Essay on Death of a Salesman - Father-Son Relationships

In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Biff Loman silently questions his ability to fulfill his father’s wishes. His father, Willie Loman, holds high expectations for Biff’s future and constantly brags to others about how successful Biff will be. Out of respect for his father, Biff conforms to the path that Willie has planned for him. In the beginning, Willie lives vicariously through his son, Biff, who has no choice but to conform in order to preserve father-son respect. However, when the mutual respect that his father holds so dear dissolves, Biff’s concealed questions expand their influence from his thoughts to his actions as Biff becomes his own man.

In the play, “The Death of a Salesman,” many similarities and differences can be found between the main characters, “Biff” and “Willy.” The phrase “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” is a little too relatable. They share the same selfish, deceiving behaviors. Biff and Willy have both shown a pattern to live their lives in the past. Willy constantly brings up how successful of a salesman he was in the past.

Next, Biff Loman in Death of a Salesman is a major character that sets up the plot for the story and also influences Willy’s death. Biff is a static character. He remains the same from the beginning of the play until the end. He does not know who is the whole time and is trying to find himself. He is always stealing even since he was

Next, the biggest problem in this family would have to be Willy. His own insanity is tearing the family apart. During the story, “Death of a Salesman”, Biff overhears Willy Talking to himself which causes an enormous fight between his mother Linda, himself, and eventually Willy. Biff is tired of how mad his father has become and wants a way to get him treatment but Linda believes there is nothing that can be done.

While the play primarily focuses on Willy’s dream, Death of a Salesman also observes Biff and his American Dream, which may be construed as the “right” one. Compared to his father’s, Biff’s dream is a simple one: own a ranch and labor in the countryside close to nature, happy and content. And yet as his father increasingly pressures him to pursue a dream more aligned to his own, Biff experiences an identity crisis of sorts, desperately seeking to please Willy by taking a job in business but always failing in his efforts. Eventually, he realizes that he cannot be his father, and, at Willy’s funeral, contrasts his earlier statement regarding Willy’s state of mind with one regarding his own person: “I know who I am, kid” (Miller 111). Though at the start of the play it was Willy who thought Biff lost, it is now the reverse. Willy, with his aspirations for renown and major success, found himself perpetually adrift in the world, struggling to make ends meet and maintain his family ties. And yet while Willy suffered at the hands of his American Dream, Biff prospered (although not monetarily) in his “proper” American Dream, experiencing true contentment in his craft. While Willy faced constant confusion and an almost bipolar personality disorder owing to his erroneous endeavors, Biff’s main insecurities and difficulties were those brought on by his father’s notion of success. In other words, Willy’s American Dream caused nothing but suffering for him and those he loved, while Biff’s American Dream would have allowed him peace of mind had it not been for his

Unfortunately, he goes to his grave without knowing that, maybe he was not fit to be a salesman. After Willy's death, Charley says about Willy, "A salesman is got to dream" (Brown, 306), but one must wonder, did Willy Loman dream the wrong dream (Brown, 306)? Although Willy realizes in his visions that he was not the greatest salesman, he does not realize why Biff is not successful with his "expert advice."

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

“You’re a success, aren’t you? Are you content?”, is the question Biff asks his brother, Happy and he heedlessly responds with, “Hell, no!”. Throughout the Death of a Salesman, Happy Loman is seen as this tall and powerful man but, on the inside he is very unhappy with himself. It would seem elusive if he was happy with himself when he responded to Biff with a “no”, unless he is truly unhappy. From the first few pages of this play, it foreshadows the struggles Happy goes through in order to be happy. He is unsatisfied and lonely, seeks the approval/attention from his father, Willy Loman, and he is a mirror reflection of his father. Taking in consideration of these factors will shed light on why Happy Loman is

Biff Loman is portrayed as the root of Willy’s mental illness and instability. He is also the only member of his family who acknowledges his own failures in life. On the whole, Biff Loman stands out as the most intriguing and strong character in “Death of a Salesman. He is not a successful man and never will be, he is however able to admit this, even in a harsh society as the one of the 1960s America. Biff knows he is a “nothing” and tries to make his father see that he is “no good. I am a dime a dozen, Pop, and so are you.” He begs for Willy to communicate with him and accept him for who he is. Although Willy is forced by Biff to see some of his own failures, he never

Family relationships always have a way of playing a key role for the duration of most literary pieces. According to Arthur Miller’s novel, Death of a Salesman, the interaction of Willy and his sons, Happy and Biff, shows that family ties usually are connected either physically or emotionally in some way or another. Willy Loman is just like every father in a father/son bond, yet all he wants is to be a part of his son’s life. Even though Biff and Happy admire and have so much love for their father when they are younger, later down the road when they are older suddenly they realize he had failed to prepare them for the real society in life.

Also in Death of a Salesman, Biff is dependent on the family and he needs to be a salesman to make his father proud. However, Biff knows that Willy had an affair with another woman, Willy later on remember this moment in a flashback. The affair would scarred Biff to drop out of summer school and would let Linda deal with Willy’s mental problems. Biff also tries to get a job, but ends up unemployed like his father. Biff even tries to steal just so he could make his father proud. Biff learns that he and Willy cannot be rich and they are just ordinary men who should get ordinary salaries.

In the play “Death of a Salesman” written by Arthur Miller, the main character, Willy, is an unsuccessful salesman who wants his son, Biff, to succeed in business but Biff fails his expectations. In the play "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare, the play begins with the recent death of the King Hamlet. After the king’s death, his brother, Claudius, was crowned as the King of Denmark. When the ghost of the king appears, he makes Hamlet understand that it was Claudius who murdered him and tells him that he wants him to take revenge. Hamlet wanted to be like his father and has become a lot like him by the end of the play. Hamlet knew that his father, King of the Denmark, was a good leader, as Hamlet mentioned: "so excellent king” (149). Hamlet does everything according to what his father’s ghost said because he is an important figure for him and in the play “Death of a Salesman”, Biff also sees his father as an idol. For both of them, their fathers represent power and moral authority but only for Biff by the end of the play father has lost his power.

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

In the play, Willy puts the expectation of success upon himself and Biff. He desires to have the American dream and he convinces himself that he has achieved it despite the fact that he has to borrow money from his neighbour Charley in order to pay his bills each week. When he learns that Biff has tried to get a loan to start a business, he commits suicide so that Biff will have the money that he needs. This is the biggest example of the fact that Willy did not live in reality because if he did he would have realized that the chances of Biff actually using the money to build a business was nil. This is because Biff is the manifestation of all of Willy’s negative attributes both real and imagined. However, unlike Happy who has embraced the American Dream to his own detriment. Biff cannot allow himself to do this.

Depression. Trust issues. Relationship issues. A higher chance to become criminals. These are all possible effects that a poor parent-child relationship has on the child. The main character of Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman, a travelling salesman, works throughout New England, but lives in New York. In his childhood, his father was absent and so he is attempting to provide his sons with a father. He is trying to create the best life for his sons, but still cannot do so, even in their thirties. In the play, the condition of Happy’s desire for attention, Biff’s discovery of his father’s “hobbies”, and Willy’s focus on people liking him all demonstrate that Willy’s decisions and selfishness lead to him being a failure of a father to his sons, which ultimately leads to the failure of his sons.