It is said that "Good stories are driven by conflict, tension and high stakes" (William Landay). For Willy, problems grow and conflicts increase, which shows a good story. In Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman is a flawed character, who has many conflicts to face, which accumulated throughout his lifetime. Consequently, Willy's internal and external conflicts ultimately lead to his own downfall, after being compiled and left unresolved. For instance, he deals with the aspiration of being somebody in the business society. Similarly, he acquired moral issues within his family. Lastly, Willy encounters various challenges with the way he is. Willy Loman led to his own demise through numerous conflicts with family, society and himself. …show more content…
Willy Loman has had many issues regarding family, since his childhood, affecting his decisions and causing his eventual debacle. Willy has been abandoned by many people in his family life, including his sons, his father and his brother Ben. Along with this abandonment, Willy has no family history, no memories and no heirlooms. This is suggested when Willy says, "No, Ben! Please tell about Dad. I want my boys to hear. I want them to know the kind of stock they spring from. All I remember is a man with a big beard, and I was in Mamma’s lap, sitting around a fire, and some kind of high music" (Miller 33). Willy is desperate for memories, after being abandoned by his father. He barely knew him before he left for Alaska to find success. Furthermore, the high music symbolizes the flute, which is used throughout the play, representing Willy being taunted by his father's departure. Additionally, Willy is betrayed by his son Biff, when he does not wish to follow through with Willy's dream. Biff argues, "Will you let me go for Christ’s sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?" (Miller 106) After Willy failed to succeed in life, he tried to find success and live through his son. When Biff realizes that his dream is finding potential in the American West and not being a salesman, Willy is hurt and insulted. Essentially, Biff betrays Willy's ambitions even though he owes him. Ergo, family has been a huge conflict for Willy for a long time and it is evident that family has greatly impacted Willy's own demise. Moreover, Willy strives to achieve success in the business world with no triumph, which progresses to his collapse. Willy is very prideful when it comes to showing his success. This can be seen when he tells his boys: "Tell you a secret, boys. Don’t breathe it to a soul. Someday I’ll have my own business, and I’ll never have to leave home any more…Bigger than Uncle Charley! Because Charley is not—liked. He’s liked, but he’s not–-well liked" (Miller 18) Willy believes that the key to success is being well-liked and personally attractive, which shows how he is superficial. He thinks that success will be achieved without working hard for it. Besides this, Willy idolizes others in the business society. It is obvious that Willy makes others, such as Dave Singleman, a legend when he says, "When he died—and by the way he died the death of a salesman, in his green velvet slippers in the smoker of New York, New Haven and Hartford, going into Boston—when he died, hundreds of salesmen and buyers were at his funeral" (Miller 61). Willy assumes that Dave died successfully because there were many people at his funeral, in spite of him being lonely and constantly on the road. In contrast, Willy lives in his own bubble and others live their own lives around him. They do not care for the salesman, but the products they sell. Willy put himself down because he cannot leave a legacy behind after he passes. Hence, Willy's failure to find success in being a salesman ultimately leads him to his declension. In addition, Willy battles internal conflicts with himself that creates many consequences that bring him to his own death.
It is known that Willy is superficial, as he cares about appearances and is materialistic. Again, Willy believes personal attractiveness brings success. This is illustrated when Linda and Willy speak about Biff's meeting with Bill Oliver. Willy claims, "He’s heading for a change. There’s no question, there simply are certain men that take longer to get—solidified. How did he dress?” (Miller 52) Willy is fixed on physical appearance and is sure that Biff would get the job if well ignoring the fact that Biff stole basketballs from Bill. He concludes that the way you present yourself is the only thing that delivers success, not hard work. Also, Willy fails to see the difference between dream and reality. This is demonstrated when Happy talks about his father: "Dad is never so happy as when he's looking forward to something" (Miller 82). This is fundamental to see that Willy's dreams are an escape from reality. He has flashbacks to explore the past and discover the mistakes that denied him the chance to live the American dream. He looks forward to attain some accomplishment without working his way to the top for it. Thus, Willy's downfall can be linked to the problems that he tackles through self
conflict. Therefore, in Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman's conflicts within himself, society and business lead him to his own declension. To repeat, Willy struggles with who he is and how he is. Likewise, he craves to be successful in the society of business. Finally, Willy sustained many problems amongst his family. It is possible for one to have so many conflicts that eventually lead to a great downfall, as conflicts reflect a life and destroy ideals.
In Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, the conflicts that formulate between Biff and Willy Loman build up to the death of Willy. Biff’s delusional perception of being liked in the world leads to a successful life which was an idea brought onto him by his father, Biff’s discovery of his father's affair, and Biff’s lack of business success all accumulate to the heavy conflicting relationship between Biff and his father, Willy. These contribute immensely to the idea that personal dreams and desire to reach success in life can negatively impact life with personal relationships, which causes people to lose sight of what is important. This ultimately leads to the Willy committing suicide from the build up of problems with his son.
An additional segment of his common human nature is Willy's self-centeredness. Although one might say that the American Dream is imposed upon him by the society, Willy himself creates his dream. Willy supports this claim when he praises Dave Singleman's career to Howard: "And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want" (Miller 81). His nostalgia for a non-existing future is also proven by the fact that no one else in his environment has a similar, impossible dream: "If he were not wearing the rose colored glasses of the myth of the American Dream, he would see that Charley and his son are successful because of lifelong hard work and not because of the illusions of social popularity and physical appearances" (Spark 11). Surely the false ego and pride predicted to come from his assured success are the bridges that prevents Willy from seeing through his fake dream, pushing him to persuade the rest of his family to worship it along with him.
In the book Death of A Salesman, author Arthur Miller shows how cruel life can be through the life of Willy Loman, the main character. His feelings of guilt, failure, and sadness result in his demise.
Never does one go through their life without having to deal with some sort of personal conflict. The manner in which people deal with these conflicts vary as much as the prints on a person's finger. Some try and solve the problem and get rid of it, while others will try and put it aside for as long as possible. Willy Loman's method in Arthur Miller's play, The Death of a Salesman, is very dangerous and builds to harsh results. Willy never tries to help the circumstances, he only flees to his great memories of the better days, when his life's predicaments were very limited. He uses this evasion tool as though it were an addictive narcotic, and as the story unfolds, the audience soon discovers the lethality of the drug.
Like countless characters in a play, Willy struggles to find who he is. Willy’s expectations for his sons and The Woman become too high for him to handle. Under the pressure to succeed in business, the appearance of things is always more important than the reality, including Willy’s death. The internal and external conflicts aid in developing the character Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.
At the beginning of the play it is evident that he cannot determine the realities of life, and so he repeatedly contradicts himself to establish that his conclusion is correct and opinion accepted. These numerous contradictions demonstrate that Willy is perturbed of the possibility that negative judgements may come from others. Willy strongly believes that “personality always wins” and tells his sons that they should “be liked and (they) will never want”. In one of Willy’s flashbacks he recalls the time when his sons and him were outside cleaning their Chevy. Willy informs Biff and Happy the success of his business trips and how everyone residing in Boston adores him. He mentions that due to the admiration of people he does not even have to wait in lines. He ultimately teaches his sons that being liked by others is the way to fulfilling one’s life and removing your worries. These ideals, that one does not need to work for success, demonstrate Willy’s deluded belief of achieving a prosperous life from the admiration and acceptance of others. This ultimately proves to be a false ideology during his funeral, when an insufficient amount of people arrive. Willy constantly attempts to obtain other’s acceptance through his false tales that depict him as a strong, successful man. In the past, he attempts to lie to his wife, Linda, about the amount of wealth he has attained during his
Death Of A Salesman by Arthur Miller is about a salesman named Willy Loman and his family. The Loman family story switches between the past and the present time during the play. The play explores the constant day-to-day struggle that many families face, and how this challenge takes a toll on the head of the household. Willy Loman continuously strives for a happy life. The way in which Willy goes about obtaining a happy life ultimately leads him to commit suicide. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller suggests that Aristotle’s theory on obtaining a happy life is correct.
The play “Death of the Salesman” by Arthur Miller, introduced the dramatic story of Willy Loman, a salesman who has reached the end of the road. Willy Loman is a washed-up salesman who is facing hard times. In “Death of a Salesmen,” Willy Loman has been deluding himself over the years to the point he cannot understand what is wrong with him. This leads to the problems with is sons, wife, and career; it ultimately is what ends his life. I believed that the character of Willy 's delusion caused him to fall. While there were many contributing factors to Willy 's demise, his failure to cope with such circumstances and to become trapped in his own delusion is what tears Willy apart from himself and his family. Rather than facing the reality, Willy
Alistair Deacon from As Time Goes By once said that, “The people in the book need to be people.” The main character in a story or in a play always has to be somewhat likeable or relatable. Who doesn’t like to feel like they can relate to their favorite character in a story? In many cases the authors of stories or books always try to make the reader feel like they are not the only ones with problems or going through a crazy situation. Wanting the reader to become engaged in the characters' conflicts is what they aim for. In Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, many people were gripped by Willy Loman’s, the main character, problems because they too struggle with many of the conflicts that Willy faces. Willy could not keep his life together, failing to see reality and pursuing the wrong dream, with a wrong viewpoint, ended up causing others around him and himself to hurt.
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."... ... middle of paper ... ...
Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman follows protagonist Willy Loman in his search to better his and his family’s lives. Throughout Willy Loman’s career, his mind starts to wear down, causing predicaments between his wife, two sons and close friends. Willy’s descent into insanity is slowly but surely is taking its toll on him, his job and his family. They cannot understand why the man they have trusted for support all these years is suddenly losing his mind. Along with his slope into insanity, Willy’s actions become more aggressive and odd as the play goes on. Despite Willy and Biff’s “family feud”, his two sons Happy and Biff truly worry about their father’s transformation, Happy saying: “He just wants you to make good, that’s all. I wanted to talk to you about dad for a long time, Biff. Something’s – happening to him. He – talks to himself” (Miller 21). Willy, as a father, cares about his children but he wishes they would do better. He believes Biff should have been an athlete. According to Harrington, “Even figuratively, Willy is haunted, and particularly in Biff’s failure to achieve success as a sports figure” (108). This haunting is part of what led to Willy’s slow plunge into madness. As Willy’s career in sales fails, he also fails, even failing his family. Heyen adds: “He didn’t have anything of real value to give to his family, or if he did, he didn’t know what it was” (48). His debilitating flashbacks and delusional hallucinations with Uncle Ben cement his horrifying realizations that he has let down his family. Willy Loman blames the economy for his downfall in his career. In one of his more extreme outbursts he exclaims, “There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining this country! Population is getting out of control. ...
Willy Loman’s character in Death of a Salesman portrays him as a tragic hero. Willy Loman continued to want recognition and his reputation, but never forgets about his family. These characteristics describe him as a tragic hero in Death of a Salesman. Willy Loman’s tragic flow leads him to pursue the idea that reputation in society has more relevance in life than knowledge and education to survive in the business. His grand error of wanting recognition drove him crazy and insane and led to his tragic death.
The drive to conform to Willy 's ideals are present in Happy because he envies those in higher ranking than him and he feels he must do whatever it takes to surpass them. The need to surpass them, deals with Willy 's obsession about power. The more Happy advances, he will attain more power and eventually fulfill Willy 's goal of making a name for himself. "Happy 's need to be number one has another significance also, for he has never been the sole focus of his father 's attention, always a poor second to Biff" (Jacobson 253). With the amount of pressure Happy faces to meet expectations, he has to work even harder knowing that most of Willy 's attention is directed towards Biff. Since Biff was a promising football star, Willy focused on him primarily because he felt Biff has more to accomplish within life. Willy 's focus on Biff because of his football career symbolizes the monetary value Willy holds most important. Willy believes that Biff is far more important than Happy because his football career will lead Biff to a college scholarship and his college degree will bring high paying
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.
Willy is a multi-faceted character which Miller has portrayed a deep problem with sociological and psychological causes and done so with disturbing reality. In another time or another place Willy might have been successful and kept his Sanity, but as he grew up, society's values changed and he was left out in the cold. His foolish pride, bad judgment and his disloyalty are also at fault for his tragic end and the fact that he did not die the death of a salesman.