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Character of Willy Loman on death of a salesman
Briefly comment on the character of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman
Disillusionment of the American Dream
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In Arthur Miller’s play, Death of A Salesman, Willy Loman strives to achieve the American Dream for him and his family. The American Dream is defined as the equal opportunity everyone in the United States has to succeed and live a fulfilling life. However to achieve the American Dream, one must be determined and persevere when faced with hardships. Failing while trying to achieve the American Dream is inevitable, but it is how one learns from their failures that matters. This is very difficult for Willy because throughout his whole life he has failed, but he is never able to come to terms with it. His obsession for the American Dream hurts him and his family. He believes that the American Dream should be obtained easily. Therefore, it does not come as a surprise when he gets fired from his job. Throughout the play, as Willy’s failures become more prevalent, he begins to lose himself and this eventually leads to his downfall. Willy just wants for his sons, mostly Biff, to become successful …show more content…
and carry his legacy. While he does not realize it, his teachings have negatively impacted his sons and are the reason they are unsuccessful. Linda and his children also do not help him until the end; even in the end it is only Biff that helps him. Willy Loman’s life is an American tragedy because it demonstrates the menacing repercussions of unreasonably pursuing a vision: the American dream. Willy is terrible at his job, but he continues pursuing it despite failure. He wants and lives in a fantasy that he is a good salesman, but he does not realize he is bad at it. It becomes clear Willy is a very bad salesman first when his guaranteed salary for being a salesman is cut. He can still work but he only earns what he sells. When he finds himself needing money, because he can’t sell anything, he goes to Charley to receive money. However, when Willy asks for insurance money, Charley states, “Without pay? What kinda job is a job without pay(74)?”Charley has offered Willy a job several times, but Willy can’t accept it. Willy says he already has a job, and this is why Charlie responds in a frustrated way. He is so stubborn about staying with his job even though he is a failure. His sense of pride is very pathetic because it is preventing him from taking the job Charley offers with a salary. Willy is so desperate for money, but his dream of being a good salesman prevents him from making the wise decision. Furthermore, Willy goes to his boss, Howard, to ask for his salary back; Howard says no and fires Willy. In frustration, Willy proclaims, “[one] can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away--a man is not a piece of fruit(61-62)!” This is very sad because Willy is so oblivious to the fact he is bad at his job. He does not understand because he has worked for so long, but that is how business works. Just because Willy helps name Howard, does not mean he is immune to being let go. If he does not sell anything, he is only hurting the business. He has been used and had the life sucked out of him from his job. Willy is exactly an “orange” in the business world. There is nothing more he can offer the firm; all the “pulp” is sucked out of him and Howard fires the “peel”. Another reason Willy has trouble letting go of his salesman fantasy is how easy it was for his cousin Ben to get rich.
He is always jealous of how Ben “walked into a jungle, and comes out, the age of twenty-one, and [becomes] rich!” His cousin’s success makes Willy believe his success should come easy. Ben becomes rich “at the age of twenty-one” which is far younger than Willy, including his two sons. However, this delusional belief that success comes easy is far from the case, and it is a reason why Willy is always blaming his appearance and other non-important things when he cannot make a sale. Again this shows how oblivious and helpless Willy is to his failure as a salesman. Willy’s pride, stubbornness, and him being so oblivious creates pity in the audience which is one of the main components in an Aristotelian tragedy. It also shows how Willy’s biggest problem is himself; this can provide catharsis for the audience by teaching them not to let themselves get in their own
way. One of Willy’s biggest goals is to be extremely well-liked, but he can’t seem to achieve that. This is Willy’s main tragic flaw that really causes his whole downfall. Not only is this detrimental to himself, but he also negatively impacts his sons too. For example, while Biff and Happy are in high school, Willy tells them, “That’s why [he thanks] Almighty God [they are] both built like Adonises. Because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and [they] will never want” (21). Willy is telling his sons that if they are well-liked they will always get what they want. All his sons have to do to achieve success, American Dream, is have a powerful presence in the business world by being well-liked. That is why he is so grateful they are built like “Adonises” which are very strong mythical demigods. The fact that he chooses this word emphasizes how they must carry such a presence with them and have such a godly look to achieve success. However, the American Dream is earned through hard work and perseverance. This false advice is only setting his sons up to fail which is why it is his main tragic flaw. In addition, Willy when referring to Bernard says he, “can get the best marks in school...but when he gets out in the business world…[Biff and Happy] are going to be five times ahead of him”(20-21). Again Willy is saying how being well-liked is so much more important than working hard. This is ironic because Biff actually flunks out of school which prevents him from graduating. However, Willy himself suffers the most from his tragic flaw because it makes him crave outside recognition. For example, when Willy is cheating on his wife with the woman and she complements him he says, “ [she] chose [him], heh”(25). Willy’s desire to be well-liked leads him to cheat on his wife because after being with someone for a while, this new outside affair makes him feel special. His guilt for committing this adultery is also a major component of his downfall. Therefore, because Willys has a tragic flaw of being well-liked leads to his downfall, his life can be considered a tragedy. There is nothing for Willy to leave behind when he passes away. He has no legacy to be remembered by. With Willy’s sons being unsuccessful, Willy is worrying about how he has no one to carry his legacy. Towards the end of his life, he is obsessed with seeds. He mentions, “[he has] got to get some seeds, right away. Nothing’s planted. [He does not] have thing in the ground”. (96) The “seeds” symbolize something Willy needs to leave behind to grow into something: a tree. His sons are both unsuccessful and he is worrying they won’t amount to anything when he is gone. Nothing is “planted” already because his sons aren’t working, they are doing nothing and they are not “growing”. Willy is anxious because he has nothing to leave behind when he dies: no legacy. He feels he has to do something meaningful before he dies. Furthermore, as Willy’s decline is progressing, he is considering killing himself to give the life insurance money to Biff. This can be seen when he talks to ben and claims, “Ben, that funeral will be massive! They’ll come from Maine, Massachusetts, … that boy will be thunderstruck, Ben, because he never realized - [Willy is] known” (100)! Willy again wants to show Biff how well-liked he is. He wants to prove again how important being well-liked is to his sons.Therefore, Willy believes if Biff sees this magnificent sight of many people coming to his funeral, then he might become inspired and carry his father’s legacy. By using the word “thunderstruck”, Willy thinks Biff will be extremely surprised by the funeral. This delusional thinking can cause the audience to have pity for Willy. It also creates fear that Willy is going to kill himself. However, the only reason Willy is still considering not taking his life is he does not want to seem cowardly; that would not be a good thing to be remembered by. As a result of him and Biff fighting, and Biff getting emotional, he feels as though Biff likes him. This fills him with glee and he is overjoyed to kill himself to give Biff the money. For example, after the fight he says, “(Going over to Ben, almost dancing.) Imagine? When the mail comes he’ll be ahead of Bernard again!" (108). Willy hopes by committing suicide, Biff can receive the twenty-thousand dollars of life insurance. With this money he hopes Biff can achieve the American Dream-- the one Willy always wanted. He is very happy to help Biff and this can be seen by him “almost dancing”. Dancing is an activity people do when filled with happiness, and the fact that Willy is doing it proves how happy he is. While misguided and naive, his suicide did have good intentions, which again contributes to his life being an American Tragedy. All he wants is to achieve the American Dream and leave a legacy. In the end however, Biff did not receive the money and only Happy is going to carry on his legacy. When Happy is arguing with Biff at the funeral, he states, “[he is] going to show [Biff] and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. [Willy] had a good dream”(111). It is clear Happy did not learn anything from his father’s death. He is going to end up just like his father, but Biff on the other hand learned and is going to pursue his own dream of living out West. Happy cannot seem to realize Willy’s American dream was the cause of his death. To conclude, Willy’s suicide is futile and achieves nothing positive despite what he previously thought. No one even shows up at his funeral besides his family, Charley, and Bernard. These factors again create pity in the audience and catharsis, that suicide is never a solution for anything.
The play, “Death of a Salesman” written by Arthur Miller, presents Willy Loman, as a salesman, who fails to earn a living and slowly loses his mind. Willy continuously seeks the past to find out where he went wrong. During his years in life, Willy wanted his two sons, Biff and Happy to become someone they’re not; Willy wanted them to become a salesman like him. However, because of his obsession in the American Dream of easy success and wealth, he created a life full of lies for himself and his sons. In the end because of “his misconception of himself as someone capable of greatness” leads to his downfall and the end of his life (Death of a Salesman).”
Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, and Arthur Miller, author of Death of a Salesman, both tell the stories of men in the costly pursuit of the American dream. As a result of several conflicts, both external and internal, both characters experience an extinction of the one thing that they have set their sights on.... The American Dream.
Everyone has a dream of their desired future, they dream of the one thing that makes them happy that they do not have now. In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman and Gatsby are characters dominated by an American dream that destroyed them. Their dream comes from a fantasy past. These dreams were made outside from who they truly are. Gatsby tried to repeat his past, while Willy attempted to create a new past. The lack of control over their goals and dreams lead to their downfall at the end. The two novels show the various points of the American dream; either to pursuit of happiness, or to pursuit of material wealth.
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman focuses on the American Dream, or at least Willie Loman’s version of it. *Willie is a salesman who is down on his luck. He "bought into" the belief in the American Dream, and much of the hardship in his life was a result. *Many people believe in the American Dream and its role in shaping people’s success. Willy could have been successful, but something went wrong. He raised his sons to believe in the American Dream, and neither of them turned out to be successful either.
Throughout the play, Willy can be seen as a failure. When he looks back on all his past decisions, he can only blame himself for his failures as a father, provider, and as a salesman (Abbotson 43). Slowly, Willy unintentionally reveals to us his moral limitations that frustrates him which hold him back from achieving the good father figure and a successful business man, showing us a sense of failure (Moss 46). For instance, even though Willy wants so badly to be successful, he wants to bring back the love and respect that he has lost from his family, showing us that in the process of wanting to be successful he failed to keep his family in mind (Centola On-line). This can be shown when Willy is talking to Ben and he says, “He’ll call you a coward…and a damned fool” (Miller 100-101). Willy responds in a frightful manner because he doesn’t want his family, es...
What is the "American Dream?" How does one define success? Many people hold different views on how to obtain true happiness. One common view is the accomplishment of something yearned. A majority of individuals desire love, compassion, and a family. On the other hand, there are those concerned with self-image, material items, and the fact that money can indeed buy true happiness. In Arthur Miller's play DEATH OF A SALESMAN [published by Ted Buchholz (1993)]--the story of a sixty-three year old man named Willy Loman striving to achieve the "American Dream" and his family who suffer as a cause--contains many examples of trying to achieve material success. Willy's ultimate dream concerns following in his brother Ben's footsteps and rising to be a successful salesman. Willy Loman wanted success so badly that he lost a realistic sense of himself. He wished the same for his sons, Happy and Biff. Yet his struggle for popularity, authority, and money for success caused his downfall. Unfortunately for Willy, most of his dreams were illusions. He was unable to come face to face with this fact. Willy Loman's definition of success warped his view of himself and that of his sons.
Willy Loman equates success as a human being with success in the business world. When Willy was a young man, he heard of a salesman who could "pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, make his living." (81) This salesman is Willy's inspiration; someday to be so respected and so well known that he can still provide for his family, even at an old age. Of course, Willy is no good at being a salesman because his heart isn't in it. The only time Willy puts his heart into anything is when he works with his hands, and his son, Biff, comes to realize this. "There's more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made." (138) Willy never comes to the realization that it is not being a salesman that he cares about, but rather being well known and, perhaps more importan...
Willy Loman is a hard working American who is trying to achieve the classic American dream. However, Willy’s criteria to becoming successful are somewhat skewed. Willy believes that business is a very personal job. One of Willy’s keys to success is personality and how having a fun, kind personality will get more business. Along with personality, comes making friends and connections in business. Mr. Loman also believes that making personal connections to customers is important to business. Willy says he gets lonely “especially when business is bad and there’s nobody to talk to” (P.38) and this compares his belief of making connections and success or lack thereof. Similar to making connections, Willy thinks, and therefore teaches his sons, that
To begin, Willy’s methods of searching for likeability are erroneous. He believes that the superficiality of attractiveness goes hand in hand with being well liked. Willy’s downfall started with his impression of Dave Singleman, an 84 year old salesman. According to Willy, he had “…the greatest career a man could want.” Sure this man was liked in cities around the world, but Willy’s altered perception of the American dream masked the realities of his life. Willy failed to see that instead of being retired at 84, Dave Singleman was unwed, still working, and in the end “dies the death of a salesman”; alone and without love. Believing in this dream, ultimately leads Willy to his hubris; too proud to be anything but a salesman. Throughout the play, Charlie often asks Willy, “You want a job?” Instead of escaping his reality of unpaid bills and unhappiness, Willy’s shallow values lead him to refuse the switch from him attractive job, to that of a carpent...
One major theme in Death of a Salesman is the pursuit of the American dream. Playwright Arthur Miller details main character Willy Loman’s misguided quest of this dream. Death of a Salesman was written in postwar America, when the idea of the American Dream was a way of life. The United States was flourishing economically, and the idea of wealth was the base of the American Dream. Capitalism was alive and well, and by living in a capitalist society, everyone in America was supposed to have a chance to become rich and successful. Miller makes the reader realize this dream is a falsehood, because it doesn’t always work for everyone as planned. In the play Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is a prime example of someone trying desperately, yet unsuccessfully, to pursue the false hope of the American Dream, directly resulting from capitalism’s effects.
An American dream is a dream that can only be achieved by passion and hard work towards your goals. People are chasing their dreams of better future for themselves and their children. The author Arthur Miller in Death of a Salesman has displayed a struggle of a common man to achieve the American dream. Willy Loman the protagonist of the play has spent his whole life in chasing the American dream. He was a successful salesman who has got old and unable to travel for his work, and no one at work gives him importance anymore. He is unhappy with his sons Happy and Biff because both of them are not successful in their lives. Moreover, Biff and Happy are also not happy with their father Willy because they don’t want to live a life that Willy wants them to live. The heated discussions of Willy and his older son Biff affect the family and the family starts to fall apart. However, Willy is unable to achieve the American dream and does not want to face the reality that his decisions for himself and his family have lead him to be a failure in the society. In the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the protagonist Willy Loman spends his whole life to achieve the American Dream by his own perception and denies facing the reality, just like nowadays people are selling themselves and attempting to find success in life.
Willy Loman is a 60 year old senile salesman who desperately wants to be a successful salesman; however, his ideas about the ways in which one goes about achieving this are very much misguided, just as his morals are. He believes that popularity and good looks are the key to achieving the American dream, rather than hard work and dedication. He not only lives his entire life by this code, but instills his delusional beliefs in his two sons Biff and Happy. As a result, his sons experience similar failures in their adult lives. Willy led a life of illusion, lies and regret which not only ruined his life, but gad a negative impact on the lives of family as well.
In today’s society the term “American Dream” is perceived as being successful and usually that’s associated with being rich or financially sound. People follow this idea their entire life and usually never stop to think if they are happy on this road to success. Most will live through thick and thin with this idealization of the “American Dream” usually leading to unhappiness, depression and even suicide. The individual is confused by society’s portrayal of the individuals who have supposedly reached the nirvana of the “American Dream”. In the play “Death of a Salesman” Willy thinks that if a person has the right personality and he is well liked it’s easy to achieve success rather than hard work and innovation. This is seen when Willy is only concerned how Biff’s class mates reacted to his joke of the teachers lisp. Willy’s dream of success for his son Biff who was very well liked in High School never actually became anything. Biff turned into a drifter and a ranch worker. In the play “Seize the Day” Tommy who is financially unstable also pursues the idea of getting to the “American Dream” and becoming wealthy. He foolishly invests his last seven hundred dollars and eventually loses it leaving him broke and out of work. In both plays following the American Dream is followed in different characters and in both the characters are far away from it leaving them broke and forgotten by almost everyone.
Willy's goal throughout life was to climb out of his social class. As a salesman, Willy was a failure and he tried desperately to make his sons never end up like him. As a result, he loses his mind and his grasp on reality. Throughout the story, Willy often has flashbacks of the conversations that he and his brother Ben once had and the author intertwines them in past and present very nicely.
Willy's main flaw is his foolish pride, this it what makes him a tragic hero. Yet there are many facets to his personality that contribute to the state he and the family are in during the play. His upbringing of the boys is one major issue, he raised them with the notion that if one is well-liked, he need not worry about qualifications, he believed that if his boys were popular they would come out on top. Sadly, he doesn't realize that the only way an ordinary person can get rich is through work (represented by Bernard) or through luck and good timing (Ben), and Willy missed the boat when it came to ...