Intro
Talk about failure. Biff Loman is a bum and this play is a big bummer. Biff just wants to live on a farm out west and look at the sky. But us Americans are taught to make more of ourselves than that, aren't we?
Death of a Salesman was written by Arthur Miller, and it's arguably the most important work in all of American Theatre. It doesn't have any obviously "gay" people in it, but that doesn't mean we can't give it a queer reading. So here's a quick one: Biff doesn't want to be what his father thinks he should be: successful, handsome, and "well-liked."
You know who else doesn't want to be who their fathers (real and metaphorical) want them to be? That's right: a lot of people, including queer activists.
Death of a Salesman rocked theatre audiences in the 1950s as a critique of American exceptionalism and the unrest attached to market capitalism. Who wouldn't want to be rich and powerful? Who wouldn't want to be one of the kids from Willy Wonka?
Once again: a lot of people, including queer activists. Just as the Beat Generation ushered in an era of revolt, Arthur Miller's works examined how harsh gender expectations ruined the lives of many young men.
The baby boomers were kids born into post-war America, and they believed their kids were meant to be winners. Every kid can own a chocolate factory if you just try hard enough, right? Not exactly.
And what if you don't want the factory to begin with? What if you want a purple unicorn instead?
Quote
I stopped in the middle of that building and I saw—the sky. I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am! Why can't I say that, Willy?
Analysis
This is the kind of sweet failure that Judith Jack Halberstam addresses: the failure of living up to the ideals that others in society set for you. Here, Biff asks: "Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be?" In Halberstam's analysis, that's what a queer person asks herself every day.
Biff just wants "work" and "food" and "time to sit and smoke." Sounds a bit like Huck Finn, don't you think? Biff's farm out west also sounds like that perfect life you imagine when you're a kid, what Halberstam calls "the wonderful anarchy of childhood."
You know, the one where you eat candy and read comic books all day in your treehouse, and never have to do anything you don't want to do. So when Halberstam comes on the scene, he's all, come fail with us. Queer failure is open to all people who want to break from constructed ideas of gender and masculinity.
In Halberstam's words, his failure "allows us to escape the punishing norms that discipline behavior." That means that whenever a character in Death of a Salesman challenges the gender roles that seem so apparent and proper, they exhibit a type of queer behavior.
Biff the quarterback, Biff the ladies' man, Biff the successful man of business; the dude is never going to become any of these things his dad wants of him. In sum: Biff can be read as queer. No, not because of his sexuality. Because of his honesty regarding his failure to become a "real man."
"…all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!" And in his failing, Biff finds hope, not emptiness. This is a key component of Halberstam's version of queer theory; Biff has blue sky, farm work, and some "time to smoke" waiting for him. In other words, he has freedom waiting for him.
His desires kill his father, but Biff's failures liberate him from making a "contemptuous, begging fool" of himself at an office desk. Just as in Halberstam's queer world of failure, Biff's refusal to "be a man" is painful for his father, but it is redemptive for him. He's relieved to admit what he can't or won't become so he can find out who he really is.