Amidst Willy's late-night yelling, Charley, a neighbor and friend of the family, enters from outside, wondering what all the commotion is about. He starts a card game with Willy in order to settle him down. Out of friendship, he offers Willy a job after hearing about his problems as a salesman. Willy is quick to take offense at this offer, saying that he already has a good job.
Later, when Willy brings up the subject of Biff, Charley advises Willy to give up on his son. “When a deposit bottle is broken you don't get your nickel back,” Charley asserts. Yet Willy is not willing to let go of his illusions about his sons' potential for success.
Soon, Willy begins to confuse Charley with his brother, Ben. This leads to a flashback of sorts to a scene with Willy and Ben. It seems Ben and his father left to make their fortunes sometime in Willy's early childhood, leaving Willy and his mother behind. It's obvious that Willy idealizes Ben because he has “made it” in the world. Willy is remorseful that he didn't take his brother up on his offer to run his business in Alaska. That was an opportunity of a lifetime, Willy admits.
Yet Ben has little time to spend with his little brother. Willy, excited that Ben is there to give advice to his sons, forces Biff and Happy to listen to their Uncle Ben, hoping that they will learn his business techniques and strike it rich themselves. In this way, Willy sees the potential success of his sons as the only remaining hope of being successful himself. It all seems quite simple to Ben. He tells Biff and Happy, “Why, boys, when I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich.” This ideal, however, proves to be unattainable by Willy and his sons when Willy's desperate struggle for success and happiness is never achieved.
Willy and Charley motivate their children in different ways, as Willy has Bernard “give [Biff] the answers” (26) while Charley just “[let’s] [Bernard] go” (9) in order to find his own path. Willy’s parenting style is stricter as he does not let Biff fulfill his dreams of working with his hands and living on a ranch, while Bernard is allowed to flourish as a Supreme Court lawyer. Both parents have different personalities that affect their children. Willy is always on his high horse, being arrogant saying comments such as “Go to Filene’s, go to the Hub, go to Slattery’s, Boston. Call out the name Willy Loman and see what happens” (43). In contrast, Charley’s parenting can be shown through his son Bernard as he is humble by not mentioning his Supreme Court case. Willy is constantly boastful believing he is the king of the world and tries to have his children believe so as well. This is very different from Charley’s style of being modest, which his son inherits as is vividly shown through his actions and behavior. Lastly, how both parents act is an essential factor that affects their children. Willy acts more as a friend than a father. When Biff steals the football, Willy tells him “coach’ll probably congratulate you on your initiative” (19), while Bernard has never stolen anything as he knows his father does not approve of it. Biff learned from an early age that stealing was acceptable, which gives him a
Throughout the play, Willy has hallucinations of his brother Ben, who left Willy when he was young, “Well, I was just a baby, of course, only three or four years old,” (Miller 47), and the man later offered to take Willy with him, but Willy had a dream “There’s a man eighty-four years old-” (Miller 86) and he felt that he was going to accomplish that dream. “Willy retreats into a dream world consisting of his roseate recollections of the past and of fantasies,” (Hadomi), he hallucinates often, and this is a better way of saying he’s delusional. He did not, he failed miserably, he had to borrow money from Charley “If you can manage it-- I need a hundred and ten dollars,” (Miller 96), then he pretended it was a loan from him “I’m keeping an account of everything, remember,” (Miller 96), that he would pay back “I’ll pay every penny back,” (Miller 96), but Linda and Charley knew he was not going to pay any of it back. Willy had a hard time accepting defeat, and he wanted his boys to succeed where he failed, but Biff was always better with physical labor “when all you really desi...
The first aspect of Willy's character that affected his failure was his pride. Willy's pride caused him to in many situations make very poor and unethical decisions, that affected both himself and his family. An example of this is through the conversation between Willy and Charley “CHARLEY: ‘You want a job?’ WILLY: ‘I got a job, I told you that. [After a slight pause] What the hell are you offering me a job for?’ CHARLEY: ‘Don’t get insulted.’ WILLY: Don’t insult me.”(DOAS: pg x) Willy does not take the offer which is an obvious example of a poor decision. He makes this decision because he sees this generous whole hearted gesture as a kind of pitiful handout that his pride restricts him from taking. By not taking this handout willy puts his self pride infront of
Willy feels that it is important to find evidence to prove that he is successful to others. One example is when Biff tells his Dad, “I’m takin’ one play for Pop. You watch me, Pop, and when I take off my helmet, that means I’m breakin’ out. Then you watch me crash through the line!” Then Willy tells Biff, “Oh, wait’ll tell this in Boston!” (Miller, 2120). Like he has to prove to the people in Boston how much of a successful father he is. Willy wants his sons to also be successful and better than anyone else. Willy tells his sons, “That’s just what I mean. Bernard can get the best marks in school, y’understand, but when he gets out in the business world, y’understand, you are going to be five times ahead of him” (Miller, 2121). The ironic thing about this is Bernard ended up as a very successful lawyer. Happy and Biff struggle between what they truly need and what Willy has told them they
Miller’s use of personification and symbolism in the book shows the situational irony that surrounds Willy. This highlights the overall message of blind faith towards the American Dream. The major case of irony in the book is Willy’s blind faith in the American Dream. This belief is that if one is well-liked, they will become successful. The truth is actually completely opposite. The real belief is that if one works hard, with no regard to how well liked they are, they will be successful. This relationship is shown between Willy and his neighbor Charley. While Willy believes likability is the only way to success, Charley works hard and does not care how people think of him. Through his hard work, Charley started his own business, and is now very successful. Willy, however, ends up getti...
To be successful in life there is many things you must do and overcome in order to do this. Ben, was able to do this and left to make it big which soon lead to his stability, whereas Willy was still struggling at the age of 84, asking his boss for an office job just not to travel. From the text we will see how Willy praises Ben and looks
In the onset of the play, Willy told Linda that you “work a lifetime to pay of a house. You finally own it, and there is nobody to live in it” (Cohn 56). This quote shows how Willy strives his whole life to make a home for his family and by the time he sees the realization of that one dream, his family has drifted apart and he is alone with his haunting thoughts and his ghosts. Willy has such high expectations for himself and his sons, and when they all failed to accomplish their dreams, they were unable to accept each other for what they truly were. Willy raised Biff with the idea that success depends on whether or not a person can sell himself and not how smart a person is. Biff’s tragic flaw is his acceptance of Willy’s values and not creating any of his own. When Biff realizes his father is a fake, he becomes a lost individual and he does not speak to his father for 14 years. In Willy’s family it is always Biff who receives recognition, however, Happy strives for attention too...
Willy’s primary escape from reality involves his brother Ben, who typifies the American Dream; however, Willy’s escape with Ben is purely a figment of his imagination. “Opportunity is tremendous in Alaska, William. Surprised you’re not up there” (1230). His imaginings about Ben, while they appear to be an illusion throughout the story, are thoroughly realistic in Willy’s mind. He truly believes that Ben has reached the pinnacle of the American Dream.
Willy is a man who does not know how to make the most of what he has. He sets himself up for...
During most father-son relationships, there are certain times where the father wants to become more of a "player" in his son’s life than his son believes is necessary. The reasons for this are numerous and can be demonstrated in different ways. Miller is able to give an example of this behavior through the actions of Willy Loman. When Biff comes home to recollect himself, Willy perceives it as failure. Since Willy desperately wants his oldest son, Biff, to succeed in every way possible, he tries to take matters into his own hands. "I’ll get him a job selling. He could be big in no time" (16). The reason that Biff came home is to find out what he wants in life. Because Willy gets in the way, matters become more complicated. Partly due to Willy’s persistence in Biff’s life, they have conflicting ideas as to what the American dream is. Willy believes that working on the road by selling is the greatest job a man could have (81). Biff, however, feels the most inspiring job a man could have is working outdoors (22).
Throughout the play, Willy can be seen as a failure. When he looks back on all his past decisions, he can only blame himself for his failures as a father, provider, and as a salesman (Abbotson 43). Slowly, Willy unintentionally reveals to us his moral limitations that frustrates him which hold him back from achieving the good father figure and a successful business man, showing us a sense of failure (Moss 46). For instance, even though Willy wants so badly to be successful, he wants to bring back the love and respect that he has lost from his family, showing us that in the process of wanting to be successful he failed to keep his family in mind (Centola On-line). This can be shown when Willy is talking to Ben and he says, “He’ll call you a coward…and a damned fool” (Miller 100-101). Willy responds in a frightful manner because he doesn’t want his family, es...
He is Willy’s only friend, and offers him a job when the old salesman is fired. Willy’s egotism gets in the way, however, and he cannot bring himself to work for Charley, since this would be admitting failure. Charley symbolizes reality- a reality that Willy never acknowledges.
Willy's goal throughout life was to climb out of his social class. As a salesman, Willy was a failure and he tried desperately to make his sons never end up like him. As a result, he loses his mind and his grasp on reality. Throughout the story, Willy often has flashbacks of the conversations that he and his brother Ben once had and the author intertwines them in past and present very nicely.
By the time Willy got to be an old man, his life was in shambles. *One son, Biff, was a hopeless dreamer who wasn’t able to hold on to a job. He could have been successful through an athletic scholarship, but he blew the chance he had to go to school. Happy, the other son, had a job, but was basically all talk, just like Willy. Now near the end of his career as a salesman, Willy realizes his whole life was just a joke, and the hopes he placed in the American Dream were misguided. At the end of the play, his only hope is to leave something for his family, especially for Biff, by taking his own life and leaving his family the insurance money. Through his death, Willy thinks he can achieve success and fulfill his dream.
Willy has worked hard his entire life and ought to be retiring by now, living a life of luxury and closing deals with contractors on the phoneespecially since increasing episodes of depersonalization and flashback are impairing his ability to drive. Instead, all of Willy's aspirations seem to have failed: he is fired from his jobwhich barely paid enough anywayby a man young enough to be his son and who, in fact, Willy himself named. Willy is now forced to rely on loans from his only real friend (and the word is used loosely at that), Charley, to make ends meet. None of Willy's old friends or previous customers remember him. Biff, his 34-year-old son, has been unable to 'find himself' as a result of his inability to settle down (caused by Willy drumming into him the need to 'make it big within two weeks'), and Happy, the younger son, lies shamelessly to make it look like he is a perfect Loman scion. In contrast, Charley (who, Willy tells his boys conspiratorially, is not well-liked), is now a successful businessman, and his son, Bernard, a former bespectacled bookworm, is now a brilliant lawyer. We are told how Willy had at least one affair while out on business trips, one particularly that was witnessed by Biff (which broke his faith in Willy). Finally, Willy is haunted by memories of his now-dead older brother,