In addition to Willy and Biff, there is another family member who have been living in a dream. Willy’s younger son Happy has been a part of his family living in a lie. He is thirty-two years old, and has been living in the shadows of his brother his whole life. He is a younger version of Willy. He grew up always listening to his father talk so highly of his job, so he does the same thing. He embellishes the truth to create a life of illusions. Happy is also still caught up in high school, because back than him and his brother Biff were popular. The author states, “Happy and Biff formulate schemes to synthesize values, hoping to attain prominence and to reunite as brothers. Their short-lived dream of a Loman ranch in the West attempts to synthesize sports and commercialism, the pastoral and the urban, playfulness and seriousness, …show more content…
All of Happy’s life he imagined a dream of being with his brother again and succeeding. He hoped it would be just like old times. He is also caught up with the illusion that he will make it in the business world only because he is stronger and better looking than his bosses. The author states, “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. He seems always to be merely present in the Loman household, an adjunct” (15). All his life he has always been second to his brother Biff. He craves his father’s attention and is always trying to do something outrageous. Throughout the play Happy never changes. Even in the end when his father has died he still does not see the illusion his father has been living in. Happy states, “I’m gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a god dream” (Miller 111). In other words Happy believes that even though his dad died, he still lived his life to the
Miller develops the relationship of Biff and Willy by exploring the effects of the American Dream on relationships and families affected by it. Particularly in the hotel scene, Miller explores the pressure to conform and to seek acceptance by others in order to meet society’s demands.
Shakespeare’s play Macbeth shows us that humans are driven by emotion. You can see this wherever you look. It’s literature, old and new, movies, music, and everyday life. One specific example of this is the play Macbeth. The play shows how people react to greed, anger, regret, desperation, guilt, happiness, fear, determination, and so much more.
Willy foolishly pursues the wrong dream and constantly lives in an unreal world blinded from reality. Despite his dream Willy constantly attempts to live in an artificial world and claims “If old Wagner was alive I’d be in charge of New York by now” (Miller 14). As a result, Willy often ignores his troubles and denies any financial trouble when he says “business is bad, it’s murderous. But not for me of course” (Miller 51). Another false segment of Willy’s dream includes the success of his two sons Happy and Biff. Biff was a high school football star who never cared about academics and now that he needs a job says “screw the business world” (Miller 61). Ironically, Willy suggests that Biff go west an “be a carpenter, or a cowboy, enjoy yourself!”, an idea that perhaps Willy should have pursued. Constantly advising his boys of the importance of being well liked, Willy fails to stress academics as an important part of life (Miller 40). Furthermore, Willy dies an unexpected death that reveals important causes of the failure to achieve the American dream. At the funeral Linda cries “I made the last payment on the house today... and there’ll be nobody home” to say that she misses Willy but in essence his death freed the Lomans from debt and the hopes and expectations Willy placed on his family (Miller 139). Very few people attend
Moreover, throughout the play the upbringing of Biff and Happy can be seen mirroring the childhood of Willy and his older brother Ben. During the requiem, Happy feels it is his duty to avenge his father in a way so “Willy Loman did not die in vain.” “Did not” provokes a strong feeling of confidence that he will be the one to make his father proud after his death. Through the play Happy is undermined by his father and seen to be “second best” to Biff; therefore him claiming to be the one to “win it for him” could suggest that he’s never overcome this feeling of neglect from his father,
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a brilliant writer of many stories, especially dealing with the nature of human beings, with themes including religion, perfection, and the natural world. His works have been lauded for their treatment of the human condition. Several stories, such as “The Birthmark”, “Rappaccini’s Daughter”, “Young Goodman Brown”, and “The Black Veil”, have been chosen to explain Hawthorne’s understanding of human nature. “The Birthmark” especially explains the pursuit of human perfection and the notion that nature cannot be overcome by humankind. “Rappaccini’s Daughter” details the human temptation to sin. “Young Goodman Brown” expresses the belief that once one sins, they will always be a sinner, cannot atone for their sins, and must pay for it. Finally, “The Black Veil” considers the idea of inherent sin, where the Black Veil represents all of sin in the town. Through his stories, Hawthorne conceptualizes his perspective on human nature by considering that because human beings pursue perfection, and are not content with their inherent imperfection, they experience the loss of their humanity.
The play surrounds the Loman family, specifically the relationship between Willy Loman, the husband to Linda Loman, father to Happy and Biff Loman. The relationship between Willy and Biff Loman are intensely similar to the relationship between Troy and Cory Maxson in the play Fences. Biff has this amazing offer to go play college football and Willy is there the whole way boosting him up. Until Biff fails a class and goes to see Willy working a sales job and finds him cheating on his mother, Linda. When willy offers to help with the school situation, Biff just says “never mind” (Miller 438). This moment was the beginning of all the dreams Biff had, all the respect and love for Willy, all died. Years later, Biff pops back into town causing constant fire between the two. Biff tries for Willy’s sake and tries to go for a sales position but realizes as he was leaving the office building he thought “I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be” (Miller 446)? Biff feels like Willy screwed him over in life, telling Willy “I never got anywhere because you blew me full of hot air I could never stand taking orders from anybody” (446)! Biff begs Willy to let him go and to “take that phony dream and burn it before something happens” (447). These dreams and
Willy has low moral standards and control over his own actions but refuses to make changes. Biff so badly wants to be nothing like his father. Willy pushes hard to put his dreams onto Biff because he feels that it is the only way to be successful. As Biff fails to live up to Willy’s expectations, and is seen as a failure in Willy’s eyes, Willy’s ego is destroyed, thus creating his own world or reality that he begins to live in. He becomes tired and angry, and he has a false sense of success from living in his fantasy world.
They have a psychological effect on his younger son, Happy. There is no information about Happy’s high school career, but as an adult he is the assistant to the assistant buyer at a decent-sized company. He gloats about his success, since he was always hidden in the shadow of his older brother’s success in high school. When the boys were teenagers, Willy constantly poured out his affection and pride into Biff, since he excelled at football. But, this left Happy yearning for his father’s attention. This neglect causes Happy to become extremely needy, and he tries to fulfill this need with lust. He always has a girl by his side, though they never stay for more than a few days. Also, his sense of self-importance goes through the roof, thinking his job is more than just an assistant. He struggles with a false image of himself, just like his father, and it causes him to become almost a mirror image of his father in the emotional sense. With his severe lack of stable social relationships, Happy Loman suffers from the same fate as his brother. They both need something that their father cannot provide due to his mental illness.
Emotional abuse is more than just mean words, it is defined as a person subjecting, or exposing, another person to behavior that may result in psychological trauma (Murno, 1), and while it is one of the most common forms of abuse it’s also the least talked about. In the play Death of a Salesman Willy Loman, the protagonist was emotionally abusive to his sons Biff and Happy, this caused Biff and Happy to show mental and behavioral effects of abuse. Consequently Biff and Happy show signs that are common in children that have been emotionally abused proving that their lifestyle choices were caused by Willys emotional abuse . Emotional abuse can have many different effects on a child, one of the noticeable signs of an emotionally abused child is problems
Willy’s biggest issue with his son is that he let him down by not being any more successful than him. He feels like Biff is failing on purpose just to make him look bad. Although, he has no decent job and is single; Biff has become disoriented about life. Earlier in the play Biff tells Happy, “I tell ya Hap, I don't know what the future is. I don't know - what I'm supposed to want” (Miller266). Biff once looked up to his father as a role model, but lost all faith in him once finding out that he was having an affair. Ever since he has rejected Willy’s commitment of being a husband and also a father. To add to his ruins are Willy’s ideas of how Biff should get ahead in life. Willy taught Biff that popularity was the right way to get to the top, rather than hard-work and dedication. Trying to live by his dad’s standards caused Biff to fail high school and become unable to put forth the effort to become
America’s blindness to the past and the “whitewashing” of history, sanctions for many tales of exploitation and cruelty to go unnoticed. We hear about slavery and of the displacement of the original inhabitants of America, Native Americans, but the extent to which we hear about their plight only goes so far. Those elements of different cultures which are not useful to the story of success and triumph for the colonizers is ignored, minimized, transformed or just destroyed. (Arnold, 1999: 1) This cherry picking of history is what allows for the exploitation of the marginalized people to continue on today. If America was to trace the brutal and racist timeline of American history and genuinely examine it, then they would have to face the colossal
Ben, Willy’s older brother, believes that his American dream was that he started out with little, and ended up being very successful. It is ironic, because Ben brags that he came out of the African jungle a rich man, so he did not necessarily achieve the American dream, since his wealth began in Africa. Although Ben is not alive anymore, he frequently appears in Willy’s dream and can be considered as a symbol of the success that Willy desires. Another character who struggles with trying to pursue the American Dream is Happy, Willy’s youngest son. Happy possesses many of the same traits as Willy and lives the lie of the American Dream. Happy shows many signs of delusion, even believing that he is in a higher position in his store than he really is. Another character, Biff, the oldest son, also struggles with the idea of the American Dream. Biff’s main struggle throughout the play is between pleasing his father or pleasing himself. Willy wants Biff to inherit his world of sales, but Biff finds himself happier outdoors and is a farmhand. At the end of the day, Biff realizes that his happiness is more important than being rich and achieving the American dream. He returns to the farm where he makes less than $35 a week and does manual labor. Biff can also be considered a relatable character because he redefined his version of the American dream.
All Willy really wants is to be a part of his son’s lives and, Miller shows this by the example of when in the play Biff comes home to recollect himself, Willy seems to think this as a failure because he would rather see his eldest son be likely more successful rather than his youngest, Happy. Hereafter, Willy tries to take matter into his own hands, ‘I’ll get him a job selling, he could be big in no time’, he says to Linda (1215). Partially due to Willy’s consistency in Biff’s life conflicts start to erupt more partially to do with the fact being that they had different ideas of what the ‘American Dream” really is. With Biff believing that the most inspiring job to a man is working outdoors, his father disregarded by saying that working on the road selling was the greatest job a man could possibly have (1276).
Despite his son’s popularity in high school, Biff grows up to be a drifter and a ranch-hand. Willy’s own career falters as his sales ability flat-lines. When he tries to use “personality” to ask his boss for a raise, he gets fired instead. Willy’s “definition” of the American Dream is all wrong, due to the way his own sons turned out to be.
Willy Loman has the ups and downs of someone suffering from bipolar disorder: one minute he is happy and proud- the next he is angry and swearing at his sons. Their relationships are obviously not easy ones. Willy always has the deeper devotion, adoration, and near-hero worship for his son Biff; the boy, likewise, has a great love for his father. Each brags on the other incessantly, thereby ignoring the other son- Happy- who constantly tries to brag on himself in order to make up the lack of anyone to do it for him. This turns sour however, after Biff discovers the father he idolizes was not all he had thought him to be. Afterward, familial dynamics are never the same, as Willy continues to hope that Biff will succeed, ignorant- perhaps