Their Common Enemy
It is known that a number of students dislike school. School is a big topic of conversation in every student's life. Some students enjoy the work but most talk about how horrible it is. Take a random group of students; have an open discussion on school work and you will find that students will be agreeing with each other about how stressed they are. The students found a common enemy and it brought them closer because they could talk bad about school and agree with each other. Just like the students who bond when talking about schoolwork,
Linda and Willy from Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, bond when they discuss money. "Well it makes 70 dollars and some pennies, That's very good
(35)." Linda says this to Willy after she found out that his pay wasn't as expected. Whenever they talk about paying their mortgage they seem to compromise and have a healthy conversation. Usually when they talk about other important issues, they end up arguing because Willy has a short temper. "You shouldn't have criticized him, Willy, especially after he just got off the train.
You mustn't lose your temper with him (15)." Willy has no shame because he will talk about anyone and not care. Talking about their mortgage helps them to stay together by agreeing with one another. Whenever the topic comes up, their moods totally change and even though they might not know it; they act as if paying their mortgage is their favorite thing to discuss.
"WILLY: `Well, that's a great thing. To weather a twenty-five year mortgage is ------ .'
LINDA: `It's and accomplishment.' (73). When they are almost done paying they are very happy and even Willy makes a comment; but he stops himself from expressing his true feelings. Why? Why does Willy prevent himself from being happy with the good things that he has in his life? He tries to live a life that doesn't exist and ends up agonizing. He should just enjoy what he already has and work with it. What ends up happening is that Willy becomes his own enemy so it's not about the mortgage or money anymore. He is the enemy and
Linda, Biff and Happy are the one's that come together to help Willy be content.
LINDA: `He's dying Biff.'
BIFF: `Why is he dying?'
LINDA: `He's been trying to kill himself.' (58)"
Linda and Biff come together even more because of Willy trying to commit suicide.
Willy is destroying himself because he is too much of a dreamer.
Linda talks to Willy realistically and tries to break up his dreams.
This false confidence from Willy may temporarily give him and his wife a positive mood, but it does not do him any good in the long run. He uses this false confidence to make his wife happy, and to put away her worries. Willy almost sounds like Lennie from Of Mice and Men, which further emphasizes how detached he is. He is also tricking himself into thinking that he is doing well, which has a negative effect. Happy also exhibits this false confidence in Act One, when talking with Willy.
A bit later we get an idea of how successful Willy is. Willy tries to
Throughout the play, Willy can be seen as a failure. When he looks back on all his past decisions, he can only blame himself for his failures as a father, provider, and as a salesman (Abbotson 43). Slowly, Willy unintentionally reveals to us his moral limitations that frustrates him which hold him back from achieving the good father figure and a successful business man, showing us a sense of failure (Moss 46). For instance, even though Willy wants so badly to be successful, he wants to bring back the love and respect that he has lost from his family, showing us that in the process of wanting to be successful he failed to keep his family in mind (Centola On-line). This can be shown when Willy is talking to Ben and he says, “He’ll call you a coward…and a damned fool” (Miller 100-101). Willy responds in a frightful manner because he doesn’t want his family, es...
One problem Willy has is that he does not take responsibility for his actions; this problem only gets worse because of his lies. Biff looks up to Willy, so when he finds out that Willy has an affair in Boston, Biff is petrified. Biff realizes his hero, dad, the one he wants to impress, is a phony and a liar. Willy destroys Biff's dream of playing football by saying he does not have to study for the math regents, he also Willy telling Bernard to give Biff the answers. When Biff fails the regents, he does not want to retake the test because he is so disgusted with his hero and does not want to succeed. Not only did Willy destroy Biff's dream, he also broke his vows and refused to admit it. Biff is a failure, in Willy's eye, in most part due to Willy and what happened in Boston. Willy refuses to take responsibility for what he did, so he lies about Biff. Willy tells Bernard that Biff has been doing great things out west, but decided to come back home to work on a "big deal". Willy knows that Biff is a bum who has not amounted to anything, but he refuses to take responsibility for what happened in Boston, so he changes the story of Biff's success. Throughout Willy's life he continued to lie. It might have stopped if Linda did not act the way as she did. Linda is afraid to confront Willy, so she goes along with his outlandish lies.
Foremost, Willy has a problem with his inability to grasp reality. As he grows older his mind is starting to slip. For example, when he talks to the woman and his brother Ben. Throughout the story, Willy dreams of talking to the woman, because the woman is a person that he was dating in when he went to Boston. He was cheating behind his wife’s back. Willy basically uses her as a scapegoat when he’s hallucinating about her. He blames all of his problems on the woman. For instance Willy says, “ Cause you do… There’s so much I want to make for.” (38) This is the evidence right here. Also he dreams about his brother Ben. Willy wishes could be more like his brother who has just passed away a couple of months previously to the story. He also wishes he didn’t have to work and could be rich like Ben. He respects Ben for not really working and making a lot of money. Another example of Willy’s hallucinations are when he says,“ How are you all?” (45) This occurs when Willy is talking with Charley and he starts thinking about Ben. Willy’s inability to grasp reality never changed throughout the story.
Willy is blind to the reality around him. This blindness, is his tragic flaw like that of Oedipus Rex. Willy is a dreamer who is unable to face the realities of a modern day society. Willy builds his whole life around the philosophy that if a person is well likedand good looking, he will be successful. Willy says to Biff, "I thank Almighty God that you are both are built like Adonises." Later, Willy makes the comment, "Be liked and you will never want." His need to be well liked is so strong that his choices throughout his life, and his blindness to the reality around him, prevents Willy from realizing his dreams and values were flawed.
The internal conflict begins with Willy’s expectations for his sons and The Woman. Willy struggles throughout the play with having extremely high expectations for his sons, Happy and Biff. Happy and Willy get along well because they are most alike of the two sons. Happy has the same materialistic mindset as Willy. Miller shows this when Happy and Biff discuss having the apartment for themselves. Happy tells Biff:
Not only is Willy envious, but he also idolizes Ben because of his success. Willy often asks Ben, "what's the secret?"
This scene displays Willy’s regrets and pride; he wants to provide for his family but isn’t willing to give up his dream to do so. At the beginning of the play, Charlie is described as vulgar and mundane, however he is portrayed as sympathetic and caring to his less fortunate neighbors. Willy has a developed mindset throughout the story, this mindset being one of allusion. Willy is convinced that the more people that like someone, the farther they will go in life. The issue here is that Willy claims to be very well-liked and that is how he got as far as he did. Though in all reality, Willy did not make it very far in life, which is what brings him to his neighbor’s house to beg for money and support, which his neighbor is already giving him. His neighbor Charlie has a son named Bernard, who is seemingly a perfect child who makes Willy jealous, for his own son’s sake, who can’t do simple math. This jealousy corrupts Willy’s mind further, and only makes him want to take further actions to taking from his neighbor. Willy is all about success and providing for his beloved family, though this is not shown through his actions. As aforementioned, Willy is not willing to give up his dreams to support the family, he is the type of person who is all talk and no walk. This shows even through his attempts to take his own life, these are also actions of
The need for attention continues as an adult, but Willy and Linda continue to brush Happy off in much the same way they did when he was younger
When Willy causes conflict with his son Biff, he usually is talking about how he is 34 and still lives at home and doesn't have a job. He says “When the hell did I lose my temper? I simply asked him if he was making any money. Is that a criticism?”(Miller, act 1, scene 1, page 7). He previously argued with Linda that Biff and Happy were sleeping because they went on a date the night before. Willy was angry that he is almost about to pay the house off and there's nobody to live in it when he does pay it off. He says “Figure it out. Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You
He is two years younger than Biff and was never put to as high of a standard as Biff. Even in Willy’s daydreams, he doesn’t say anything that his father cares too much about. Even so, Happy see’s himself as successful while only being the assistant’s assistant. Happy also feels less lonely and unaccomplished because he doesn’t have a family of his own (Miller Act II:1618). Resulting in him seeking as many women as possible. He is what Willy would consider a success while being blind to eventually share the same doom as his father. Ironically still being in his failed brothers shadow.
For the duration of the entire play the reader is constantly being reminded by Willy th...
Willy thinks that being well-liked and a hard worker will put you on top of the world and give you a wonderful life. After the exchange, Linda retires to bed and Willy begins talking to himself. He reminisces about his past as if he had nothing positive to look forward to. We are given a glimpse of this at a very early stage in the play, when he daydreams about a conversation that he had years ago with his two boys, Biff and Happy. In the daydream, one of the boys’ neighborhood friends named Bernard, a hardworking student who idolizes Biff, comes in and urges Biff to study for a test because he does not want him to fail. Willy tells Bernard, “Don’t be a pest” (Act 1), and explains to his boys that the key to success is not getting...
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