Death of a Salesman meet for dinner at a restaurant, but Willy refuses to hear bad news from Biff. Happy tries to get Biff to lie to their father. Biff tries to tell him what happened as Willy gets angry and slips into a flashback of what happened in Boston the day Biff came to see him. Willy had been having an affair with a receptionist on one of his sales trips when Biff unexpectedly arrived at Willy's hotel room. A shocked Biff angrily confronted his father, calling him a liar and a fraud. From that moment, Biff's views of his father changed and
Willy Loman self-perceived traits successfully as he grew older. Loman's world crumbles around him during the play. 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". 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. In the second act, he deals with being fired. The firing was at the hands of the son of the person who had hired him 36 years prior.