The Power Of Success In Death Of A Salesman By Arthur Miller

Mathieu Hamel

Mr. Stephan P. Adamian

English Drama

November 18, 2015

Success in Death of a Salesman: Willy Loman’s Legacy At the heart of the capitalism system lies the sales world and, therefore, the salesmen. Their life and their job is the subject chosen by Arthur Miller as the central theme for the play “Death of a Salesman.” Miller demonstrates the family life behind the sales world, the quest of the hero to achieve success, and the psychological state of mind of a seller in decline. The purpose of this essay is to analyze Willy Loman’s distorted vision of success along with the heritage he wants to bequeath to his sons, both tangible and intangible. In order to understand what Willy Loman wants to give to his sons, one must look at

The key difference is that Biff is more aware of it than Willy is. Biff realizes that he is not made to work in an office 50 weeks a year to get 2 weeks of vacation; he would prefer to work outside. Also, Willy believes that success is achieved by being well-liked: “Be liked and you will never want” (Miller 33). This is the image Willy wants to teach to his sons. However, no matter how important it is to be well-liked and known in the business world, Willy forgets to take into account the importance of hard-working (Amiro). By doing so, he heads himself, and therefore his sons, to their loss. A simple comparison can be made between Biff and Bernard to illustrate this point. In High School, Biff failed his mathematics class. His first reaction is to go see his teacher to ask him for the missing grades, while Bernard has told him earlier in the school year that he must work harder to pass the course. Maybe that if he has listened to Bernard, he would have been successful. Once on the work place, this hypothesis is confirmed because Bernard his much closer to success than Biff, and even then Willy. Finally, Willy believes that it is important to own a house. The mortgage, as well as the house itself, have a special place in the play. A house reflects one’s attainment, and paying down the mortgage is like an evidence of one’s absolute accomplishment and apogee of success. But the play shows that what

At the beginning of the first act, it is evident that Willy gives a lot of importance to his house and to what is going on around it (garden, neighborhood, etc.). Moreover, he put a lot of emphasis on owning it: “Figure it out. You work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there’s nobody to live in it” (Miller p. 15). It is clear that he has been working to pay this house so his sons could fully enjoy it, and that he is quite disappointed to realize that there is no one to savour it. As the story comes closer to its climax, Willy shows more and more examples of his desire to let something tangible as inheritance to Biff and Happy. Among others, he begins to grow a garden in the yard even if, in the first act, he states that even grass does not grow. This garden represents two things: first, it is a hand-working job, just as he like; second, agriculture is the symbol of long-term subsistence. He may already have an idea at this point that he his going to commit suicide soon. Therefore, he wants to make sure that his family will not be starving and the garden is the perfect idea for this. Finally, the most important asset he wants to give to his sons his money. All his life he has been paying his insurance policy. And in his decline, he tries to use this insurance policy to get money. Two evidence of this are the car “accidents”, that were not accidents at