Death Of A Salesman

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“Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done, … but how could that be, when I did everything properly?';
I can hear it now, Willy Loman uttering those words as he flips through the pages of his life. In the play, Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, we witness the deterioration and death of a very well intentioned man. The quote above from Leo Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilych, could not possibly better echo the situation developed in Arthur Miller’s play. The play becomes Willy Loman’s life trial in which he and his family undergo an intense review of their lives. Willy through his confessions searches to find out what went wrong in his life. However, he dies without ever grasping the truth of it all.
Willy Loman is a traveling salesman in his sixties. As we first find him, he is in the beginning of an emotional crisis. His past, recurring to him in realistic flashbacks, is interfering with the present. Each episode draws forth another problem that Willy has to face in his present situation. The problem for Willy was the question that he was asking himself. It is a question that many older individuals ask themselves, “Did I succeed in life, was it all worth it?'; Poor Willy is beginning to realize that he has lived his entire life for the wrong reasons.
Willy raised his two sons in all the wrong ways. He encouraged cheating and mocked hard work and true success. Everything in his life was a false standard. Willy’s view of an individual’s success was how well that individual was, “liked.'; He instilled in his children all the wrong values and encouraged all the wrong things. This poor moral installment is typified in this conversation between Willy and his son Biff.
BIFF: I flunked math dad……. Would you talk to him? He’d like you Pop. You know the way you could talk.
WIILY: You’re on. We’ll drive right back
BIFF: Oh, Dad, good work! I’m sure he’ll change it for you!. See, the reason he hates me, Pop-one day he was late for class so I got up at the blackboard and imitated him. I crossed my eyes and talked with a lithp.
WILLY: laughing: You did? The kids like it?
I really found this conversation to show the exact problem that Willy had. He had instilled the worst values in his children and then never sought to correct them.

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