The Perfect Wrong Dreams in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

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In the drama Death of a Salesman written by Arthur Miller, the main character Willy appears to have a form of Alzheimer’s in his old age while repetitively reminiscing of previous times with his family and work profession. Willy seems to have unwillingly convinced his son Biff to be an underachiever when Biff caught his father Willy in an affair with a client’s secretary. When Biff found out about the affair he soon decided he would not attend summer school putting his dreams of playing college football behind, soon to lead to a life of failures. Although from that point on Biff resents his father, Biff never tells Linda of the affair.
In the beginning of the play, Willy boasts of his success in his sales in Boston, Massachusetts. Linda soon reminds him that his sales were to barely be considered a success. Linda supports Willy in every way she can hoping to prevent him from attempting to kill himself again as he has tried to in the past according to her. She is afraid that his disappointment in his and Biff’s failures keeps him in an unstable mental state that almost constantly keeps him falling into flashbacks of his past memories when things with the family were still well. He often has flashbacks of his successful brother Ben, considering that Willy appears to be a man only focused on financial success, Willy has flashbacks and hallucinations of him often because of Willy’s jealousy of his brother’s success.
As the play continues, Linda and Willy convince Biff to go to an old friend of his in order to discuss a business proposal in order for Biff and Happy to begin their way to financial success. He gets to his meeting and soon realizes that he was never a salesman and never got along with him to begin with. B...

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...lf when he has another hallucination of himself talking to his brother. Willy walks outside and starts his vehicle. His family runs to the door to stop him when it was too late. Willy finally successfully committed suicide in a wreck.
In conclusion, Willy’s affair with his client’s secretary was a major factor to the events throughout the play. The affair created major problems with himself and Biff. The problems with Willy and Biff caused even more problems with the rest of the family. Willy’s dreams of Biff being a salesman were destroyed by his own actions. Biff did not want to be like his father after he caught Willy cheating. The affair was always in both of their thoughts when they were around each other and caused a domino effect of problems on all of them both financially and mentally, proving that the affair was the major point beginning the problems.

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