idea, as when he argues with Howard:
“I’m talking about your father! There were promises made across this desk! You mustn’t tell me you’ve got people to see – I put thirty-six years into this firm, Howard, and now I can’t pay my insurance! You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away – a man is not a piece of fruit! Now pay attention. Your father – in 1928 I had a big year. I averaged a hundred and seventy dollars a week in commissions”.
In one paragraph, Willy skips from the problems of his reality to his idealistic philosophy of life to a tangential story from the past. He repeats this pattern countless times throughout the play. It belies the disparity between Willy’s facade of success and his reality of failure, as he is constantly jumping around in his speech to keep the facade and reality in balance. The pattern also contrasts heavily with the direct dialogue of Ben, who as an honestly successful man has nothing to prove or hide.
The language of the rest of the Lomans denotes their family roles. Linda constantly punctuates her speech with terms of endearment (“dear” and “darling”) and is often using imperative sentences to give instructions to the other family members.. This denotes her position in the family as a caregiver, manager, and peacemaker, traditional roles for a woman and mother. Biff and Happy also fall into their traditional roles as wholesome young boys with their use of words like “gee whiz”, “pal”, and “scout”. These examples are a continuation of Willy’s balancing falsehood and reality. By using language common to their roles in life, the other Lomans attempt to project a facade of American familial perfection while hiding the truth of their failure.