The Conflicted Linda Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman
Watching a solitary blade of grass will never tell you the direction of hurricane, just as one characteristic can never describe Linda Loman. In Death of a Salesman, Linda Loman is a woman torn between guilt, retaliation, and pity. Her guilt stems from the fact that she prevented Willy from pursuing his true American Dream; she retaliates in response to Willy's failure; she feels sorry for Willy, because he is a "pitiful lone adventurer of the road" (47). As the battling motivations blow from opposing directions, the reader is left to decide to which one motivation Linda will succumb.
Willy is a source of guilt for Linda, because, in part, she blames herself for his failures. In one of Willy?s flashbacks, the reader is able to see how easily Linda turns the tide from frantic desire to go to Africa to enthusiastic zeal to conquer the business world. Linda reminds Willy of his "beautiful job" as a salesman in order to keep him where she wants him (1252). As Willy's descent into insanity gains momentum, Linda is forced to come face what she helped create. Her guilt spawns an all-out defense against Willy in all his imperfections. She defends her husband against all logic and reasoning, against her sons, even though Willy is irrational and incoherent. To Linda, Willy is the "dearest man that ever lived," despite his failures, and her guilt and defense amplify her glorification of Willy.
Willy?s dream sequences provide a window to see Linda?s bitterness and sarcasm toward her husband. Her tone with Willy when he discusses his earnings is condescending and sarcastic. She tells him "that?s very good, Willy," like a mother congratulating her child on tying ...
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...le the battling winds of motivation, but ends up changing between them, never settling on one, and preventing the reader from making a concrete decision about her true nature. Perhaps Linda is both overlooked and undervalued and as corrupted by materialism as Willy, but it is nearly impossible to say that she is one or the other. Linda bends to each force in different parts of the play. She is loving and hateful. She is offense and defense. Trying to find a single description to fit the ever-changing Linda is like trying to catch a single leaf in the midst of a hurricane.
Works Cited
Lewis, Allan. American Plays and Playwrights. New York, NY: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1970. 47.
Miller, Arthur. "Death of a Salesman." Discovering Literature: Stories, Poems, Plays. Ed. Hans P. Guth and Gabriele L. Rico. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997. 1211-82.
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"Linda Loman: The Wife in "Death of a Salesman".”. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2014. .
In September of 1942, the German commander of the Sixth Army, advanced his troops to the city of Stalingrad where Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to secure the oil fields and take Stalingrad. Stalingrad was a target location due to its manufacturing and center of communications for parts of Russia. Hitler had extra motivation to take Stalingrad because the significance of the name, it was named after the Soviet Russian leader Stalin. Russia had been war torn and devastated from previous attacks and battles from the Germans, they knew they had to persevere and hang on along enough to defeat the German Army. The Soviets did have somewhat of a warning of the German attack, they shipped out cattle, grain, and other main supplies, but most of the civilians stayed. Hitler was very confident he could take this city down without losing major causalities. While Hitler was planning the attack the Soviet Marshall Zhukov was planning a major counterattack. Marshall Zhukov had 6 armies of 1 million men ready to attack the Germans. Both the Germans and Soviets had flaws in their attacks but, t...
In the book Death of A Salesman, author Arthur Miller shows how cruel life can be through the life of Willy Loman, the main character. His feelings of guilt, failure, and sadness result in his demise.
During the late summer of 1942, Germany’s position in the Soviet Union appeared to be dominant. The Russian winter offensive in front of Moscow had succeeded in relieving the pressure on the capital but had failed to make any substantial gains beyond a few miles of breathing space. The Germans had managed to stabilize the situation, inflicting severe casualties on the Russians before opening their own offensive in southern Russia in the spring and summer of 1942. This offensive, like the initial attack on the Soviet Union, caught the Russians (who expected a second assault on Moscow) completely off guard. Germany’s success was immense, and by the end of July the Wehrmacht had reached the Caucasus Mountains and the Volga River, with the oil-rich cities of Astrakhan, Grozny, and Baku in its sights.
From July 1942 to February 1943, Soviet forces defended the city of Stalingrad from Nazi attack. The battle began during the summer offensive of 1942, Nazi Army groups A an B had already pushed past Stalingrad to take oil fields in south west Russia, when Hitler ordered Stalingrad be attacked (Trueman, n.d.). “Some historians believe that Hitler ordered the taking of Stalingrad simply because of the name of the city and Hitler's hatred of Joseph Stalin. For the same reason Stalin ordered that the city had to be saved” (Trueman, n.d.). Stalingrad was also the center of Soviet communications and manufacturing in the south. Since Stalingrad had such a significance to the soviet war effort and because the Soviets could not allow the Nazi's to hold the oil fields in south-west Russia, Stalin issued the “Not a step back” order (Trueman, n.d.). The battle would eventually turn into one of the bloodiest in World War II with enormous civilian and military casualties.
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.
Linda, Willy’s wife, seems to have a fairly small role in the play. She believes that the American dream is achievable by anybody, and supposedly is even the reason that Willy is un...
By successfully defending the city of Stalingrad the Soviet Union were able to deny Hitler his summer 1942 objective of paralysing the Soviet war effort by interrupting Russian oil supplies and seizing the Caucasus oil fields. This achievement was made possible through the stubborn and ferocious resistance of the Red Army within the confines of Stalingrad and the meticulously planned counteroffensive which led to the encirclement of the entire 6th army outside the city. In addition, compared with their German counterparts, the Red Army were highly organized, they had superior lines of communication and were better equipped.
To her husband, Linda is the perfect wife, she loves him despite knowing he is only "a small man." She is always worried about Willy's health, and tries to protect him. She knows that many times Willy is wrong, but she is unable to face him just in case she hurts his feelings. She supports all his mad ideas knowing this will probably take him to his death. She is loyal and loving, and is always on the background defending him from their sons Biff and Happy. She expresses all this feelings in Act 1, when she says, "I don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog." On the other hand Nora doesn't love her husband, but she doesn't become conscious of this until the end of the play when she discovers she has been living a lie all her life. As Linda, she is worried about her husband's health, but instead of just watching she confronts him, acting behind his back, knowing that she ma...
She takes care of the men, and when she tries to do something good, like saving money by mending socks, she is yelled at, ”I won’t have you mending stockings in this house! Now throw them out” (Miller 39). Linda is only there to listen to the men and do their bidding, offering comfort to them, “You’re my foundation and my support, Linda” (Miller 18), but never to herself until the end of the play, “Biff lifts her to her feet and moves out up right with her in his arms. Linda sobs quietly” (Miller 139). The general idea of this time for women is that they are after their husbands, that their needs should be met last. Linda is the ideal mother and wife, putting her family before her, but in this she lacked the ability to take care of herself and her mental health, which was most likely very damaged by Willy trying and eventually succeeding to kill himself, “Forgive me dear. I can't cry. I don't know what it is, but I can’t cry” (Miller
"Death of a Salesman By Arthur Miller ." Goodreads . N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. .
Willy, Linda, Biff and Happy are all characters that use self- deception as a way to mentally escape the terrible reality of their lives. As the play progresses, and ends Biff is truly the one and only character that becomes self- aware. At the end of the play Biff accepts the lies his family and him have been living in for years. Biff makes huge changes mentally at the end of the play, which cannot be said for the rest of the Loman family.
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).