The Fall of Willy Loman Willy Loman was a man who gradually destroyed himself with false hopes and beliefs. Throughout his entire life Willy believed that he would die a rich and successful man. It was inevitable for him to come crumbling down after years of disillusions. We can look at Willy’s life by examining some of his character traits that brought him down. Charley once said to Willy, “When the hell are you going to grow up?” Willy spent his entire life will this false illusions and comcepts, he thought that he would die a rich and famous man. When he looked at himself, he saw a great man that was successful. One may think that having a positive outlook is good for ones self-esteem, but in Willy’s case it was detrimental. Just as Charley asked this question to Willy, it was left like most things in his life, unanswered. Another poor character trait in Willy was the way he had such high hopes and dreams. Willy was taken captive by the American Dream. He was so consumed with the idea of it; he never took a moment to realize that he couldn’t capture that fantasy. He was so consumed that it caused him to suffer from crippling self-delusion. In the beginning of the play, Willy was in a delirium; he couldn’t even extinguish reality from his fantasy world. “Biff is a lazy bum…Biff Loman is lost. In the greatest country in the world a young man with such-personal attractiveness, gets lost. And such a hard worker. There’s one thing about Biff--he’s not lazy.” From Wil...
According to Frye's definition, tragic heroes bring suffering upon themselves. Willy Loman is delusional and has a skewed view on the world he lives in. Willy asserts that he is young, popular, and respected among his family and workmates. Flashbacks of past memories, which interrupt the present day flow of time, prove that Willy is not everything he used to be in his younger years. This constant misconception of time is Willy Loman's main flaw, and he is the main victim in this suffering. Willy's misunderstanding of the world around him is shown in key scenes, such as his conversation with his brother Ben in the garden near the end of the play (Miller 99). The death of Willy Loman is also a consequence of his flaw: Willy's disorganized state of mind causes him to jump into a car and crash.
At the beginning of the play it is evident that he cannot determine the realities of life, and so he repeatedly contradicts himself to establish that his conclusion is correct and opinion accepted. These numerous contradictions demonstrate that Willy is perturbed of the possibility that negative judgements may come from others. Willy strongly believes that “personality always wins” and tells his sons that they should “be liked and (they) will never want”. In one of Willy’s flashbacks he recalls the time when his sons and him were outside cleaning their Chevy. Willy informs Biff and Happy the success of his business trips and how everyone residing in Boston adores him. He mentions that due to the admiration of people he does not even have to wait in lines. He ultimately teaches his sons that being liked by others is the way to fulfilling one’s life and removing your worries. These ideals, that one does not need to work for success, demonstrate Willy’s deluded belief of achieving a prosperous life from the admiration and acceptance of others. This ultimately proves to be a false ideology during his funeral, when an insufficient amount of people arrive. Willy constantly attempts to obtain other’s acceptance through his false tales that depict him as a strong, successful man. In the past, he attempts to lie to his wife, Linda, about the amount of wealth he has attained during his
An additional segment of his common human nature is Willy's self-centeredness. Although one might say that the American Dream is imposed upon him by the society, Willy himself creates his dream. Willy supports this claim when he praises Dave Singleman's career to Howard: "And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want" (Miller 81). His nostalgia for a non-existing future is also proven by the fact that no one else in his environment has a similar, impossible dream: "If he were not wearing the rose colored glasses of the myth of the American Dream, he would see that Charley and his son are successful because of lifelong hard work and not because of the illusions of social popularity and physical appearances" (Spark 11). Surely the false ego and pride predicted to come from his assured success are the bridges that prevents Willy from seeing through his fake dream, pushing him to persuade the rest of his family to worship it along with him.
Willy's belief in this statement drew him to believe that big business lacked compassion. It is because of this that he is abandoned by Biff and disowned by Happy, left babbling in a toilet. It is this flaw that allowed him to die a slow death and played the greatest role in his eventual downfall.
The life of Mr. Loman is one of loneliness, and lies. An online source emphasizes about Willy, “Willy convinces himself that he is successful, well- liked, and that his sons are destined for greatness.” Willy’s mind is consumed with being popular, and having material wealth. The results of Willy’s internal problems resulted with his children that could not be stable in any aspect of their lives, his failing marriage, and him struggling throughout all of his adulthood. Edward states (an online source), “Willy spent his life pursuing the wrong dreams for him. The wrong dream slowly possessed his life.” And also states, “Willy appears to have been obsessed with his goal of being known as a great salesman rather than with actually being a great salesman.” Willy is constantly under attack with thoughts of his past, to the point he has such vivid flashbacks that he will openly be talking to him, but thinking is he talking to people of the past. An online source states, “Unable to cope with reality, he entirely abandons it through his vivid fantasies and ultimately through suicide.” Willy is aware of his mistakes, but spends his time looking forward to the ‘perfect’ future he has planned, but never changes his ways to achieve his goals. Mr. and Mrs. Loman realize how different and happy Willy is when he is working outside with his hands. Both characters recognize
Willy Loman’s character is capable of making errors. He believes he is a very successful salesman and well liked. He also thinks that the company likes what he is doing. He once said, “I’m the New England man. I am vital in New England” (Miller pg. 32) Because of his false belief about his success Howard fired him. After he got fired charley offered him a job, but he refuses to accept, because he is too proud and jealous to work for Charley. His actions were wrong because at no time was a successful salesman. He is not a powerful character. Willy lives in his fantasies where he is the man. Who goes out to another place and comes out rich, he is love by everyone and admired by his family. In real life, he is lazy and does not live up to his own ideals. “As Aristotle explains, a tragic hero must be one of noble character and must fall from power and happiness.”(Www.ccd.rightchoice.org/lit115/poetics.html) but Willy neither has a noble characteristic nor does he fall from power because he does not have a position of power.
Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman follows protagonist Willy Loman in his search to better his and his family’s lives. Throughout Willy Loman’s career, his mind starts to wear down, causing predicaments between his wife, two sons and close friends. Willy’s descent into insanity is slowly but surely is taking its toll on him, his job and his family. They cannot understand why the man they have trusted for support all these years is suddenly losing his mind. Along with his slope into insanity, Willy’s actions become more aggressive and odd as the play goes on. Despite Willy and Biff’s “family feud”, his two sons Happy and Biff truly worry about their father’s transformation, Happy saying: “He just wants you to make good, that’s all. I wanted to talk to you about dad for a long time, Biff. Something’s – happening to him. He – talks to himself” (Miller 21). Willy, as a father, cares about his children but he wishes they would do better. He believes Biff should have been an athlete. According to Harrington, “Even figuratively, Willy is haunted, and particularly in Biff’s failure to achieve success as a sports figure” (108). This haunting is part of what led to Willy’s slow plunge into madness. As Willy’s career in sales fails, he also fails, even failing his family. Heyen adds: “He didn’t have anything of real value to give to his family, or if he did, he didn’t know what it was” (48). His debilitating flashbacks and delusional hallucinations with Uncle Ben cement his horrifying realizations that he has let down his family. Willy Loman blames the economy for his downfall in his career. In one of his more extreme outbursts he exclaims, “There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining this country! Population is getting out of control. ...
Willy's main flaw is his foolish pride, this it what makes him a tragic hero. Yet there are many facets to his personality that contribute to the state he and the family are in during the play. His upbringing of the boys is one major issue, he raised them with the notion that if one is well-liked, he need not worry about qualifications, he believed that if his boys were popular they would come out on top. Sadly, he doesn't realize that the only way an ordinary person can get rich is through work (represented by Bernard) or through luck and good timing (Ben), and Willy missed the boat when it came to ...
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...
Willy's search to find his mistakes of his life failed because, even though he found out what happened to Biff, he did not search for the right thing: his identity. Willy found out that his affair made Biff envision his father as a fake and phony, but he did not realize that a salesman was not the right job for him. When Willy died, no one came to his funeral (Act II. Scene I). This just showed that Willy was not the man he thought he was. He thought he was a great salesman with an unlimited amount of friends, but, when he died, no one was at his funeral but his family (Act II. Scene I). It showed that Willy was just a simple craftsman, who only needed attention and love from his family, and did not need fame or to be well-known ("Arthur Miller and Others," 311-314)
Not only does Willy believe that he is a success, but he believes that he is “worth more dead than alive” (98). This is the f...
Charley had a huge impact on Willy in the play Death of a Salesman. Willy is jealous of Charley's success. Repeatedly, Willy would go to Charley's to borrow money to pay the bills. Biff and Happy were failures; Willy refuses to recognize this because Bernard, Charley's son was so successful. Charley's effect on Willy has caused him to become extremely spiteful.
Willy Loman equates success as a human being with success in the business world. When Willy was a young man, he heard of a salesman who could "pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, make his living." (81) This salesman is Willy's inspiration; someday to be so respected and so well known that he can still provide for his family, even at an old age. Of course, Willy is no good at being a salesman because his heart isn't in it. The only time Willy puts his heart into anything is when he works with his hands, and his son, Biff, comes to realize this. "There's more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made." (138) Willy never comes to the realization that it is not being a salesman that he cares about, but rather being well known and, perhaps more importan...
Willy believes in and follows his wrong ideas. And the worst part is that he teaches them his sons Biff and Happy. He thinks that appearance is everything. Willy says: 'Because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want'; (33). This comment illustrates Willy's belief in the wrong idea that appearance is everything.
Willy Loman is 63 years old, a travelling salesman for a New York firm for the past 36 years, in the last stages of exhaustion and headed for suicide. He has his sights set on success. To Willy, success means two things: being rich, and being popular, neither of which he has or is ever likely to attain. We are intended to blame Willy for having all the wrong dreams, or rather, for holding onto those dreams long after they cease to correspond with reality. This is shown in the requiem, when at his father's funeral, Biff states, "He had the wrong dreams, all wrong." Biff knows that Willy should have stuck to doing things with his hands, instead of sticking to sales, where he faltered. This is backed up by Biff's comment to Charley: " there's more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made" to which comes his reply, "Yeah. He was a happy man with a batch of cement." Willy's death is seen as the death of a dream.