Essay On Willy Expectation In Death Of A Salesman

Every individual will one’s own expectation for the future. Most people would like to achieve their expectations sooner or later and become happy and contented in life. On the other hand, an individual might set an unrealistic expectation for himself. With an impractical expectation, an individual can feel confused and contradicted, even having behaviors which are torturing himself and his family. In Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Willy Lomen is a good example of a person who is blinded by an unrealistic expectation. When an individual feels unfulfilled by his unrealistic expectations, his sacrifice for his unfulfilled and unrealistic expectation can torture himself and his family.

Willy Lomen’s unrealistic expectation for himself

is to be a successful and well-liked salesman in business world. After Willy meeting with Dave Singleman, Willy starts to sacrifice everything for his ambition. Dave Singleman is a successful but rare salesman who can “make a living by picking up phone and call his buyer” when he is eighty-four years old. Willy’s ambition is to become a highly respected and valued salesman like Dave. However, since Willy’s ability, he cannot become an elite salesman as he expected. Even though when Willy is young and he drives to Boston every week, he works as hard as possible for the company. Willy still cannot make himself like Dave. As he gets older, the situation becomes worse. According to Linda, Willy “drives seven hundred miles without earning a cent”. Therefore, he becomes quiet desperation and he is barely surviving finically. Willy refuses to confirm about his failure in career and he becomes constantly contradict himself over and over again. This is also verifying that when Willy cannot fulfill his expectation, he suffers between his illusion of success and the reality of low salary.
In order to achieve Willy’s goal of becoming a well-loved salesman, Willy sacrifices not only his own happiness, but his family’s financial availability.

On Willy’s funeral, Charley says that “He [is] a happy man with a batch of cement.” As Linda also recognizes, Willy is “wonderful with his hands”. It shows that Willy actually is a man who loves to work with tools and he is good at fixing and building things at home. Willy’s talent can have made him an excellent carpenter as Biff said in one point. However, Willy chooses to sacrifice what he is really good at, to be a successful salesman as Dave. Moreover, Willy refuses to go to Africa to assist his brother Ben and gives up the opportunity to be rich. Because Dave’s successful image is deeply rooted in Willy’s mind, he believes that one day he can achieve his expectation. Even though Willy understands the difficult financial situation of family, he still refuses Ben and the opportunity to be rich because he considers he is struggling for his unfulfilled expectations. When he is fired by Howard from the company he worked for last thirty-four years, he still refuses to take a job from Charley. Since Willy still want to follow his dream of being Dave, he would not do any other job but trying hard to be successful salesman in business. It is also a part of his sacrifice for his unfulfilled

expectation.
Willy’s family have no choice but to become victim of Willy’s wrongful sacrifice for unfulfilled expectation. Biff, as Willy’s eldest son, is the one who receives a lot of inappropriate education from Willy. Willy tells Biff not to pay any effort on education since Biff’s good look will get him best advantage when he gets into business. Willy also let Biff do anything he wants to; even when Biff steal a football from school, Will tells Biff it is ok as long as the coach likes him. Therefore, the education Biff received in childhood is completely twisted and makes Biff do not want to take order from anybody. Moreover, because of Willy’s unfulfilled expectation in business, Willy wants Biff to go in to the field of business and become a well-liked and successful salesman as he expected. However, Willy never considers anything about what Biff really wants to do. Actually, Biff feels “[suffering] fifty weeks of the year” in the city, but he has to trying start a business because his Willy wants him to fit his expectation of success. On the other hand, Happy, as the second son of Willy, does not receive any attention from his parents. He chooses to work in business is also because of Willy’s expectation. It is easy to tell that Happy is not as success as he wants in business. Therefore, Happy seeks the feeling of success from having affairs with his boss’s girlfriends, which is immoral and inappropriate for common sense. Happy’s bad and shameless behaviors with women are also because of Willy’s twisted education and unrealistic expectation.
At the end of play, when Willy is broken-hearted and hopeless by Biff’s refusal of being a business man, Willy made his last sacrifice for his unfulfilled expectation. Before Willy commits suicide, Willy still believes that “one way or another Biff [is] gonna make it”. He desperately hopes Biff can achieve the expectation which he does not achieve in his life, which is to become a well-liked and respected person in business. Willy wants to achieve his expectation but finally he realizes he cannot. Therefore, he wants to make Biff to complete his unfulfilled expectations. Also, Willy is also certain that he will have a “massive” funeral with hundreds of people attending since he believes or he wants to show Biff that he is well-loved by buyers. Willy wants to encourage Biff to start a business under the aspirations of Willy’s popularity and twenty-thousands of insurance money. Ironically, there are only five people attained his funeral which also shows his unrealistic expectation is based on the Willy’s failure and meaningless sacrifice of himself and his family.
Willy does not fulfill his unrealistic expectation all the time and as result, all his family suffers by his expectations, finically and mentally. Willy’s tragic death is not only because of his misunderstanding of expectation, also his wrongful attitude toward to life. Therefore, it is important for everybody to understand one’s expectations and wants when he is trying to giving up something for expectations.