Biff and Willy

Although a story may follow one character, giving him the center of the stage and devote the most amount of time towards him does not mean that he is the most important character. In the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman is the main character, yet he is not the protagonist of the story because he shows no outward change. His son Biff on the other hand shows a very clear, progressive change in nature especially his perspective on the dream his father set before him. Willy has been telling Biff how well he was liked by everyone around him, so he must have a bright future awaiting him. Biff wanting to impress his father takes up the same trade of a salesman, but when these two elements are combined Biff is misled to believe that he is more significant than he actually is. Biff has this mindset until the end of the play where he understands that he is only an ordinary man and it is impossible to accomplish his aspirations. The “salesman” in the title refers to the future that Willy envisioned for Biff which Biff tried to reach, yet eventually abandons. Biff can be viewed as the protagonist of Death of a Salesman because he is the only character to show personal development through the play, and his death is a metaphorical one, where his unattainable dream of becoming a successful salesman dies with his father.

Despite Willy not attaining his own ambitions, Biff still believes in the dream and elaborate fantasy Willy has fed him since he was in high school. During Willy’s flash back to the day of Biff’s All-Scholastic Championship game, Willy boasts to his neighbor and praises Biff about how amazing he is and where he could go in life. Biff eagerly wanting to impress his father embraces it, resulting in th...

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...ime in a dozen,” and like every other person who failed to reach success. Biff shows tremendous change and is able to overcome the unreachable dream of becoming a salesman and finding instant success. Although Biff seems to lose so much, he is able to remove the dream, the obstacle in his way and find what he came back to New York for to find out who he is even though that means he is just a lowly worker and not a leader, “And I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am” (105). Biff realizes that it is better to live in reality as a common man then as an ideal man in a fantasy because living in a dream will not get him anywhere.