Death Of A Salesman Willy's Failure Essay

The play "Death of a Salesman", by Arthur Miller, follows the life of Willy Loman, a self-deluded salesman who lives in utter denial, always seeking the "American Dream," and constantly falling grossly short of his mark. The member’s of his immediate family, Linda, his wife, and his two sons, Biff and Happy, support his role. Of these supportive figures, Biff’s character holds the most importance, as Biff lies at the center of Willy’s internal conflicts and dreams, and Biff is the only one in the play who seems to achieve any growth.

We see Biff’s continued attempts at pleasing his father when he tries to meet with Oliver even though he does not expect a job opportunity to come out of it. Happy and Biff tell Willy about Biff’s plans during a late-night conversation saying, “[Biff is] going to see Bill Oliver, Pop.’ ‘[Oliver] always said he would stake me. I’d like to go into business, so maybe I can take him up on it” (265). Biff’s continuing desire to live up to his father’s expectations shows that he does not want to disappoint Willy.

This is evident when he vibrantly shows off his new custom imprinted shoes. Additionally, shortly after Bernard leaves, Biff states that he is not well liked (20) because he prioritizes studying above other matters that signify with being well liked. Biff starts to show signs of arrogance like his father. When Willy’s beliefs are applied to his sons, it means that being well liked is more important than studying hard. Therefore, Willy’s lack of understanding life and confusion about the real American Dream make him teach his sons wrong, and his failure is because he never understood what was really needed to succeed insisting to the end that personality was

Why is he stealing? What did I tell him? I never in my life told him anything but decent things” - (Act 1, Page 41). As well as supporting Biff for his crimes, Willy never pushed Biff to do well in school. “Willy: That’s just what I mean, Bernard can get the best marks in school, y’understand, but when he gets out in the business world, y’understand, you are going to be five times ahead of him” This quote shows that Willy focused on teaching his kids all the wrong things, and as a result from this bad parenting.

It is a transposable story of an unachievable American dream, which is sorted by many. This play highlights several characters with different and similer ideologies. The protagonist, is played by Willy Loman, an unsucessful salesman, whose sturdy, optimistic and hopeful, ideals, posed a relative imbalance, in his life. From the onset of this play, Willy is depicted as disillusioned and an intransigence father, who was unsatisfied with his family’s achievements. However, he is torn between two realities; on one hand, he considers himself a failure, on the other hand, he is hoping for success through his two sons, Biff and Happy.

He teaches them that being well liked is a much stronger tool in becoming successful than being a determined hard worker. Willy's values is why Biff is not more successful. He is hard working and has the ability to be more successful if the right set of values and morals were instilled upon him as a child. ‘/

Not to mention, Willy also got fired from his job, even though he followed his philosophy. It is evident that Willy’s understanding of the American dream and philosophy is false, and does not help one in life. True success in life is achieved by smart, hard-working individuals. Additionally, Biff sees himself as someone who has a life in the

His delusions are starting to take a real toll on the family as a whole. Especially Biff who takes them the hardest because he cannot ignore them. This is due to the fact that Biff knows more about the content of Willy’s delusions than anyone else in the family does. When Willy was supposed to have a special night out with his sons, he starts to have one of his many delusions. Instead of dealing with his father, Biff just got up and left with Happy, his brother right behind him.

Willy was always shown trying to gain the approval of others and be seen as a “well liked person”, while Biff couldn’t really care less what others think of him (he only seems to occasionally care about his father’s approval). He doesn’t want to be “known for something”, he just wants to live life as he truly wants without the burden of worrying about others opinions. Biff lives an unpublic, avoiding anything related to putting himself out there, ever since the incident in Boston with “The Woman” and Willy. He isolated himself and took away any “fame” he could have gotten to live his own life. He did everything his father tried to get away from, and ended up being the better

Moment like these, which were abundant during their childhood, caused negative effects especially on Biff. Biff became a kleptomaniac a quality that can be traced to Willy always pumping him with the idea that he doesn’t have to respect authority. “Everyone led Biff to believe that he was the best and that he did not have to work to be great which became his major downfall”(Stewart). This is Biffs’ dilemma. He was always told he was the best and how since he’s was so well liked by everyone he would never have to worry but, since he didn’t turn out successful in the eyes of his father he feels like he’s failed life. Even though working on the ranch is what he loved to do. As the play began to come to an end we see Willy and Bernard having a conversation and Willy being baffled at how Bernard had succeeded where Biff had failed. In Willy's mind, Bernard's great success is impossible to understand since he was always so unpopular spent so much time studying. He thought that all you need to be successful was to be well liked. Because of being abandoned by his own father and brother Willy so young its possible that Willy felt partially to blame and in him mind being well liked would keep people from leaving. Because of his philosophy Biff has difficulty maintaining

One person that contributed to Willy’s demise was Biff, who failed his father by being unsuccessful. Out of two sons that Willy had, Biff was the favored

Biff believes that his father lives a lie and should not have been a sales man. Yet Willy never seems to accept it. Charley offers Willy a job multiple times but willy’s pride just won’t let him work for the guy he is jealous of. He doesn’t take the job even if could have saved him.

To begin, Biff has changed since high school. This means Willy cannot assume Biff will be successful just because he was years ago. While in high school, Biff believed anything was possible and all goals were obtainable. The present-time Biff does not feel the same way. Biff contradicts his dreams of working outside on a farm to please his father.

Willy is extremely disappointed that Biff has not been able to make a great career for himself, just like Willy himself. Willy selfishly wants Biff to be able to live out Willy’s own delusional idea of the American Dream, to ease his own insecurities. Biff and Willy's unsettled relationship is the central relationship of the play. From this excerpt we also see that

On the other hand, Willy also is emotionally involved with Biff because his son's success or failure is also his. By becoming rich and influential, the handsome, personable Biff was slated to provide Willy's victorious reply to all not sufficiently impressed with his own modest advancement. By making his fortune in the business world, Biff would prove that Willy had been right in turning down Ben's adventurous challenge to head for Alaska. He would also outshine the sensible, plodding Charley and Bernard, thus establishing once and for all Willy's theory that having personality and being "well liked" were the great requisites for preeminence. Losing his own job, Willy is naturally unhappy. But if he