Drug For Sanity in Death of a Salesman Willy Lowman’s Drug for Sanity No one’s life can be classified as “normal”. Everyone has conflicts that they have to eventually deal with. People do in fact deal with these personal conflicts in different ways; some take it easy some take it hard. Some ignore the problem as long as possible and some deal with it right away to get it out of the way. In Death of a Salesman, Willy Lowman’s technique to his problem solving leads to severe consequences. Willy never does anything to help the situation; he just escapes into the past to happier times when there were few problems. He uses this escape as if it was a drug, and as the play goes on, this drug becomes dangerous, leading him to his death. The first time Willy is seen dazing off into the past is when he discovers Biff arriving home. The conversation between Willy and Linda reflects Willy’s disappointment in Biff and what Willy thinks he has become basically a bum. After failing to deal with his feelings, he escapes to a time when things were better for his family. It is not uncommon for one to think of better times at low points in their life in order to cheer them up so that they are able to deal with problems, but Willy Lowman takes it a step ahead. His stubbornness to accept reality is so strong that in his mind he is placed back in time to relive one of the happier days of his life. It was a time when no one argued. Willy and Linda were younger, the financial situation was less of a burden, and Biff and Happy welcomed their father back home from being on a long work trip. Willy’s need for the “drug” reassures himself that everything will turn out okay and that his family will be happy once again like it was in the past. The next flashback occurs during a discussion between Willy and Linda. Willy is depressed about his inability to make enough money to support his family, his looks, and his personality. “ My God if business doesn’t pick up, I don’t know what I am going to do!”(1808) is what Willy said after Linda figures out that they are in fact in debt. Then he blurts out without letting any reply to his comment, “I’m Fat.
support is a pathetic effort to protect his identity. Linda will never admit to herself,
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
Alistair Deacon from As Time Goes By once said that, “The people in the book need to be people.” The main character in a story or in a play always has to be somewhat likeable or relatable. Who doesn’t like to feel like they can relate to their favorite character in a story? In many cases the authors of stories or books always try to make the reader feel like they are not the only ones with problems or going through a crazy situation. Wanting the reader to become engaged in the characters' conflicts is what they aim for. In Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, many people were gripped by Willy Loman’s, the main character, problems because they too struggle with many of the conflicts that Willy faces. Willy could not keep his life together, failing to see reality and pursuing the wrong dream, with a wrong viewpoint, ended up causing others around him and himself to hurt.
Willy's first flash to the past was when his son, Biff, returns home from the west. Willy discusses his disappointment in Biff with his dear wife Linda. When Willy fails to cope with this misfortune successfully, he returns in his head to a time when everything was going well and life was more fortunate to him. It is perfectly normal for one to remember more fortunate days at the more dispirited times of life, as long as they can return to the present and deal with the reality of the situation. However, Willy never does return to the original problem, he just continues on with life, fleeing from the troubles that cross his path. His refusal to acknowledge reality becomes so significant, that he honestly believes the past, and he lives his entire life through a false identity never looking at the truth of his life.
He then faces some tragedy of failing his family by not giving them what they wanted at the time he was working as a salesmen then he committed suicide by killing himself in a car, so that his family will get an insurance cover so that his wife Linda will get money to help her and his two sons to open big businesses and they would never become hungry anymore. I think by doing this Willy was feeling guilt that he did not accomplish what he needed in life while he was working and his money was spent in the hotels with that mistress that Biff caught him with and forgot to fulfill his American dream.
In the film Death of a Salesman the main character WIlly goes through a rough journey trying to fight through his delusions. "He has reared his children- his own seed- in the contaminated soil of delusion." Throughout this film WIlly has a weak relationship with his two sons Biff and Happy. Willy's delusions get worse throughout the film which results in an unhealthy relationship with his sons. Willy's relationship with his two sons is very different from the very beginning of Biff and Happy's childhood which really affect the entire future of the two boys. The goal of Will’s life is to be well liked and successful. Willy is too caught up in these two goals to focus on the value he’s representing in front of his children.
From the very beginning, we can see that Willy is unable to keep up with the competitive demands. This leads to him feeling hopeless because he is unable to support his family, which could possibly lead to them being in debt. As the story goes
The conversation is supposed to be a flashback of the past, yet it makes sense that this conversation with Ben actually takes place in the present as things he would have wanted to say to Ben. Somehow, Willy has Linda enter the scene. She provides positive comforting, telling Willy that his life is okay, that he’s well liked by his sons and that, “someday . . . he’ll be a member of the firm(1957).” She provides this as a description of what can happen after honest work, unlike Ben’s own. Willy catches on and in fact begins to demonstrate that he did once believe in himself, and actually did think he could make it. A further demonstration of this is illustrated in a scene that has Willy completely sure of himself and of his boys, the day of Biff’s big football game. Miller uses Ben as a device to further the action, to move the play forward. Miller uses him as a way to re-direct the play, to get Willy out of a situation and into another. After the entire flashback sequence, the plot then shifts to Willy in Charlie’s office. Charley represents everything that Ben is not. He is a decent, hard working family man who has worked hard his life, and has achieved relative success in his older age. The opposite of Ben, yet Willy still idolizes Ben, the man who achieved immediate wealth. This can be tied to Willy’s profession as a salesman. A salesman is someone who one specific day could achieve successes, while other days not. Willy believes that this is the better way to do it, as evidenced by his belief in Ben’s method. Taylor 5 The third time Ben appears is in a complete hallucination of Willy’s. He appears completely within Willy’s mind, someone Willy is talking to about his decision of suicide. Ben is used to provide support for his decision. Willy becomes Ben in the last scene. We are able to view through him the final internal struggle that Willy goes through in his own mind, leading up to his suicide. Ben provides justification for Willy that he should commit suicide. Ben is a very materialistic person. He believes that money will do children better than love and support. He tries to persuade Willy into believing that insurance money would be better for his family than his love.
Willy refuses to recognize that he does have true abilities, as in the field of construction. He appears at times to have hope for the future, “on the way home tonight, I’d like to buy some seeds” (1243). Nonetheless, there is a pinning undercurrent of fear for Willy, as Linda discovers, “…sure enough, on the bottom of the water heater there’s a new little nipple on the gas pipe” (1237). Although the illusions that Willy puts forth are real to him, they are, nevertheless, simply that: Illusions. Deep down he knows things are not as they should be, with his family, his job and his life.
Willy is a multi-faceted character which Miller has portrayed a deep problem with sociological and psychological causes and done so with disturbing reality. In another time or another place Willy might have been successful and kept his Sanity, but as he grew up, society's values changed and he was left out in the cold. His foolish pride, bad judgment and his disloyalty are also at fault for his tragic end and the fact that he did not die the death of a salesman.
Foremost, Willy has a problem with his inability to grasp reality. As he grows older his mind is starting to slip. For example, when he talks to the woman and his brother Ben. Throughout the story, Willy dreams of talking to the woman, because the woman is a person that he was dating in when he went to Boston. He was cheating behind his wife’s back. Willy basically uses her as a scapegoat when he’s hallucinating about her. He blames all of his problems on the woman. For instance Willy says, “ Cause you do… There’s so much I want to make for.” (38) This is the evidence right here. Also he dreams about his brother Ben. Willy wishes could be more like his brother who has just passed away a couple of months previously to the story. He also wishes he didn’t have to work and could be rich like Ben. He respects Ben for not really working and making a lot of money. Another example of Willy’s hallucinations are when he says,“ How are you all?” (45) This occurs when Willy is talking with Charley and he starts thinking about Ben. Willy’s inability to grasp reality never changed throughout the story.
Willy himself even goes by another name, a more successful one. Since all Willy can focus on is success, no one in that household is ever happy. Not the wife even though she supports his every decision, not Hep, the other son who denies his father upon guests and is only there to ‘try’ to make every situation better and not Biff, who has all the pressure from the family to become successful and rich. This film connects to current life because many wealthy families today already have their kid’s life set-out from the day they’re born, and the child doesn’t have a chance to become what he/she truly wants to be which should be
causing him to always go back in time. By Willy always replaying these good thoughts in his mind shows how he cannot accept the fact that his relationship with Biff has changed and will never go back to the way it used to be. One also sees how Willy gets really mad when Linda buys a different type of cheese as one sees when he says, “I don’t want a change! I want Swiss cheese. Why am I always being contradicted” ( Miller, 17). Willy clearly does not like change, even though it is something as simple as cheese. Willy is always saying how he does not like change but then Linda goes and buys another type of cheese. Things like the change in Willy’s relationship with Biff and the change in the type of cheese lead to Willy always starting fights with his family. Although Willy faces many changes that are hard to face for him in his own life one sees how he also faces many difficulties as things change for him in the social
Willy still struggles to find out why his son, Biff, has not made anything of himself yet. Instead of a stable job, Biff has been a farmhand across the country earning only $35 a week (Act I. Scene I). Willy does not know where he has gone wrong with raising his kids, with his job, and overall with his life (Krutch, 308-309). To find the solutions to the problems driving him insane, Willy looks to his past. While he is day-dreaming he actually talks to himself and makes his family worried about his health and sanity. He daydreams and feels as if he is actually encountering the past once again in his journey. Willy is desperately trying to find out what has gone wrong in his life, why no one responds to him in the positive way that he used to, and why Biff does not have a stable job or a family. Through his trek to finding his mistakes in life, Willy finds r...
From the beginning it is made clear that Willy lives in anything but the present. He is either flashing back to the past and how good things once were, or he is looking towards the future and deluding himself in how good things will someday be. This is an example of how Willy embodies the first part of the American myth, being the belief that things will always continue to get better. Linda says repeatedly of Willy “how sweet he was as soon as you talked hopefully,” to Biff (48). Her noticing of how hope is a recurring theme, like a narcotic for Willy, which always raises his spirits, is demonstrative of how Willy fits into the American myth. When Biff and Happy proclaim that they wil...