Willy Loman

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Recommended: Critical analysis of willy loman

Death of a Salesman is an acclaimed play written by Arthur Miller in 1949. It tells the story of Willy Loman, a business man and his family. Willy Loman’s health has been deteriorating for some time and his wife, Linda is very worried about him. Willy and Linda’s two sons Biff and Happy don’t have a good relationship with Willy. They all want to live “the great American dream”, but Willy fails to do so. Willy, the protagonist of this story ultimately fails due to his failure to accept capitalism and his insecurities. Willy Loman has been a businessman all of his life. In the first scene of the play his wife Linda states: “But you’re sixty years old. They can’t expect you to keep traveling every week” (964). Willy and his family lives in …show more content…

He lacks a murderous ego; he does not possess the killer instinct. or with a stranger, boy,” he says. Willy is a powerful expression of the grotesque impotence and inferior status of American kindness. American competitiveness is killing him—“The competition is maddening!” he cries. It turns his most human impulses into nascent acts of homicide or suicide. His natural and legitimate desire that his sons succeed becomes his cheap encouragement to them to cheat and steal. His surrender to loneliness destroys his son’s spirit. Willy lacks the essential ingredient for success in an untrammeled capitalism; he does not possess the killer instinct” …show more content…

His neighbor, Charley is a business man much like Loman. But Charley is much more successful because he is confident in his abilities. “Willy recognizes Charley is probably his only friend, yet he resents him because Charley’s success reminds him of the failure at the business, such as when Charley, while standing near his secretary in his own office, takes out cash from his wallet to lend money to his neighbor; Willy cannot afford a secretary or even his insurance premiums” (Sterling, 85-86). Being around Charley often makes Loman angry, because he sees everything he could be, but he is not. Charley offers Loman a job and Loman gets defensive and asks him why he is offering for me a job and Charley tells Loman not to get insulted. Charley also has a son named Bernard, who is an successful lawyer. Willy is jealous of Bernard, because he wishes his boys could be as successful as he is. Willy confides in Bernard that he thinks that nothing good happened to Biff after age seventeen and he could have been very successful but he wasn’t. Biff has never been one to apply himself to school, although a smart boy. Loman was fired from a job in his young days which really messed him

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