Happy Loman And Death Of A Salesman Comparison Essay

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represents that even when individuals go through conflict either internally or externally the first step to getting better is understanding the problem and moving on from there. Biff and Happy Loman are brothers in the play, The Death of a Salesman written by Arthur Miller. They are two very contrasting characters; the two brothers both deal with conflict in an entirely different manner, which leads to a completely different end result for each character. When two characters start out with the same perspective, you can clearly identify the differences between them as the characters adapt and revise who they were.

Happy Loman is Biff’s younger brother, who was often overlooked by his father, who gave all his attention to Biff. Throughout the play the reader can see that Happy has a need for attention that stemmed from his childhood, and carried with him throughout the play. When Happy says “I’m losing weight, you notice pop?” we realize that when Happy was a child he struggles to get the same attention that Biff gets, due to the fact that he never gets the attention he desires, he craved attention from his parents in his adult years also. Happy is more successful finically than Biff in their adult years, but Happy being a one-dimensional character doesn’t possess the knowledge to be his own person, or make his own decisions. Happy doesn’t come to terms with reality in the play, he lives and thrives in the lies that he has made for himself. Happy doesn’t understand that you cannot live a life of make believe to make yourself feel accepted. Even when Happy is confronted with his lies he still tries to make them sound like the truth, we see this occur when Biff says "You big blow, are you the assistant buyer? You're one of the two as...

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...ectations. Biff becomes his own man because he accepts the lies that he grew up in, and once he accepted them he could recover from them and be whoever he wanted to be.

Two characters that were once the same, can become two very different characters when they learn to understand their pasts and become who they truly are meant to be. Both young men grew up with the guidance of Willy. We see one son who start to live the life that Willy lived, and one son who breaks free from the lies, and becomes the man he wants to be. By the end of the play Biff has learnt a great deal about who he wants to be, and how the truth can set you free. Happy learnt nothing throughout the play he started as a man living in an illusion, and ended the play the exact same way. Through the contrast of characters we see how much Biff truly learnt about life, and about himself as a person.

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