Willy Loman's Lack of Morality in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman
In Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman, a major theme and source of conflict is the Loman family's lack of morality. This is particularly evident in the father, Willy Loman. Willy has created a world of questionable morality for himself and his family. In this world, he and his sons are men of greatness that "have what it takes" to make it in the competitive world of business. In reality, Willy’s son Biff is a drifter and a thief, his son Hap is continually seducing women with lies, while Willy does not treat his wife with respect and lies to everyone.
Throughout the play, Willy seems unable to distinguish between right and wrong. He continually sends mixed moral signals to his sons. We first discover this when Willy finds Biff practicing football with a new ball. When he finds out that Biff "borrowed" it from the locker room, Willy tells Biff to return the stolen ball but tends to condone his action. Firstly, Willy feels that Biff needs the ball to practice. Secondly, the theft shows independence and daring. Finally, Biff can get away with it because the coach has a high opinion of him. Willy comments that the coach may even appreciate Biff’s initiative, all the while telling him that stealing will get him nowhere.
Willy’s dubious moral code is also exposed when the neighbor, Bernard, states that Biff will fail mathematics and lose his chance to graduate if he does not study. Willy is undisturbed by the news that Biff has not been studying. Willy seems to believe that the school would not dare fail anyone whose athletic achievements had led to offers of scholarships to three universities. Perhaps Willy believes...
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...roic act that would allow Biff to achieve the greatness that had always exceeded Willy’s grasp. In fact, it was an immoral act of a coward – just another sacrifice on the altar of the American dream.
Works Cited
Baym, Franklin, Gottesman, Holland, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 4th ed. New York: Norton, 1994.
Costello, Donald P. “Arthur Miller’s Circles of Responsibility: A View From a Bridge and Beyond.” Modern Drama. 36 (1993): 443-453.
Hayashi, Tetsumaro. Arthur Miller Criticism. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1969.
Martin, Robert A., ed. Arthur Miller. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982.
Miller, Arthur. The Archbishop’s Ceiling/The American Clock. New York: Grove Press, 1989.
---. Death of a Salesman. New York: Viking, 1965.
---. Eight Plays. New York: Nelson Doubleday, 1981.
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
In George Orwell 's "Nineteen Eighty-Four," the main storyline revolves around a dystopian society whose self-thought has been corrupted by an over empowered governing body. Orwell’s intention was to bring Hitler’s ideas to life. Smith is a middle-aged frail man who is ambivalent towards his government, however is unable to resist the strength of the indoctrination he has been subjected to, during the entirety of his life. As the reader progresses through the novel, ideas of totalitarianism are illustrated throughout the story via Smith’s internal and external conflicts with his government. It quickly becomes apparent that there is an uncopiable amount of government power which is something that is seen as early as the second paragraph. Propaganda
Big Brother also played a big role in creating the world which ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ was based in. Big Brother is a figure, which the Party has created to frighten people and give them more power. The Party can do anything they like and when someone questions them they can just say there under orders from Big Brother. Big Brother is everywhere in every house (except proles), every street, wall, and he is always shouting out “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” the text which backs this up is when Winston describes that ‘On each landing, opposite the lift shaft the poster with enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures, which are so conceived that the eyes follow you about when you move’. Big Brother is so important to the world in the novel because the figure stops thought crime, gives the people someone to look up to and someone to love, lets the Party tell the people anything they want and the people will believe it, such as propaganda.
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.
The book, 1984 by George Orwell, is about the external conflict between Winston Smith and Big Brother; and the internal conflict between the two ideas, democracy and totalitarianism. Orwell wrote the novel to show society what it could become if things kept getting worse: he sensed of the expansion of communism when he wrote the novel. The conflict between democracy and totalitarianism at the year of 1945 created two characters, Winston Smith and Big Brother, in orwell's mind. Big Brother is the embodiment of all the ideals of the totalitarian party. In contrast to Big Brother, Winston Smith keeps the idea of democracy emphasizes freedom, he has to hide his own thought because the Big Brother's party will punish him by death if the party finds it out. George orwell criticizes of Big Brother's society by describing it as a dark and a gloomy place. It warns that people might believe that everyone must become slaves to the government in order to have an orderly society, but at the expense of the freedom of the people.
Throughout the play, Willy has hallucinations of his brother Ben, who left Willy when he was young, “Well, I was just a baby, of course, only three or four years old,” (Miller 47), and the man later offered to take Willy with him, but Willy had a dream “There’s a man eighty-four years old-” (Miller 86) and he felt that he was going to accomplish that dream. “Willy retreats into a dream world consisting of his roseate recollections of the past and of fantasies,” (Hadomi), he hallucinates often, and this is a better way of saying he’s delusional. He did not, he failed miserably, he had to borrow money from Charley “If you can manage it-- I need a hundred and ten dollars,” (Miller 96), then he pretended it was a loan from him “I’m keeping an account of everything, remember,” (Miller 96), that he would pay back “I’ll pay every penny back,” (Miller 96), but Linda and Charley knew he was not going to pay any of it back. Willy had a hard time accepting defeat, and he wanted his boys to succeed where he failed, but Biff was always better with physical labor “when all you really desi...
middle of paper ... ...giving him the answers to a maths test, so he fails and can't get in. to the university of the United States. Biff and Willy argue a lot in this game. After graduating from high school, Biff lost a lot of his respect for his father.
"Death of a Salesman: Society's Alienation of Willy Loman" It is often stated that society is very judgmental. This can be seen in movies, literary works, or just everyday life. Arthur Miller chooses to portray society's prejudice against the protagonist, Willy Loman, in his play, Death of a Salesman. Society rejects Willy Loman because he isn't upper class and is getting up in age. Many occurrences highlight society's judgment of Willy, including his being fired, the "spite" he receives from his sons, and the way he alienates himself.
A major part of the reader's animosity towards Willy stems from his responsibility for the ruin of his sons. Willy's affair ends up being the reason that Biff ends up a high-school failure and a football has-been. This blunder both disheartens and destroys his eldest son. It becomes the reason Biff refuses to go to summer school; it becomes the reason that Biff leaves home. Yet, this is all a result of Willy's need to be likeable. He cheats on his doting wife simply because it makes him feel special, because it gives him proof that women other that Linda are interested in him, because it makes him feel well liked. A woman "picked [him]"; a woman laughs when he makes jokes about keeping pores open; a woman pays him some attention (38).
With each item Biff steals, Willy fails to scold him and show him wrong from right, but rather brushes it off and influences him to lie about it. After Biff steals a fountain pen, Willy’s response is, ”You give it to him and tell him it was an oversight. You were doing a crossword and accidentally used his pen!” (Miller 112). He is completely telling Biff to lie to the owner of the pen and act like he is innocent when in actuality, Biff is guilty of stealing the pen.
The first comlication which occurs in Act I, is when the reader acknowledges that Willy put his whole life into his sons, Biff and Happy, and they turned their backs on him. Willy always believed that biff would be this great, successful businessman and it turned out that Biff is still searching to find himself, which disappoints Willy in the worst way. The conflicts between Willy and Biff are rooted very deep. It all started when Biff was younger and he had failed his math class. He traveled to Boston to visit Willy, who was on a business trip. He had told that he had let Willy down and comes to find out that Willy is with another woman. Biff leaves and never takes that math class over. Willy felt guilty about this and believes that deep inside that he is responsible for Biff's choices in life and his failure to be successful. This conflict makes Willy weak and tremendously guilty, which stays with him as a reminder.
Costello, Donald P. “Arthur Miller’s Circles of Responsibility: A View From a Bridgeand Beyond.” Modern Drama. 36 (1993): 443-453.
Willy's search to find his mistakes of his life failed because, even though he found out what happened to Biff, he did not search for the right thing: his identity. Willy found out that his affair made Biff envision his father as a fake and phony, but he did not realize that a salesman was not the right job for him. When Willy died, no one came to his funeral (Act II. Scene I). This just showed that Willy was not the man he thought he was. He thought he was a great salesman with an unlimited amount of friends, but, when he died, no one was at his funeral but his family (Act II. Scene I). It showed that Willy was just a simple craftsman, who only needed attention and love from his family, and did not need fame or to be well-known ("Arthur Miller and Others," 311-314)
...s personal failure and betrayal of his soul and family through the meticulously constructed artifice of his life. He cannot grasp the true personal, emotional, spiritual understanding of himself as a literal “loman” or “low man.” Willy is too driven by his own “willy”-ness or perverse “willfulness” to recognize the slanted reality that his desperate mind has forged. Still, many critics, focusing on Willy’s entrenchment in a quagmire of lies, delusions, and self-deceptions, ignore the significant accomplishment of his partial self-realization. Willy’s failure to recognize the anguished love offered to him by his family is crucial to the climax of his torturous day, and the play presents this incapacity as the real tragedy. Despite this failure, Willy makes the extreme sacrifice in his attempt to leave an inheritance that will allow Biff to fulfill the American Dream.
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.