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Analysis of death of a salesman essay
Differences in similarities between mice and men and the death of a salesman
Analysis of death of a salesman essay
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Of Mice and Men and Death of a Salesman are two novels that incorporate living off the land, chasing the american dream, and conflicting relationships that end in a character's death. Both novels include important lessons about morals and relationships in life, while keeping readers in suspense as they watch the tragic outcomes of the inefficient relationships between characters. It can be noted that there are negative relationships, or relationships that hold negative elements, which ultimately lead to an avoidable death of a character. These negative relationships can be seen with George and Lennie, Willy and Happy, and Willy and Biff. The first negative relationship that can be noted occurs between George and Lennie in John Steinbeck's …show more content…
Readers are first given a sign of a negative father-son relationship when Happy explains to Biff how he been successful in every way their father wants them to be, but he still feels an inner loneliness. “I don’t know what the hell I’m workin’ for. Sometimes I sit in my apartment - all alone. And I think of the rent I’m paying. And it’s crazy. But then, it’s what I always wanted. My own apartment, a car, and plenty of woman. And still, goddammit, i’m lonely.” (Miller, 23). Here, happy speaks of all the achievements and success he worked for, and still is left with unhappiness. As readers watch Happy feel unfulfilled and see Biff searching for something different that what is expected of him, it can be inferred that the boys were not meant to follow their father's footsteps. We then see another example of this negative relationship forming when Willy fails to teach his sons proper morals. Willy teaches his sons that popularity is the most desirable quality in a person, and in the business world looks, popularity, charisma, and fortune are all the definitions of success. Throughout his time as a father he continually fills the boys with ‘hot air’ and leads them towards failure by engraving improper morals. As a result of this, both boys are left with unhappiness after attempting to follow their father's footsteps. With Happy seeing Biff distance himself from Willy’s set way of life, and the tension this creates in the family, he only tries to be more like his father. After Willy dies, happy states “I’m gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It’s the only dream you can have - to come out number one - man. He fought it out here, and this is where i’m gonna win it for him. (Miller, 139). After the death of Willy, Happy is determined to carry on his father's legacy and live on the way Willy would have wanted him to. The
True friends are difficult to find in life, especially as an adult. Lennie, a main character in Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, was lucky enough to have George, despite all the odds he faced with mental illness. Lennie, having a tall, stocky frame, was intimidating to many people at first glance (Steinbeck 2). However, after they discovered his childlike nature, he quickly became an easy target for ridicule and violence. George sacrifices a normal life to protect Lennie and those he encounters. This relationship is crucial to their survival. The importance of friendship is a major theme found in the book. This is shown through the character’s strong bond between one another, how they face society in the 1930s, and how they influence each other’s actions.
In the course of the play, Willy Loman is displayed as an adolescent who has not taken a grip on life. When parenting his children, Willy does not act as a father figure. He acts as if he is one of the boys who do not discipline his children. Because of this, Happy and Biff have nothing to strive for in life. Willy yearns for attention and he obtains this by bragging about how popular and athletic his sons are in comparison to his neighbor, Charley’s son, Bernard. “When this game is over, you’ll be laughing out of the other side of your face. They’ll be calling him another Red Grange. Twenty-five thousand a year” (Page 63). In this line, Willy is showing off to Charley that Biff’s athletics will get him somewhere in life, while Bernard’s classwork and lack of social skills will never give him real world experience. Willy believes that hard work and dedication will never pay off “because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead.” (Page 22) In sum, Willy Loman believes that living in the momen...
Willy Loman becomes incredibly involved in work-related matters, instead of the happiness surrounding his family life. He discourages Biff to take his own path, and instead, nearly forces him to become a salesman, in hopes that Biff will be more successful than he turned out to be. Willy tells Biff that his dreams will “cut down (his) life…!” Willy cannot simply hope for Biff and Happy to attain satisfaction in life, which is the element that Willy misses. He is so consumed by the idea of success that he had not once stopped to reflect on being a good father or loving his wife. Having an affair was one of his main problems-he could not put enough love into his family, so he put it anywhere else he could. He visited his mistress on business ventures, which is the only aspect of his life he truly appreciated. Therefore, his home life became full of lies, Biff saying that they “never told the truth for ten minutes.” Miller is, again, critiquing American households, since their typical values revolve more around money and presentation than a loving, kind, and caring home. Willy had a family who loved him, but he neglected to notice this, which lead to his unhappiness. Never placing any type of value of love and kindness can cause a person to become cold and bitter, which is exactly what Willy became. He may have avoided suicide if he had realized the love and care he could have been surrounded
It is stated by Standage that, “Sandage believes Willy Loman was a success. But the message of the play, he says, is that “if you level off, you have to give up. You might as well not live”” (Baird 25). This is quite ironic because all Willy does is push to be successful and he when he can’t he puts expects his son’s to follow through so he gives up. He constantly reminds them, “the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead” (Miller 67). This is also ironic because Willy is the man who creates personal interest in the business world, but when everyone passes away he is left with nothing but the past to remember. This false reality that Willy creates for Biff brings on the conflicts between the father and son duo due to the fact that Biff fails as a result of the way he was raised. So by the time Biff goes to interview for his first job he thinks that his success will come with no effort
The critic Rhoda Koenig criticizes Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, complaining that in this play he depicts all women as being either “wicked sluts” or “a combination of good waitresses and slipper bearing retrievers”, Linda being a “dumb and useful doormat” (Koenig 10). While this critique may seem rash and writers such as Christopher Bigsby and Terry Otten view it as severely “wide of the mark” (Bigsby xix), Koenig does bring up an interesting point on Miller’s categorization of women. In Death of a Salesman, Miller mocks the man driven “American Dream” by categorizing female characters into two stereotypical social roles, namely domestic housewife and extramarital companion, to show the underlying yet influential position of women in a society that is believed to run on “masculine mythos” (Stanton 190). He further makes his point by creating a plot where the housewife Linda instigates the main tragedy through her interactions with Willy.
During most father-son relationships, there are certain times where the father wants to become more of a "player" in his son’s life than his son believes is necessary. The reasons for this are numerous and can be demonstrated in different ways. Miller is able to give an example of this behavior through the actions of Willy Loman. When Biff comes home to recollect himself, Willy perceives it as failure. Since Willy desperately wants his oldest son, Biff, to succeed in every way possible, he tries to take matters into his own hands. "I’ll get him a job selling. He could be big in no time" (16). The reason that Biff came home is to find out what he wants in life. Because Willy gets in the way, matters become more complicated. Partly due to Willy’s persistence in Biff’s life, they have conflicting ideas as to what the American dream is. Willy believes that working on the road by selling is the greatest job a man could have (81). Biff, however, feels the most inspiring job a man could have is working outdoors (22).
Happy Loman has grown up to be a well-adjusted man of society. He has developed from a follower to a potentially successful businessman. Throughout his childhood, Happy always had to settle for second fiddle. Willy, his father, always seems to focus all his attention on Happy's older brother Biff. The household conversation would constantly be about how Biff is going to be a phenomenal football star, how Biff will be attending the University of Virginia and be the big man on campus, how Biff is so adulated among his friends and peers, and so on. Young Happy was always in Biff's shadow, always competing for his father's attention but failing each time. Happy would resort to such antics as laying on his back and pedaling his feet backwards to capture his father's attention but to no avail. Willy would continue to not take notice of his younger son and maintain his attention on other matters that he thought were of greater importance. Growing up under these conditions is what motivated Happy to be the man he is today.
As a young lad Happy was the younger of the sons, just like his father. His older brother Biff Loman, was prototype of today’s ignorant jock; he was handsome, well built and athletic, exceptionally popular with both sexes, yet he had no intelligence, book smart or wit, what so ever, in essence he was the epitome of today’s high school athletes. Their father had increasingly more affection for Biff, and Happy was always thrown into his shadow. Like Willy, Happy was the neglected by his father as well. From Happy’s beginning he tries to draw the attention from Biff towards himself. When Willy is talking to Biff, congratulating him on his asinine efforts, Happy buts in multiple times with, “look dad I’m losing weight…” (17). Then near his father’s demise, after Willy and Biff get in a fight and then Willy condoles Biff, he tries to make his father notice him again with an ‘out of the blue’ comment, “I’m getting married, Pop, don’t forget it…” (107). The...
Drive through any large, upscale city and one can be certain to see the following: attractive men with gorgeous hair and “perfect bodies” wearing Louis Vuitton and Gucci, or women with that “ideal physique” and perfect “no-makeup makeup” look, flaunting themselves in Versace and Calvin Klein clothing. Subconsciously, one begins to see these standards as his idea of beauty or perfection, but society has been known to affect a lot more than the mindset of appearance. Willy Loman, of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, has constantly tried to attain society’s approval by living the American Dream. He believes that in order to be successful, one must be well-liked and never have challenges throughout life.
This provides the reader with evidence that the ideas that Willy presented to his sons would make history repeat itself in the next generation. Unlike his brother and father Biff Loman feels compelled to seek the truth about himself. He is Willy's pride and joy, being the first-born; Biff is the personification of all of Willy's dreams, he would be respected and "well liked". As a teenager, Biff worshipped his father. He was everything Willy wanted him to be -- star athlete, popular with the girls, "well liked" by everyone, he was "Like a young god.
It is evident that Happy only found happiness in pleasing Willy. Even though Willy ignored Happy, his devotion to his father was strong and this is evident because he would stand up to Biff and defend Willy. Happy states: All right, boy. I’m gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He has a good dream. It’s the only dream you can have to come out number-one man. He fought it out here, and this is where I’m gonna win it for him” (Miller, 139). This quote is said at Willy Loman’s grave and Happy says that he will continue his father’s illusions and become the next generations, Willy Loman. Willy always favoured his son Biff, and it turned out that Happy was the son who obeyed his
As a father, Willy only wants the best for his sons. He wants his sons to do better than what he has done with his life and achieve more success. Willy 's dreams for his sons are a source of tension and anxiety for Biff and Happy. Their desire to please their father clashes with what is deemed moral and the right way to act. Willy 's dreams for his sons are seen as added pressure for them to succeed within life. In order to fulfill their father 's wishes, they develop a mindset that they must do whatever it takes for them to succeed. Happy is trying to move up the ranks within the company he works for and in order to please Willy, he acts as if the only way to advance is by neglecting any sort of boundaries. When Happy is discussing his competitiveness
Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is a story about the dark side of the "American Dream". Willy Loman's obsession with the dream directly causes his failure in life, which, in turn, leads to his eventual suicide. The pursuit of the dream also destroys the lives of Willy's family, as well. Through the Lomans, Arthur Miller attempts to create a typical American family of the time, and, in doing so, the reader can relate to the crises that the family is faced with and realize that everyone has problems.
When growing up I always had plenty of deaths in the family. I was never able to understand how a person, especially a child could experience 3-6 deaths a year. My heart was broken, eyes swollen, and emotionally unstable at the time. The truth be told I did not realize what to resolve with myself, besides lock in my emotions and fake they weren’t there. As a young man, I was taught not to show fear, tears, but only happiness. One day a remarkable shock hit me when I received a call about my grandfather’s death. I pretended that the facts lied, my grandfather was really much alive and will always be. After the horrible incident, I closed down from people, because of that my past relationship never worked out due to me not opening up. This reminds me of Willy since he pretends the
That kind of favoritism has a profound effect on a child, in order to be acknowledged by his father, Happy believes he must become Willy’s version of success by acquiring wealth and popularity. Happy has been living his entire life in a way that he believes will bring him attention from his father, yet his father ignores him and he becomes more miserable that if he had gone his own way. When a father chooses to favor upon one son over another, the father-son relationship occurs as well as in the son’s life. Within this relationship, the responsibility of the father is to provide values, a role model and leadership for his sons. In almost every family, the sons will look to their father as role model and a hero, which in this case Biff does but Happy does not. It is in the father’s best interest to use this opportunity to give these qualities and allow his sons to become responsible