Loman is a 63-year-old travelling salesman from Brooklyn with 34 years of experience with the same company who endures a pay cut and a firing during the play.

[2] The play presents Loman's struggle "to maintain a foothold in the upward-striving American middle class" while combating his own self-doubt that plagues him in reminders from the past that his life rests on unsolid ground.

[5] His misplaced values of importance and popularity are shaken to the core by his declining ability to leverage those self-perceived traits successfully as he grows older.

[7] According to Associated Press correspondent Cynthia Lowry's review of the drama, "we watched an aging, defeated traveling salesman move inexorably toward self-destruction, clinging desperately to fantasies".

[6] The play begins with the 63-year-old Loman dealing with a recent pay cut after 34 years on the job at a time when he is having difficulty meeting his financial responsibilities.

[9] Loman had succeeded in large part due to his ability to ingratiate himself with his bosses and appeal to his potential clients; thus, he continually impresses upon his sons the importance of popularity.

"[2] While reviewing a touring production of Death of a Salesman, Los Angeles Times critic Laurie Winer described Loman as "...the saddest, self-centeredest soul in American drama, a character who will continue to haunt the landscape as long as there are fathers and sons.

[6] The play's author, Arthur Miller, described the role of Willy Loman as one for a large character in a small physical body, and noted he had difficulty finding the right actor at first.

[16] In 1950, Miller described Loman as a man who upon hearing society's "thundering command to succeed" found himself staring at a failure in the mirror.

[3] The Amazon.com editorial review by Ali Davis states that "Willy Loman is a salesman desperately hustling for a living even as he slides into old age.

"[17] Rovi Corporation's Matthew Tobey describes him as an everyman who has to cope with the sudden realization that he is over the hill, and retreats into a fantasy world in which he remains important.

[18] The Huffington Post's theater critic, Wilborn Hampton, describes the role as "one of the most complicated characters in dramatic literature".

[12] His older, less successful son, Biff, causes "old hopes and boiling resentments" to return by visiting home after losing yet another job.

Other actors who have played the role on Broadway or in English-language cinema or television have almost all received critical acclaim.

[28][29] Warren Mitchell earned the Laurence Olivier Award for Actor of the Year in a Revival in 1979 for his West End theatre performance of the role.

"[32] Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance came at a time when the Occupy Wall Street movement echoed the play while its actors could not afford the $120 ticket price.

[3] In 1965, Hoffman served as the assistant director in an off-Broadway revival of A View from the Bridge at the Sheridan Square Playhouse with a cast that included Robert Duvall and Jon Voight.

[34] The show's director Ulu Grosbard suggested to Miller that Hoffman had the potential to make a great Willy Loman.

Miller was unimpressed and later wrote that "My estimate of Grosbard all but collapsed as, observing Dustin Hoffman's awkwardness and his big nose that never seemed to get unstuffy, I wondered how the poor fellow imagined himself a candidate for any kind of acting career.