Willy Loman In Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman

What do you most regret never telling someone? For Willy, it is never telling his wife, Linda, about his affair. Willy and Biff had to keep it a secret but sometimes bottling feelings up can cause one to explode. Willy Loman, a sixty-year-old traveling salesman, is exhausted and often daydreams causing him to be a cranky and miserable man; he does not have a good relationship with his sons, Happy and Biff, and his wife, Linda, has enough patience to deal with him. Willy finds out that Biff is back home, and he immediately starts bashing him saying that he is lazy. Willy frequently recalls many past memories about his brother, Ben, and his son, Biff. When most of the Loman family members figure out what to do in their lives, the environment

“...and thankfully lets his burden down, feeling the soreness of his palms” (Miller 2). Willy arrives home, disappointed, knowing he did not get any sales or money to support his family, so he enters the house ashamed. “Charley, look…[with difficulty] I got my insurance to pay. If you can manage it-I need a hundred and ten dollars” (Miller 74). When Willy asks Charley for more money, he seems ashamed that he has to keep doing that instead of supporting his own family. As years pass, it seems that Willy becomes less confident in himself which reflected onto his

Willy is never shown as someone with good communicative skills which leads him to make many errors that make his life so tragic. Constantly remembering his past, Willy displays how he is stuck in the past and is not able to move on, as well as showing regret which causes his misery. A main reason for Willy’s death is due to his lack of confidence, that greatly affects him. These are all unfortunately, symptoms of depression and suicide. Many victims have many regrets in their life and are so stuck on the past that they don’t enjoy the present. Also, the majority of those with mental illnesses have a low self-esteem and a poor image of themselves, similarly to the way Willy did. As a whole society, these are problems that anyone and everyone faces but in order to change that we have to come up with a solution. As a society, we have to embrace self-appraisement and encourage one another. We also have to confront the elephant in the room relating to mental illnesses; We have to be more accepting of them and create more programs for them because one in five adults in the U.S suffer from a mental illness. Willy being the head of the household, was the role model of his children. Displaying those characteristics led his children to catch onto them as well. Biff shows minimal communication and doesn’t seem to have much confidence in himself as he used to. He also constantly