Willy Loman got lost in chasing the American Dream. As a salesman in the concrete jungle, Willy had unrealistic aspirations which left him “boxed in”. He is surrounded by high rising skyscrapers which engulf not only him but his whole family. Because of this Willy has a false sense of the American Dream and in trying to achieve it, he fails. The skyscrapers and his own references to being “boxed in” serve as a metaphor for his life. He chased after riches and materialistic possessions rather than his own happiness which consequently led to his death. Willy lives in a house which has “towering, angular shapes” surrounding it. These buildings represent the American Dream and all the fortune that it can bring. His house is amid an “orange glow” which represents the pollution of the city’s high rising buildings. Just like how his home is inferior to the skyscrapers’ pollution, Willy is to the American Dream. He is a slave of the philosophy that surrounds him, and he will never achieve what others have. The tall buildings and closing in on the “fragile-seeming” home and they are overpow...
support is a pathetic effort to protect his identity. Linda will never admit to herself,
Miller’s use of personification and symbolism in the book shows the situational irony that surrounds Willy. This highlights the overall message of blind faith towards the American Dream. The major case of irony in the book is Willy’s blind faith in the American Dream. This belief is that if one is well-liked, they will become successful. The truth is actually completely opposite. The real belief is that if one works hard, with no regard to how well liked they are, they will be successful. This relationship is shown between Willy and his neighbor Charley. While Willy believes likability is the only way to success, Charley works hard and does not care how people think of him. Through his hard work, Charley started his own business, and is now very successful. Willy, however, ends up getti...
Through the course of this play we get an inside look at the mind of Willy Loman, a salesman from Brooklyn, New York. Willy has worked for almost everything he has, and maintains most of his property by himself. He worked almost his entire life as a traveling salesman, and developed a wholehearted belief in the American Dream which he carried with him until the day he died. Despite Willy’s best efforts, neither of his sons are able to fulfill his vision of success and much less even carry his hope of a better life onwards. Throughout the play we are able to observe his deterioration into madness that accompanies the decay of his mental
No one’s life can be classified as “normal”. Everyone has conflicts that they have to eventually deal with. People do in fact deal with these personal conflicts in different ways; some take it easy some take it hard. Some ignore the problem as long as possible and some deal with it right away to get it out of the way. In Death of a Salesman, Willy Lowman’s technique to his problem solving leads to severe consequences. Willy never does anything to help the situation; he just escapes into the past to happier times when there were few problems. He uses this escape as if it was a drug, and as the play goes on, this drug becomes dangerous, leading him to his death.
Although, his narcissism exhibits the common issue with American capitalism-it leads to greediness, unhappiness, and anger. This yearning for success can also cause an obsession with appearance and the self, which is a main focus in Willy Loman’s life. He says that to get somewhere, it is good to be “built like (an) Adonis,” which he tells his sons. At one point in his life, he felt he never had to ask for anything, and that when he walked in a room, he got what he wanted because “‘Willy Loman is here!’” Eventually, Willy ages and lacks the flair that he once had, and is left with unimpressive salesman skills. Due to America’s obsession with appearance, old-age is a plague to American society. The superficiality causes those to enjoy charisma over passion. This leads to arrogance, a common American worker to be. Willy Loman is a mirror being held up to the faces of American worker-bees. He avoided risks, and continued living a monotonous, easy life. Miller is attempting to say, monotony is a dangerous habit America has. This play intends to steer readers into a direction of following their own path, rather than following the norm; the norm is nothing new, and fails to reach anything
BANG! Your father is dead. Within a few seconds, although he attempted many times, your father dies. He gave up. All the fights, all the disrespect, and all the struggles are behind you. However, all the hope, all the passion, and all the love is still there. In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, the main conflict is between Willy Lowman and his son Biff. Most of their struggles are based on disrespect; however, much of the tension throughout the play is also caused by the act of giving up.
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.
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's dream causes him to live in a world of lies and deceit, which ultimately leads to his tragic end. In conclusion, it is evident that the demise of Willy Loman came from him dreaming the wrong dream. This is evident through
Willy Loman is a firm believer in the "American Dream:" the notion that any man can rise from humble beginnings to greatness. His particular slant on this ideal is that a man succeeds by selling his charisma, that to be well liked is the most important asset a man can have. He made a living at this for 30 years, but as he enters the reclining years of his life, people have stopped smiling back and he can no longer sell the firm's goods to support himself. His ambition was one of greatness, to work hard and to be a member of the firm; and if he could not succeed in this respect, that he should at least be well-liked and be able to sell until the day of his death: When his friends would flock from all over the country to pay their respects.
In brief, it is apparent that Willy’s own actions led to not only his own demise, but his children’s as well. The salesman tragically misinterpreted the American Dream for only the superficial qualities of beauty, likeability and prosperity. Perhaps if Willy had been more focused on the truth of a person’s character, rather than purely physical aspects, his family’s struggles and his own suicide could have been avoided. On the whole, Arthur Miller’s play is evidence that the search for any dream or goal is not as easy and the end result may seem. The only way to realize the objective without any despair is the opposite of Willy Loman’s methods: genuineness, perseverance and humility.
Willy Loman will bring his downfall upon himself as he entices his own disillusions and the bedrock of his values pertaining to success and how one can achieve it. His failure to recognize the fruitless outcome of his own idealism will seal his fated suicide and have a determining effect on the failures of his two sons that when adolescent, idolized their father as a guid...
Moreover, the psychological view of Willy Loman is shown as a person who works as a traveling salesman and decides to commit suicide because the “American Dream” overwhelms him. As Charley says in the story: “the only thing you got in this world is what you can sell”. He is a normal person “who embodies traditional American values of success.”(Hansberry) In fact, Willy Loman wants to a great extent believe that he is one of the finest salesmen, a winner in life and a great father. For Mr. Loman, the accomplish...
In short, Willy Loman's unrealistic dreams caused his downfall. By trying to be successful with material desires and being "well-liked" he failed. By the play's end he had to lose his own life just to provide funding for that of his family. He put his family through endless torture because of his search for a successful life. He should have settled with what he had, for his true happiness included a loving family. Willy's example shows that one must follow their own dreams to be truly accomplished.
Willy’s hubris makes him feel extremely proud of what he has, when in reality he has no satisfaction with anything in his life. Willy Loman’s sons did not reach his expectations, as a father, but he still continued to brag about Biff and Happy in front of Bernard. Willy Loman caused the reader to empathize with him because before his tragic death he did everything he could for his family. Empathy, Hubris, and Willy Loman’s tragic flow all lead him to his death that distends from the beginning. He is unable to face reality and realize that he’s not successful in life or at his job; he remains living in a world where he thinks he’s greater than everybody else because he’s a salesman.