Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller is an outstanding and iconic play that gives an idea of an American family in the 1940s. The family is quite the group of dysfunctional people that all just want the ultimate goal of happiness and success. Throughout the play, there are many issues that get in the way of the satisfaction of success for the family. There are many themes that occur throughout the play. The main character of the play is Willy Loman, and he is a heavy contributor to many of the constant themes. Willy is a very arrogant man who wants to be the typical, happy American family. Willy believes in his own personal American Dream, which consists of if you are appealing to the eye and charming, then you will be given whatever the heart’s …show more content…
When in reality, he is not successful in the least manner. One example is when Willy asks his boss if he can have a job that does not require an excessive amount of driving. Instead of getting the job that he wants, he in turn gets fired. He talks to himself and always wonders the house as he sleepwalks all throughout the house. Willy does not see that he has led his children astray from success, which can result him not only as a failure as a salesman, but also as a parent. The failure of a parent is the most disappointing issues that Willy must face, but in his eyes, Willy is doing everything correct. This is a symbol that he is a failure at acknowledging his own faults. This is another way that Willy proves himself to be delusional. Willy also has the mindset that everyone is out to get him. He thinks that people do things to irritate Willy. One specific example is when Biff catches Willy with his mistress in the hotel. The mistress is named the Woman, which signifies that this was a random act by Willy. It also shows how emotionally segregated she is from Willy because he never calls her by her name. This symbolizes how it is strictly a sexual relationship and Willy is the primary beneficiary. Since the affair, Willy thinks that Biff is spiteful in the way that Biff fails to be successful or hold any type of a job. Willy thinks that Biff has a personal …show more content…
This play shows that Arthur Miller was out to show people a sense of a real world expectation. It shows how one’s dream of making it big will likely be crushed and that person must fit in wherever they can make it. The play features the depression that is found most often in society which having a job that is miserable. It is rare that a person wakes up for their job and they are excited for the day to come, and it is a valid point that Miller makes. Miller essentially proves that if a person feels there is no way to help their family, then it is best to kill yourself and let your family have a little money to excel further in life without that person. It shows that people will always find a way to hurt another, whether it is physically or mentally. This is proven through the acts of betrayal and abandonment. Overall, the play is well written and does a remarkable job at depicting the lives of the Lomans and life can bring a person down, but it is up to them to rise above all of the pain and to be on top if that person has enough
The first aspect of Willy's character that affected his failure was his pride. Willy's pride caused him to in many situations make very poor and unethical decisions, that affected both himself and his family. An example of this is through the conversation between Willy and Charley “CHARLEY: ‘You want a job?’ WILLY: ‘I got a job, I told you that. [After a slight pause] What the hell are you offering me a job for?’ CHARLEY: ‘Don’t get insulted.’ WILLY: Don’t insult me.”(DOAS: pg x) Willy does not take the offer which is an obvious example of a poor decision. He makes this decision because he sees this generous whole hearted gesture as a kind of pitiful handout that his pride restricts him from taking. By not taking this handout willy puts his self pride infront of
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.
Willy and Happy are very similar people. However Biff does not agree with the way Willy and Happy handle situations, which results in several conflicts between Biff and Willy throughout much of the play. Willy describes Biff as being lost saying, “Biff Loman is lost. In the greatest country in the world a young man with such – personal attractiveness gets lost,” (Miller 16). Even though Willy believes Biff is the lost one, in reality, Willy is lost throughout most of the play (Eisinger 2). Willy does not really know himself. Willy always puts on a show for others and does not be his true self, which portrays the feeling of being lost within himself.
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...
Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is a story about the dark side of the "American Dream". Willy Loman's obsession with the dream directly causes his failure in life, which, in turn, leads to his eventual suicide. The pursuit of the dream also destroys the lives of Willy's family, as well. Through the Lomans, Arthur Miller attempts to create a typical American family of the time, and, in doing so, the reader can relate to the crises that the family is faced with and realize that everyone has problems.
Willy’s failures and lies have been a result in his constant faith and will to achieve his dreams, the dreams which society has implanted within him. His flaws have come from society, but also himself, and Miller has used this to create the conflict and tragedy in the play. It is then that writer then makes the impact of Willy’s failures greater, incorporating his death into the play, crushing his dreams and the dreams of the characters around him, creating his tragedy.
He believes that he is well-liked and respected by everyone, which is not true. Willy's pride leads to his downfall, as he cannot accept that he is not successful and that his dream is unattainable. Finally, the illusion of Willy's life that resulted from him dreaming the wrong dream ends up in his tragic suicide and the destruction of his family. Willy's dream creates an illusion of a perfect life, which is not true.
Willy lived everyday of his life trying to become successful, well-off salesman. His self-image that he portrayed to others was a lie and he was even able to deceive himself with it. He traveled around the country selling his merchandise and maybe when he was younger, he was able to sell a lot and everyone like him, but Willy was still stuck with this image in his head and it was the image he let everyone else know about. In truth, Willy was a senile salesman who was no longer able to work doing what he's done for a lifetime. When he reaches the point where he can no longer handle working, he doesn't realize it, he puts his life in danger as well a others just because he's pig-headed and doesn't understand that he has to give up on his dream. He complains about a lot of things that occur in everyday life, and usually he's the cause of the problems. When he has to pay for the repair bills on the fridge, he bitches a lot and bad mouths Charley for buying the one he should of bought. The car having to be repaired is only because he crashes it because he doesn't pay attention and/or is trying to commit suicide. Willy should have settled with what he had and made the best of things. He shouldn't have tied to compete with everyone and just made the best decision for him using intelligence and practicality. Many of Willy's problems were self-inflicted, the reason they were self-inflicted was because he wanted to live the American dream. If he had changed his standards or just have been content with his life, his life problems would have been limited in amount and proportion.
Willy Loman stands in, so to speak, for every American male who defined himself as a man, husband and father with respect to his success in the workplace and his capacity for grabbing a share of the material American dream. Willy Loman is a man who has deluded himself and has judged himself more harshly than his wife or his son. His tragedy is that he comes to an understanding of this delusion too late to make any changes in his life. Whether or not we as readers or as members of the audience agree with his judgment is irrelevant. It is Willy's own failure that is important in this play.
In the play Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller uses an old style of reality that deals with emotional and financial struggles. These struggles are viewed throughout the whole play. The play was written around the 1940s, which was around the time of the Great Depression. This was a very difficult time in which a lot of people struggled just like the Loman family did in the play. Arthur Miller uses several elements in the play which are: stream-of-consciousness, setting, protagonist, symbolism and climax. These elements are very helpful to the understanding of the reader.
Arthur Miller’s play “Death of a Salesman”, primarily focuses on the flaws and failures of Willy Loman, Millers’ main character in this story. Willy’s distorted and backward views of the American Dream, paired with his inability to let go of the past lead him down a road of regret and in the end his biggest failure which was his wasted life.
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is a play that follows the troubles of a salesman named William “Willy” Loman, whose overzealous definition of true success inevitably leads to his suicide. I feel that a few of Willy’s unique characteristics contribute to his downfall, but that his unstable point of view and completely misconstrued concept of reality make the greatest contributions.
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.
Willy has such high hopes for Biff as a boy, and it seems that he really is on track to fulfill them. He is a high school football star and is going to the University of Virginia, he really believes in the American dream just like his father does. However, when he goes to visit Willy in Boston, he catches him in an affair with the woman. This makes Biff realize that his father is not the all-important figure that he once looked up to, that he is just as susceptible to the errors of life and to blame as anybody else. He always had wanted to be his father, but now he realizes that his father is a “phony little fake!”
Willy is a salesman. Willy believes that success comes from being well liked and popular and has tried desperately to instill his notions to his two boys Happy and Biff, Willy's biggest aspirations in life. His wife Linda is extremely supportive and is Willy's only connection to reality. While raising his boys and trying to instill his "American Dream", he fails to teach them any sense of morality, leading them down to what he feels is the wrong path. At one point, he defended Biff for stealing just because he was an amazing football player.