Cheating does not lead one to be successful, hard work with integrity does. Minor characters are essential to literature because they provide a comparison to the major characters. In the play Death of a Salesman written by Arthur Miller, Arthur Miller uses Charley and Bernard to represent the opposite character development from that of Biff and Willy. Although minor characters, both Charley and Bernard embody hard work and integrity, characteristics in which the Loman family does not possess. There successes contrast the failures of Biff and Willy, illustrating for the reader how Willy’s style of parenting was a failure. Throughout the play, Miller uses a series of flashbacks to illustrate to show in behaviors in one's past impacts their success …show more content…
Biff is a popular kid, who has been taught by Willy to do whatever it takes to be successful, even if that involves cheating. Meanwhile, Bernard is a nerd and a hard working boy, who has been taught by Charley to work hard and have integrity. When Bernard encourages Biff to study, Willy says, “Hey, looka Bernard. What’re you lookin’ so anemic about, Bernard”(32). Willy only cares about being liked and assumes Bernard will give Biff the answers. Willy views Bernard’s focus on his academics as loser like. Willy values popularity and athletics over academics and hard work. While Bernard cares about getting good grades and setting up his path for success in life. Biff believes in a false dream that Willy has put into his mind. Furthermore, in the flashback when Biff is going to play football in Ebbets field, Charley and Biff have a brief interaction. Willy …show more content…
In act 2, Willy has lost his job and is now desperate for money, so he goes to Charley’s office. When he is there, he sees Bernard. Bernard tells Willy that, “And he came back after that month and took his sneakers-- remember those sneakers with “University of Virginia” printed on them?... And he took them down in the cellar, and burned them up in the furnace”(94). Biff did this right after he went to Boston and saw that Willy was cheating with another women. These lessons of cheating, Biff realized, have been in his whole life and now he has given up on his life. However, Bernard, when Willy meets up with him, is a lawyer going to do a job on the supreme court. The values of cheating were not present in the Bernard household, instead hard work and integrity were. Additionally, once Willy goes to meet Charley, Willy starts discussing about everyone liking him. Charley’s responds by stating “Why must everybody like you? Who liked J.P Morgan”(97)? Charley does not care about society's view and what people think of him, he just cares about being successful. On the other hand, Willy cares about his reputation more than how he does at his job. Charley and Bernard serve as a stark contrast to Biff and Willy because of their basic values and ideals in
What is Willy’s impression of Bernard when he sees him in his father’s office? Why does Willy exaggerate Biff’s importance? - He has contradicting feelings of envy and pride for him. He exaggerates Biff because he wants to look like a success to
girl he's hitting on so that he can get her attention. He is a natural
In a flashback Willy has, it is shown that Willy jokes about Charley’s son, Bernard, a “nerd” who helps Biff with his math so he doesn’t fail, by claiming that despite Bernard being smart, he will not get far in life because he is not as “liked: as Biff, who at the time was a football star. After Biff saw his father with is mistress, he began viewing his father more negatively, rejecting all of Willy’s future plans for him, calling him a “phony little fake”. Biff’s rejection of Willy’ future plans for him sends Willy into a downward spiral, making him more and more delusional. Ironically, Willy failed to sell his plans to his own son, when his main profession is selling products to people, as he is a
Lies play a central part in the play as the story is based around lies
Willy gets it from all sides; primarily his conflict is with Biff but also Charley, Howard, and Bernard. He is an average man who truly believes he is better than those around him, and that his sons, especially Biff, are greater still, but people, he has very little respect for, are all more successful than he is. Biff starts out like Willy perhaps but comes to the realization that being an average man is okay. Willy never comes to that conclusion; in fact he decides he is more valuable dead than alive.
One problem Willy has is that he does not take responsibility for his actions; this problem only gets worse because of his lies. Biff looks up to Willy, so when he finds out that Willy has an affair in Boston, Biff is petrified. Biff realizes his hero, dad, the one he wants to impress, is a phony and a liar. Willy destroys Biff's dream of playing football by saying he does not have to study for the math regents, he also Willy telling Bernard to give Biff the answers. When Biff fails the regents, he does not want to retake the test because he is so disgusted with his hero and does not want to succeed. Not only did Willy destroy Biff's dream, he also broke his vows and refused to admit it. Biff is a failure, in Willy's eye, in most part due to Willy and what happened in Boston. Willy refuses to take responsibility for what he did, so he lies about Biff. Willy tells Bernard that Biff has been doing great things out west, but decided to come back home to work on a "big deal". Willy knows that Biff is a bum who has not amounted to anything, but he refuses to take responsibility for what happened in Boston, so he changes the story of Biff's success. Throughout Willy's life he continued to lie. It might have stopped if Linda did not act the way as she did. Linda is afraid to confront Willy, so she goes along with his outlandish lies.
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
In the play Death of a Salesman, the plot is affected by three minor characters: Ben, Charley and Howard. The minor characters help the story's protagonist, Willy, develop extensively throughout the course of the play; therefore, they are key elements in the advancing story line. This story line blends and contrasts Willy's closest companions, Ben and Charley. They represent two aspects of Willy's ideals. Howard, Willy's boss, functions in order to heighten the destruction of Willy's dream. The characters Ben, Charley and Howard are influential in the play's outcome and help develop the main character, Willy.
Willy and Biff never got along due to Biff finding out that his father had an affair, and Willy tries to forget the event. Willy also constantly tries to make Biff out as the greatest thing ever, even when one could easily see Biff is a loser. He wants to distort another reality, and believe Biff can make it. But he a lingering thought in his head that goes against this, and that is Bernard. In another of Will’s flashbacks, Bernard comes up and says, “Mr. Birnhaum says he’s stuck up.” This is in reference to Biff, and this shows that Willy really did know he was making Biff out to be something he could never be, but he tries very hard to go against this thought and dwell in his own
Biff is home for a visit and is talking with his brother, Happy in their room just as they did when they were young boys. Willy has come home prematurely from a business trip and is downstairs when the boys overhear him talking to himself in a sort of quasi-reality. In the meantime, the two boys discuss the past. It is interesting here that the roles of the two boys with respect to each other seem to have reversed. Happy was the shy one growing up and Biff had all the courage and self-confidence. Now, Biff appears to have been beaten down by life and is on the brink of the se...
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).
The internal conflict begins with Willy’s expectations for his sons and The Woman. Willy struggles throughout the play with having extremely high expectations for his sons, Happy and Biff. Happy and Willy get along well because they are most alike of the two sons. Happy has the same materialistic mindset as Willy. Miller shows this when Happy and Biff discuss having the apartment for themselves. Happy tells Biff:
The first comlication which occurs in Act I, is when the reader acknowledges that Willy put his whole life into his sons, Biff and Happy, and they turned their backs on him. Willy always believed that biff would be this great, successful businessman and it turned out that Biff is still searching to find himself, which disappoints Willy in the worst way. The conflicts between Willy and Biff are rooted very deep. It all started when Biff was younger and he had failed his math class. He traveled to Boston to visit Willy, who was on a business trip. He had told that he had let Willy down and comes to find out that Willy is with another woman. Biff leaves and never takes that math class over. Willy felt guilty about this and believes that deep inside that he is responsible for Biff's choices in life and his failure to be successful. This conflict makes Willy weak and tremendously guilty, which stays with him as a reminder.
Arthur Miller is recognized as an important and influential playwright, not to mention essayist and novelist. Although he has had plenty of luck in his writing career, his fame is the product of his ingenious ability to control what he wants his readers to picture or feel. As one of his critics states, "Miller writes ingeniously, conveying the message that 'if the proper study of mankind is man, man's inescapable problem is himself (Broussard, 306).'" Miller accurately puts into words what every person thinks, feels, or worries about, but often has trouble expressing. By the use of symbolism, Arthur Miller portrays Willy's (along with the other Lowmans') problems with family life, the society, and himself in Death of a Salesman.
In “ The Glass Menagerie,” Tennessee Williams shows this in the interaction between Amanda and her children, Laura and Tim. For example, Miller’s play “Death of A Salesman” shows a father-son relationship, where in certain times Willy, the father, wants to become more of a player in his son’s life that his son believes is necessary. There are several reasons for this, and it can be demonstrated in different ways. Miller is able to give an example of his behavior through the actions of Willy Loman.