Willy Loman

Many of us have an idealized dream that we wish to pursue. However, the very word “idealized” suggests that those dreams are “out of reach” and are unlikely to be achieved. Having a dream or goal that is unlikely to be met does not however suggest the futility of ideals, but merely, that it could be used as a source of motivation and courage for the individuals to overcome the various obstacles in life. However, in the modern tragedy, “The Death Of A Salesman”, Arthur Miller suggests a slightly different perspective to the idealized dreams. He suggests that people often idealize their past to further promote their unrealistic yet idealistic future dream through the protagonist, Willy Loman. Willy Loman is a seemingly determined yet lost sixty

To make his stories more realistic, Willy’s had couple delusions within two-day-long play. In his delusions he has had hope from Biff and Happy, role models from Ben, and the woman as a road to success. Neglecting the realism of his delusions, Biff was an attractive well-built young man who is the leader among his friends. Biff friends were “lost” without Biff leading them, and therefore, Biff is able to demand them to help his family with their laundry. A leader, similar to a manager, they tell people who to do. Even though parts of the past may be true, but nonetheless did Willy altered it to fit in perfectly with his ideals, keeping them together. When Biff stole the basketball, Willy complimented him and told Biff his coach would have been proud of him. Willy did not compliment Biff for stealing the ball, rather, Willy comforted himself that even if Biff had stolen the ball, the coach still would not have minded because Biff have such personal attractiveness. Resulting from the previous false belief, Willy is then able to make the assumption that Biff is going to be successful in the future, thus. providing Willy with hope. Ben was a flat character that only existed in Willy’s mind. He was the role model for Willy. His existence made Willy’s idealistic future success seemingly more attainable because not only did he achieve success and he is also related to Willy. The woman is the last post holding Willy’s ideals together because she is the buyer. She provided the staircase for Willy to walk to success in his salesman career. She is unrealistic and partially made-up, because Willy would have succeed long ago if she had put him “straight to the buys”. That delusion suggests about Willy’s longings to success and how low he is willing to place his pride for success, thus how important it is to pursue his idealist dream and how far he is willing to go before he accepts