Willy wants Biff to be the successful man that he never was and feels that Biff will not achieve success in the occupation he has taken. Furthermore, Willy was unable to admit his faults. His pride was so great that he even lied to his own family, borrowing money weekly from his neighbor, Charley, and then saying it was his salary. He tried to justify his affair with a strange woman when caught by Biff. He...
Winnie Zhong 2/13/2014 English 10 Dr. Lupardo Death of a Salesman Death of a Salesman, written by Arthur Miller in 1949, is a play attempts to identify and validate the “tragic flaw” of a common man. It is a tragedy describing the consequences arose between a family’s American dream and the reality of their lives. Willy Loman, the main character, is bought into an extreme obsession of the American Dream or the success in becoming a “well liked” salesman. However, after having done everything in order to achieve and live the dream, Willy Loman fails to receive the success promised by it. Throughout the play, the most important reason causing Willy’s failure in achieving his goal seems to be his own inability to recognize the unpleasant reality while continually living in a slanted fantasy that his mind has created.
The Effects of Male Expectations Male expectations are ever present in our world creating an adverse effect on men making them feel inferior if they are unable to succeed financially. Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman explicitly shows just how harmful these expectations can be to a person and their families. The main character in the play Death of a Salesman Willy Loman is greatly affected by these male expectations. The man is expected to not only support his family but must also be able to climb to the top of the corporate ladder. Willy’s inability to succeed financially as expected from society in turn affects his two sons Biff and Happy and his loving wife Linda.
His distorted perceptions of the American Dream ultimately ruined his life and the lives of his family. Sadly, Willy definitely failed as a father. He obviously favored his eldest son Biff over his youngest son Happy, and this constant neglect drove Happy to become more like his older brother as an adult in order to win his father’s approval. We can see this through his philandering behavior, something Biff was known for in high school, the golden years. Biff, on the other hand, had it worse because his father sold him lies about his importance in the business industry, which forced Biff to admire Willy and strive to be like him one day.
His false dreams and skewed sense of reality led him to believe that following his true passion, carpentry, was not a conventional way of life. Willy’s true passion for carpentry and not sales can be evidenced in the quote, “There’s more Willy in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made” (Miller, 22). Willy mainly constructed his fantasy as a means of coping with his personal failures, for he had the “wrong dreams. All, all wrong” (Miller ?). In Willy’s deluded state, he lied to his family, regularly lying to them of his success at work.
He leads his sons to believe the same ludicrous keys to success, pointing them in the same direction of failure. Everyone but Willy sees fault in his judgement as “his old friends, the old buyers that loved him so and alwaysfound some order to hand him in a pinch -- they’re all dead, retired” (Miller 32). With these factors counting against him, Willy still has not realized his life is at a standstill, not moving at all and he’s failing. His entire life he’d depended on the help of other people. Although he wants his sons to live a successful life, he’s teaching them the wrong points of gaining that particular lifestyle.
Biff made his dreams in life very clear, but instead of supporting them and encouraging his son, Willy chose to shame his son for not choosing a career that would earn him a lot of money. Willy becomes very angry whenever Biff comes home to visit because he is reminded that his son does not share the same vision for the future that he does. When Biff comes home Willy lectures Linda about their son and says, “Biff Loman is lost. In the greatest country in the world a young man with such-personal attractiveness, gets lost” (16). Willy shows that he is very disappointed in the way that Biff has chosen to live his life, and he feels that Biff is still lost, even though Biff has stated that he is doing what makes him happy.
Willy Loman becomes incredibly involved in work-related matters, instead of the happiness surrounding his family life. He discourages Biff to take his own path, and instead, nearly forces him to become a salesman, in hopes that Biff will be more successful than he turned out to be. Willy tells Biff that his dreams will “cut down (his) life…!” Willy cannot simply hope for Biff and Happy to attain satisfaction in life, which is the element that Willy misses. He is so consumed by the idea of success that he had not once stopped to reflect on being a good father or loving his wife. Having an affair was one of his main problems-he could not put enough love into his family, so he put it anywhere else he could.
The Destruction of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman In the book Death of A Salesman, author Arthur Miller shows how cruel life can be through the life of Willy Loman, the main character. His feelings of guilt, failure, and sadness result in his demise. Willy's sense of pride is a very big issue in his life; he doesn't like people to give him handouts, although he may need them. But the feeling of failure overrides him when he learns about the loss of his job. "But I got to be in 10-12 hours a day.
In Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the conflicts that formulate between Biff and Willy Loman build up to the death of Willy. Biff’s delusional perception of being liked in the world leads to a successful life which was an idea brought onto him by his father, Biff’s discovery of his father's affair, and Biff’s lack of business success all accumulate to the heavy conflicting relationship between Biff and his father, Willy. These contribute immensely to the idea that personal dreams and desire to reach success in life can negatively impact life with personal relationships, which causes people to lose sight of what is important. This ultimately leads to the Willy committing suicide from the build up of problems with his son. During the