Death Of A Salesman Figurative Language Essay

Similarly, Willy's downfall continues with the judgment of himself and others, due to his superficial likeability goals. For example, Willy blamed his lack of likeability and success as a salesman on his appearance. “I’m fat. I’m very – foolish to look at…I’m not dressing to advantage…” The tragic hero’s shielded vision stops him from seeing that it is himself, not his appearance that leads him to his failure at being a salesman. Hence, since he cannot accept the facts, his career never improves and he is fired from his job, shattering his perceived chance at the American Dream. In addition, Willy strongly disliked Bernard merely because he was stereotyped as a nerd. The salesman would say to Biff’s tutor’s face, “Don’t be a pest, Bernard! …What an anemic.” Willy barely knew Charley’s son, nevertheless he evaluated him solely on his appearance. Willy seemed to do the same thing with his children. He was glad that they were “…both built like Adonises”, thinking that would lead them to success.

     The single most weighted factor that edges Willie to his demise is his inability to make a living and achieve his “American Dream”. After being a salesman for many years, Willy just can’t cope with the fact that he hasn’t been successful at all. He believes that he is a terrific salesman. His imaginative thinking won’t let him accept the fact that he has become a failure instead of a wealthy businessman. Willy believes that to be well liked is the means to being

While Biff is in some ways desperate to impress his father, he is also conscious about the fact that Willy has failed his attempt to be successful in his career. He considers his dad’s dreams materialistic and unreachable. As a matter of fact, in the Requiem, even after his father’s death, Biff says: “He had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong.” Unlike Happy and Willy, Biff is self-aware and values facts; Willy never was a successful salesman and he never wanted to face the truth. On the other hand, Biff is conscious about his failures and the weaknesses of his personality. During an argument with his father, Biff admits that his dad made him “so arrogant as a boy” that now he just can’t handle taking

The relationship between Willy and Biff is complicated. Actually, Biff is everything for Willy. He doesn’t do well as a salesman anymore, so this situation makes him depressed but at least there is Biff. So Willy believes that Biff will reach the success and his dreams will become true. That makes him want Biff to take some responsibility, in other words this is a big pressure on Biff. “How can he find himself on a farm? Is that a life? A farmhand? In the beginning, when he was young, I thought, well, a young man, it’s good for him to tramp around, take a lot of different jobs. But it’s more than ten years now and he has yet to make thirty-five dollars a week!” says Willy and then Linda says “He is finding himself Willy.” Then Willy answers again “Not finding yourself at the age of thirty-four is a disgrace!” This shows how Willy mad at him because he thinks they couldn’t reach their dreams because of Biff. Willy says “Sure. Certain men just don’t get started till later in life. Like Thomas Edison, I think. Or B.F. Goodrich. One of them was deaf. I’ll put my money

On the other hand, Willy is also emotionally involved with Biff because his son’s success of failure is his own. By becoming rich and influential, the handsome, personable Biff was slated to provide his own modest advancement. By making his fortune in the business world, Biff would prove that Willy had been right in turning down

In the play “Death of a Salesman”, by Arthur Miller, the primary theme can be seen as a conflict between man and society. In which the ambition to achieve the “American Dream” controls the life of Willy Loman and the influences he has. When success is not reached, sends Willy’s mind on a mental ride.

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

As a salesman, Willy shows he perceives himself highly when talking to Linda about his job: “I’m the New England man. I’m vital in New England” (14). One can also see Willy’s inflated sense of self-worth when he talks to his children about his job: “They know me, boys, they know me up and down New England... I have friends. I can park my car in any street in New England, and the cops protect it like their own” (31). However, even though he is extremely confident about his value as a salesman to his family, the reality of Willy’s reputation at his job is almost completely opposite: “I’m fat. I’m very—foolish to look at... they do laugh at me” (37). Although he essentially brags to his family about his expertise in business, Willy acknowledges the reality that his career is much less successful than he expects it to be. In fact, the inner turmoil inside of Willy from his unrealistic expectation of himself of being a fantastic salesman leads Willy to become mentally unhealthy, and eventually results in Willy committing suicide when he believes that he doesn’t have any self-worth anymore. Willy’s previous inflated self-worth is demonstrated yet again at his funeral, when no one shows up even though Willy thought he had a lot of friends from his job: “Why didn’t anybody come...

As Biff crashes constantly in life Willy is built up of animosity and is in denial of the fact that their failure was all his doing. “Willy has used sports to instill in his sons the twisted dreams of his diseased psyche. He filled Biff “soo full of hot air” (131) because of his minor athletic achievement and poisoned his life until Biff recognizes the falseness of the dream and escaped to start over” (Ardolino). Willy has been selling recognition and being will get them success, but never instilling hard work and consistency and success will follow; principles of success. “That’s why I thank Almighty God you’re both built like Adonises.

Rather than seethe with indignation and admonish Biff for having the audacity of committing theft, Willy gives Biff much approbation which only exacerbates Biff’s vice of theft. Evidently, Biff is not one to often have punishment thrust upon him and Willy’s continual approval of Biff despite the severity of Biff’s deed implies that Biff has never been shut down for any immoral behaviour by the authoritative role of Willy and consequently has never dealt with setbacks. Later, regarding Biff’s schoolwork and exam preparation, Willy orders Bernard to give Biff the answers, demanding, “You’ll give him the answers!” (1893). Instead of pushing Biff to firstly study, Willy tries to take a vital part of growing up off Biff: learning to work for a dream, which in Biff’s case is to attend the University of Virginia.

This again indicates Willy's lost opportunities in life. So Willy is surrounded by great successes in a society where success and money is what is respected. This means that Willy is far from respected. A technique Miller employs is using language to aid deeper meanings in the storyline.

    In Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman, Miller probes the dream of Willy Lowman while making a statement about the dreams of American society. This essay will explore how each character of the play contributes to Willy's dream, success, and failure.

Willy’s perseverance to direct Biff into success has resulted to Biff’s desperate acts to earn praise from his father. However, Biff’s dishonest acts of stealing are often justified by Willy through disregard and excuse, even expressing that the “Coach will probably congratulate [Biff] for [his] initiative”. Instead of correcting his mistakes, Willy continuously expresses his belief of Biff’s predetermined success as a result of being attractive and well-liked. These acts effectively exemplifies Biff’s adherence to self-deception as he imagines himself as an important figure in other people’s lives. It can be seen that his belief of being destined for success prevents him from allowing himself recognize the destruction it brings. As a result, Biff has allowed how Willy views him become how he perceives himself. This self-deception has not only affected the actions in his childhood but as well as his decisions when finding his role in the workplace. As stated above, Willy’s consistent beliefs of his son’s predestined success results to Biff’s immense confidence in himself. However, this confidence have provided him a false perception of himself as he struggle to keep a stable job and even faces imprisonment. It can be seen that Biff’s lack of self-perception and compliance to ideals of Willy has only allowed him to restrain and prevent him from recognizing the difference between illusion and reality resulting in the lack of his

Willy believes that wealth is the key to your happiness, and the extent of your wealth is exposed by the amount of materialistic items one has. Miller explains Willy’s thoughts in Timebends, “The publicity apparatus tells Willy that if he works hard like Edison, that if he perseveres like Goodrich, that, if he is “well-liked” like Dave Singleman, then he will rise like Charley and become rich and powerful.” Willy’s thought process is foolish, and his belief that failure cannot be tolerated in his family causes him to lie about his success. This is evident when Biff says “We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house! [130]” The American Dream is to blame for imprinting wealth is all you need to be happy, into Willy’s mind.

Ever since Biff was a child, his father, Willy, had created a perception of Biff being successful and far beyond any person or boy who worked hard, like Bernard, simply because he was popular and well liked. In school, Biff was popular- he was a star player on the football team and was on the track to receive multiple college scholarships. However, Biff had been constantly behind in his school work and was slowly failing math. Bernard was always chasing Biff around, trying to get him to do homework, trying to prove that “just because he printed the University of Virginia on his sneakers doesn’t mean they’ve got to graduate him” (Miller, 33). Willy, however, is so caught up in this lie that he disregards the warning signs,