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Comment on impression of Willy Loman in first part of Death of a Salesman
Comment on impression of Willy Loman in first part of Death of a Salesman
Dreams in death of a salesman
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The main character Willy Loman suffers the most from the ability to distinguish his dream. He is so caught up in his dream he does not even know how to handle real life. Willy firmly believes in the only way of being successful is by being well-liked and good looking. To show this, “He sanctions Biff’s thefts and his cheating at school, because these are the prerogatives of the popular schoolboy athlete and leader. He denigrates the need for learning in the name of a higher good, personality” (10). When he let’s Biff get away with failing school, he thought he would have his good personality and popularity to fall back on. But in reality, no one cares about how popular you are and good looks can only get you so far. He made it aware to his sons …show more content…
In other words Willy is just so caught up in his dream he does not realize what it is doing to his family or himself. He keeps going along with this made up dream that will lead him nowhere. Even after he failed he just keeps going in hopes of everything to just change. One of the biggest down fall in Willy’s life is when he cheats on his wife. Sadly, he also gets caught by his son Biff, which takes a toll on their relationship. The texts states, “Willy is driven to commit his greatest wrong by feelings of shame that arise out of his sense of inadequacy as a man. His adulterous affair with “The Woman” in Boston, which haunts both him and his son Biff, is a desperate attempt to confirm and maintain his self-esteem” (7). When Willy has an affair with the women it ruins the relationship with the whole family. No one understands it and especially Biff, he feels trapped. Of courses Willy does not really see this as affecting them because he lives in a world of illusions, he does not want to face the reality of what actually
Biff loses respect for his father and soon realizes what lie he has been living. Willy is in denial about his involvement with Biff’s failure in life, and when he is confronted about it by Bernard asking, “What happened in Boston, Willy? (141), Willy quickly becomes defensive, saying, “What are you trying to do, blame it on me? Don’t talk to me that way!” (141). After finding out about Biff’s reaction of burning his favorite University of Virginia shoes that symbolize Biff’s hopes and dreams for the future, Willy realizes what impact the affair had on his son. Willy’s lack of acceptance of reality affects his relationship because he never owned up or admitted he had an affair. This weighs heavy on Willy because the hate from his son will always be there. Biff loses all respect for his father and sees not only a failed business man, but in general a failed man. Throughout it all, Willy’s wife still remains supportive of him and constantly reminds him of her love for him. Despite this, Willy still yearns to have what he does not and pursues “the other woman.” It is bright as day that Willy finds some sort of comfort and validation for his affair with a woman who makes him feel wanted, yet his wife does the same thing. This guilt is always carried around with Willy which is just another contributor to the death of Willy
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...
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
...am. It's the only dream you can have-to come out number-one man.(…) I'm gonna win for him" (p.138-139). He thus reinstates that Willy's dream is realistic and attainable. Biff on the other hand, has a firm grasp on reality, and chooses not to make the same mistakes his father made: "He had the wrong dreams. All, all, wrong."(p.138).The contrast between Happy and Biff definitely re-emphasises an ongoing gap between reality and illusion throughout the entire play, and brings about a better understanding of the depth of Willy Loman's tragic flaw. Hence, this strive for success as defined by the American dream has only room for a few men. An impossible dream for the average man that Happy will never attain, a dream rejected by Biff that finally searches within himself for happiness rather than in the eyes of the one that beholds this fallacious dream, his father.
...s personal failure and betrayal of his soul and family through the meticulously constructed artifice of his life. He cannot grasp the true personal, emotional, spiritual understanding of himself as a literal “loman” or “low man.” Willy is too driven by his own “willy”-ness or perverse “willfulness” to recognize the slanted reality that his desperate mind has forged. Still, many critics, focusing on Willy’s entrenchment in a quagmire of lies, delusions, and self-deceptions, ignore the significant accomplishment of his partial self-realization. Willy’s failure to recognize the anguished love offered to him by his family is crucial to the climax of his torturous day, and the play presents this incapacity as the real tragedy. Despite this failure, Willy makes the extreme sacrifice in his attempt to leave an inheritance that will allow Biff to fulfill the American Dream.
Willy's affair with The Woman is a crucial turning point in his relationship with Biff, his oldest son. When Biff catches Willy and his mistress, Willy first attempts to distract his son and then be rid of him. However, his attempted cover-up fails and forever shatters the idolatrous relationship between father and son.
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.
In Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman’s warped view of the American Dream caused tragedy in his family because he stressed the importance of popularity over hard work and risk-taking over perserverence. *Willy grew up believing that being "well-liked" was important to becoming a success. He believed that being well-liked could help you charm teachers and open doors in business. *He is proud that the neighborhood boys flock around Biff and respond to Biff’s athletic abilities, and in the same breath scoffs at the nerdy Bernard, who is too focused on school and his studies to be popular. Even though Biff turns out to be a failure as an adult, Willy holds on to the hopes that a business man who Biff met years ago will offer him a terrific job if Biff can be his old likeable self and recapture the confidence and grace he had as a teenager.
Willy had quite a few ‘wrong’ dreams and they could have turned into ‘right’ dreams if his perception of the American dream was right. Dave Singleman was the man who sowed the false umbrella dream in Willy’s mind. This umbrella dream was the American dream, for all the smaller dreams Willy came up with, started with the pursuit of the American dream. However Willy’s perception of this dream was warped and therefore the rest of his dreams turned out wrong. His version of the American dream was to be able to achieve success and wealth through being well liked and popular, and not through hard work and skill.
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...
In conclusion, it is evident that the demise of Willy Loman, came from him dreaming the wrong dream. This is evident through Willy not being able to achieve his unrealistic dream, the problems Biff faces due to Willy instilling his dream into him, Willy's pride which becomes his hubris, and the illusions of his dream which escalates into his suicide. Although his dream made might have made his life fulfilling to the very end, it was not a happy life. By examining Willy Loman's dream and the impact of a dream in Death of Salesman, the reader can see the importance of a dream in one's life and how it can change it for the better or for the worse.
A major part of the reader's animosity towards Willy stems from his responsibility for the ruin of his sons. Willy's affair ends up being the reason that Biff ends up a high-school failure and a football has-been. This blunder both disheartens and destroys his eldest son. It becomes the reason Biff refuses to go to summer school; it becomes the reason that Biff leaves home. Yet, this is all a result of Willy's need to be likeable. He cheats on his doting wife simply because it makes him feel special, because it gives him proof that women other that Linda are interested in him, because it makes him feel well liked. A woman "picked [him]"; a woman laughs when he makes jokes about keeping pores open; a woman pays him some attention (38).
Willy Loman is a 60 year old senile salesman who desperately wants to be a successful salesman; however, his ideas about the ways in which one goes about achieving this are very much misguided, just as his morals are. He believes that popularity and good looks are the key to achieving the American dream, rather than hard work and dedication. He not only lives his entire life by this code, but instills his delusional beliefs in his two sons Biff and Happy. As a result, his sons experience similar failures in their adult lives. Willy led a life of illusion, lies and regret which not only ruined his life, but gad a negative impact on the lives of family as well.
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)
Willy is a salesman. Willy believes that success comes from being well liked and popular and has tried desperately to instill his notions to his two boys Happy and Biff, Willy's biggest aspirations in life. His wife Linda is extremely supportive and is Willy's only connection to reality. While raising his boys and trying to instill his "American Dream", he fails to teach them any sense of morality, leading them down to what he feels is the wrong path. At one point, he defended Biff for stealing just because he was an amazing football player.