Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is a tragic play about the downfall of an everyday man. Willy Loman is an aging and struggling father and salesman in the late 1940s. Even though Willy is the protagonist, the supporting characters do much to define him. Ben bestows Willy with a misguided perception of success. When asked about his success Ben’s constant response is, “When I was seventeen I walked into jungle and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich!”(33). Willy tells his sons to live by this advice, but it is not advice at all. This advice does not emphasize the value of hard work. Willy looks to Ben for fatherly advice but he falls short. This absence of fatherly guidance fosters a lack of worth ethic. Bernard and Charley’s success help to define Willy’s failure. Willy views Bernard as nerdy and unpopular, therefore being unsuccessful. Despite that, he works hard and becomes successful. Willy equates popularity with success but they are not necessarily relative. Charley taught Bernard to work hard; Willy taught Biff and Happy to be well liked. Bernard mirrors what Willy wishes him and his sons to be, prosperous businessmen. Charley is successful too and repeatedly tries to offer Willy a job; but he turns down the offers, even after being fired. His pride is so important to him that he would rather have no job …show more content…
Willy is trying to live through Biff and help him become the salesman he wishes he was. He is the happiest when he is hopeful; when he thinks the boys are making a deal with Oliver, he is on top of the world. However, the foundation he provides for his sons to be successful is shaky, as it is based merely on being well liked. Still, Biff would have graduated high school and moved toward his father's dream if he had not have caught him cheating. Willy’s actions fed into Biff’s failure, leaving himself to blame for destroying his own hopes for his son's
“BIFF [crying, broken]: Will you let me go for Christ’s sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?” By saying this Biff tries to address his family on the giant rift between Willy’s dreams for him and reality. He tries to explain that all he wants is for Willy to let go of those dreams and high standards he has set for him so he can create his own reality rather than fulfill his father's dream. Willy's dreams for Biff were very unrealistic for the reality of his situation,which caused him to fill unsuccessful and push himself away from his father. The reason Willy wanted his children to do so well and had such big dreams for them was because he wasn't able to achieve the dream and had a fear he had failed and so he wanted to force his dream to be fulfilled by his children. Therefore, due to Willy’s wildly unrealistic amount of pride, causing him to make poor decisions, betray his family by having a mistress and finally his unrealistic dreams for his sons, he paved his way towards his failure and his deep fear of isolation and
In a flashback Willy has, it is shown that Willy jokes about Charley’s son, Bernard, a “nerd” who helps Biff with his math so he doesn’t fail, by claiming that despite Bernard being smart, he will not get far in life because he is not as “liked: as Biff, who at the time was a football star. After Biff saw his father with is mistress, he began viewing his father more negatively, rejecting all of Willy’s future plans for him, calling him a “phony little fake”. Biff’s rejection of Willy’ future plans for him sends Willy into a downward spiral, making him more and more delusional. Ironically, Willy failed to sell his plans to his own son, when his main profession is selling products to people, as he is a
The relationship between Biff and Willy is not good. Since Biff found that his father Willy was cheating to her mother he left the home. In the play The Death of a Salesman Willy Loman and Biff seems they don’t like each other. Although Willy love his son Biff. When Biff was young Willy was always there supporting Biff in everything and was very proud of him. And he was the son that Willy had attached him dreams upon. According to the statement “I am not the leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were anything but a hard working drummer who landed in the ash-can like all the rest of them”. Biff’s observation was that he sees his father as a failed to achieve, although he work hard to success. Willy loves Biff his oldest son since he was at school. In his mind he was thinking that Biff will become a successful man in life, but it didn’t happen’. Biff is a man who got the job but fail to keep his job. That makes Willy become frustrated. But Biff he tried to find himself. Here Biff compare his self and Willy’. Willy is the hard worker trying to achieve an American dream, and when he look at Ben his brother who achi...
In Willy’s flashback during his meeting with Charley, Ben explains how he became rich by explaining, “when I walked into the jungle, I was seventeen. When I walked out… by God, was I rich!” (Miller 36-37). Here, Ben hints how his success was due to his brave and wild actions of entering the jungle in a manly manner. Willy is inspired by these words of a rugged man who is well-liked by others, and tries to take on these traits himself. However, these traits are not fitting for Willy’s occupation as a salesman, since at the time, a good salesman was considered a polite man with a few words who was convincing in what they were selling. Willy tries to follow Ben’s ways, acting brash and being talkative around customers, which end up giving him little success. However, Willy refuses to change, and even states “a man can end with diamonds here on the basis of being liked… when [Biff] walks into a business office his name will sound out like a bell and all the doors will open to him!” (65-66). Not only do these words show how heavily impacted Willy is by Ben, but it also
The play, “Death of a Salesman” written by Arthur Miller, presents Willy Loman, as a salesman, who fails to earn a living and slowly loses his mind. Willy continuously seeks the past to find out where he went wrong. During his years in life, Willy wanted his two sons, Biff and Happy to become someone they’re not; Willy wanted them to become a salesman like him. However, because of his obsession in the American Dream of easy success and wealth, he created a life full of lies for himself and his sons. In the end because of “his misconception of himself as someone capable of greatness” leads to his downfall and the end of his life (Death of a Salesman).”
Willy Loman is a 60 year old senile salesman who desperately wants to be a successful salesman; however, his ideas about the ways in which one goes about achieving this are very much misguided, just as his morals are. He believes that popularity and good looks are the key to achieving the American dream, rather than hard work and dedication. He not only lives his entire life by this code, but instills his delusional beliefs in his two sons Biff and Happy. As a result, his sons experience similar failures in their adult lives. Willy led a life of illusion, lies and regret which not only ruined his life, but gad a negative impact on the lives of family as well.
Willy Loman, the main character in Death of a Salesman is a complex tragic character. He is a man struggling to hold onto the little dignity he has left in a changing society. While society may have caused some of his misfortune, Willy must be held responsible for his poor judgment, disloyalty and foolish pride.
“Death of a Salesman” written by Arthur Miller in 1948 attempts to give the audience an unusual glimpse into the mind of Willy Loman, a mercurial 60-year-old salesman, who through his endeavor to be “worth something”, finds himself struggling to endure the competitive capitalist world in which he is engulfed. Arthur Miller uses various theatrical techniques to gradually strip the protagonist down one layer at a time, each layer revealing another truth about his distorted past. By doing this, Miller succeeds in finally exposing a reasonable justification for Willy’s current state of mind. These techniques are essential to the play, as it is only through this development that Willy can realistically be driven to motives of suicide. The very first section of the first scene, already defines the basis of Willy’s character for the rest of the play.
Charley, unlike Willy, educates his son Bernard on the importance of hard work; thus, he teaches Bernard good morals and that popularity is not everything. Willy counters Charlie’s teachings, “Bernard can get the best marks in school, y’understnd, but when he gets out in the business world y’understand, you are going to be five times ahead of him” (33). Furthermore, Charlie’s understanding that material objects do not equal success in the business world illuminates Will’s lack of understanding of reality. Charley’s business accomplishments diminish Will’s business attempts, causing Willy to reject help from Charley. Willy rejects help from Charley, which is rooted in his self-pride, when Charley offers him a job he replies, “I got a job, I told you that”(43).
In the play, The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller,Willy Loman, an unsuccessful business man struggling to support his family is completely out of touch with reality throughout the plot line. Many characters throughout this play and their interactions with Willy have showed the audience his true colors and what he thinks is important in life. His constant lying and overwhelming ego certainly does not portray his life in factual terms, but rather in the false reality that he has convinced himself he lives in.
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller concerns itself with the fall of a simple man perpetually in a steadfast state regarding his own failure in a success-driven society. The protagonist of the play, Willy Loman, will follow a tragic trajectory that will eventually lead to his suicide. Arthur Miller's tragic play is an accurate portrayal of the typical American myth that sustains an extreme craving for success and a belief in the illusion of the American dream, a dream attainable only by a handful of people. Having chosen a career in sales Willy Loman constantly aspires to become 'great'. Nevertheless, Willy is a poor aging salesman that considers himself to be a failure when comparing himself to his successful father and brother, but he is incapable of consciously admitting it. Consequently, Willy will measure his level of success with the level of success attained by his offspring, particularly his eldest son Biff. Their difficult relationship contribute to the play's main plot. Willy unfolds his deluded perception and recollection of the events as the audience gradually witnesses the tragic downfall of a man shadowed by a mental illness that has already began to take it's toll on his mind and personality.
The play “Death of the Salesman” by Arthur Miller, introduced the dramatic story of Willy Loman, a salesman who has reached the end of the road. Willy Loman is a washed-up salesman who is facing hard times. In “Death of a Salesmen,” Willy Loman has been deluding himself over the years to the point he cannot understand what is wrong with him. This leads to the problems with is sons, wife, and career; it ultimately is what ends his life. I believed that the character of Willy 's delusion caused him to fall. While there were many contributing factors to Willy 's demise, his failure to cope with such circumstances and to become trapped in his own delusion is what tears Willy apart from himself and his family. Rather than facing the reality, Willy
He is fervently determined to succeed in his contemporary competitive society. In a conversation with his children about Bernard, he enumerates a few features he presumes as important if one wants to have success. Willy tells his children that Bernard might get the best grades in school, but they will certainly have more success than he will as they are “[…] built like Adonis’s” (Miller 34). Willy assumes that it is necessary to be attractive to become successful. Additionally, he says that it is “[…] the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead” (Miller 34). Moreover, Willy states that “it’s not what you say; it’s how you say it – because personality always wins the day” (Miller 70). Willy believes that if he wants to become a successful businessperson, he has to impress people with his appearance and with his looks; he has to seduce his customers with his personality and his charm. Willy has his own role model he looks up to - it is Dave Singleman, who incarnates what Willy so adamantly wants to be, as he became a successful businessperson. Through him, […] [Willy] real...
Willy's goal throughout life was to climb out of his social class. As a salesman, Willy was a failure and he tried desperately to make his sons never end up like him. As a result, he loses his mind and his grasp on reality. Throughout the story, Willy often has flashbacks of the conversations that he and his brother Ben once had and the author intertwines them in past and present very nicely.
Willy Loman equates success as a human being with success in the business world. When Willy was a young man, he heard of a salesman who could "pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, make his living." (81) This salesman is Willy's inspiration; someday to be so respected and so well known that he can still provide for his family, even at an old age. Of course, Willy is no good at being a salesman because his heart isn't in it. The only time Willy puts his heart into anything is when he works with his hands, and his son, Biff, comes to realize this. "There's more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made." (138) Willy never comes to the realization that it is not being a salesman that he cares about, but rather being well known and, perhaps more importan...