Commission

Commission is the payment method that defines Willy Loman's economic existence in his final years, transforming his labor from a salaried position into a precarious, performance-based struggle that strips him of security and dignity. After thirty-six years with the Wagner Company, Willy is reduced to working on straight commission, a status that Linda Loman describes as being treated "like a beginner, an unknown." This shift from salary to commission marks the final stage of Willy's professional decline and exposes the brutal logic of a system that discards aging workers once their perceived utility fades.

The Shift to Straight Commission

Linda reveals to her sons that for five weeks Willy has been working on straight commission, a change that has devastated the family's finances. She explains that the company, after decades of service during which Willy opened up "unheard-of territories to their trademark," has taken away his salary in his old age. This reduction forces Willy to borrow fifty dollars a week from Charley and pretend to Linda that it is his pay. The commission system, rather than rewarding loyalty or experience, treats Willy as though he were starting from scratch, erasing his history with the firm.

The Consequences of Commission-Based Pay

Working on commission means that Willy's income depends entirely on his ability to close sales, a capacity that has eroded with age and exhaustion. Biff Loman, upon learning that his father is off salary, exclaims in shock, "My God, working on commission!" The precarity of this arrangement is compounded by the fact that Willy can no longer make the six or seven calls a day he once managed in Boston; now he drives seven hundred miles and returns home without having earned a cent. The commission system thus transforms his labor into a desperate gamble, where each failed trip deepens his sense of worthlessness and accelerates his psychological unraveling.

Thematic Significance: The Devaluation of the Worker

The shift to commission embodies the play's critique of a capitalist system that treats human beings as disposable commodities. Willy's thirty-six years of service count for nothing when he can no longer produce immediate results. The commission structure, by tying income directly to sales performance, strips away the dignity of a steady wage and exposes the worker to the full volatility of the market. Willy's inability to earn under this system is not a personal failing but a structural inevitability for an aging salesman in a youth-oriented economy. The commission, in this sense, becomes the mechanism through which the company discards him without the formality of a firing—though Howard Wagner does ultimately fire him—by making his continued employment economically impossible.

The Contrast with Charley's Offer

Charley, Willy's neighbor, offers him a job at fifty dollars a week, a stable salary that would remove the uncertainty of commission. Willy refuses, unable to accept the humiliation of working for a man he has always considered beneath him. This refusal underscores how deeply Willy has internalized the values of the commission system: he equates a steady salary with failure, while the gamble of commission—the possibility of a big score—remains tied to his sense of masculine pride and the American Dream. The commission, then, is not merely a payment method but a symbol of the dream's cruel promise: the chance to win big, but only at the cost of constant, grinding insecurity.