A man can’t go out the way, he came in, Ben, a man has got to add up to something. You can’t, you can’t – You gotta consider, now. Don’t answer so quick. Remember, it’s a guaranteed twenty-thousand-dollar proposition. Now look, Ben, I want you to go through the ins and outs of this thing with me. I’ve got nobody to talk to, Ben, and the woman has suffered, you hear me?…It’s twenty thousand dollars on the barrelhead. Guaranteed, gilt-edged, you understand?
– Arthur Miller
Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy has a conversation with his hallucination of brother Ben in a passage filled with despair and hope. A man has to accomplish something, he points out to Ben. Having failed in life, Willy hopes to be successful in death by leaving his family a financial legacy. His plan is to commit suicide and give his family twenty thousand pounds through his life insurance. There is irony in Willy saying that his wife Linda has suffered, because killing himself will prolong her suffering. Willy’s suicide is foreshadowed here.