Theme Of Family Relationships In Death Of A Salesman

Family relationships, because of their closeness and emotional involvement can significantly influence one’s life, either positively or negatively. This is the case in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, where Willy’s, family has a massively negative impact on his life. Their abandonment of him, their enabling of his mistaken ideas and his conflict with Biff contribute to his failure as a father, salesman and human being.

During his life, Willy is abandoned by many family members. The first of these is his father who leaves for Alaska when Willy is a baby. As a result, Willy looks up to his brother Ben as a father figure. When Ben also leaves him, this causes Willy to crave the attention and affection that he never got as a child He

When Biff is young, Willy lives vicariously through Biff’s popularity and success in high school. He sees them as proving his view of life; that popularity equals success. This keeps Willy from realizing that he is neither a good father nor a good salesman, and that he is failing in his own life. Comparing Bernard to his own sons he says, “Bernard can get the best marks in school, y’understand, but when he gets out into the business world, y’understand, you are going to be five times ahead of him.” When Biff fails over and over after high school, Willy sees this as a rejection of him. He accuses him of spite, and returns to better times more and more often in his mind, becoming more delusional and failing to deal with the reality of his life. Linda notes that Willy hallucinates more when Biff is around. “And then the closer you seem to come, the more shaky he gets, and then, by the time, you get here, he’s arguing, and seems angry at you.” In the final scene, Biff tells Willy the whole truth and starts to cry. Willy realizes Biff really does love him. Willy has already decided to kill himself, but now he believes that Biff will love and admire him even more for doing so. “Always loved me. Isn’t that a remarkable thing? Ben, he’ll worship me for it!” His relationship with Biff, in some ways the most important of his family relationships, keeps him from recognizing the truth of his life at every stage.

Thus, in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman’s failure as a salesman, father and human being can be attributed to being abandoned by his family, to his family enabling his skewed ideas, and to his conflict with his son Biff. This shows that family can have serious implications on one’s life, for better or for