Examination of Willy and Linda's Relationship in The Good Wife’s Guide

Finally, Willy seems to be irascible at several instances in the play. For example, on page 64 when him and Biff are discussing Biff’s meeting with Bill Oliver and Willy berates Linda for interrupting him.

In “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller, in the Act I, the author emphasizes the relationship between Willy and Linda in different ways by showing the love of Linda towards Willy and how she admires him. And also, she always shows her patient when Willy gets angry easily. The relationship between Willy and Biff is different from the past. Willy’s relationship with Biff is complicated. Biff is everything for Willy and Biff believed that Willy is the greatest father in the world, but in the present Biff doesn’t think like that anymore.

Willy undermines her authority with the boys. He denies any negative comments out of her mouth when their children are discussed. He interrupts her. He shouts at her. Linda reacts with veiled hostility to Willy?s disrespect. She laughs at the idea of planting a garden, pointing to Willy?s past failures at growing a garden. Every time Linda pokes at his failures, she is retaliating against Willy?s failures and the fact that she has been pulled into Willy?s dead end dream against her will.

They too treated women as objects. To Biff and Happy, they never knew the moral law of treating others as one would want to be treated. This was a major failure on Willy’s part for not shaping his sons on even the most fundamental principals of moral values. It all ended turning inward when his sons started treating him the same way he treated other people.

Later in a flashback, Willy and Biff are on their way to Ebbets Field for a football game when Charley appears and beings a conversation with Willy. Merely joking around, Charley makes a few comments which Willy takes great offense too and beings insulting Charley and telling him to put his hands up as if to fight. Willy's arrogance shows it's face once again when Willy is talking to Biff about his meeting with Oliver. Completly ignoring what Biff is saying, Willy goes on about how good of a kid Biff is and how impressive he is. Though not directly insulting, Willy ignores what his son has to say and goes off on his own tangents, losing the respect of the reader. Willy then ends up in another flashback in the bathroom of the restauraunt where he met Happy and Biff for dinner. The most disgusting part of Willy is revealed here. Biff walks in on Willy and his woman friend whom hes had a secret relationship with. Willy attempts to cover it up and when that doesnt work he orders Biff around and shows how bad of a person he can be.

An idea is shown, “that's why i moved out here. Why biff can feel anyone of theses trees no time! boys!”(Miller 50). Willy is talking to his brother ben and is shown his first sign of early false truth. Willys imagination of having a highly successful son blocks the real vision. He is making his son look like he can do anything without trying at all. Directly after Willy, tells Biff to go to the apartment buildings that are being constructed and steal from the sand. “Boys! Go right over to where there building the apartment house and get some sand we're gonna rebuild the entire front stoop right now! Watch this ben!” (Miller 50). This instance brings to light many of the underlying realities, willy let's biff and orders him to go do wrong and steal to show his imaginary brother that he has raised his kids “right”. Charley, the realest, tells willy the consequences of biffs actions by saying that the watchman will put the police after him and arrest him which could destroy any future for Biff if he gets caught. LInda’s underlying passiveness is also shown by her speaking to willy and says “dont let biff..”(Miller 50), the awareness of linda in the situation and her knowness of willys order to do wrong is not addressed and she shuns away from saying anything in hopes to please her

The archetypal passive stay at home wife has probably been the earliest female stereotype in society. This stereotype was perfectly portrayed through the character Linda. Linda views Willy as the center as her world, even though she is fully aware of his flaws. Linda states, “I don’t say he’s a great man…He’s not the finest character that ever lived

To some extent she acknowledges Willy's aspirations but, naively, she also accepts them. Consequently, Linda is not part of the solution but rather part of the problem with this dysfunctional family and their inability to face reality. In restraining Willy from his quest for wealth in the Alaska, the 'New Continent', ironically the only realm where the "dream" can be fulfilled, Linda destroys any hope the family has of achieving 'greatness'. Even so, Linda symbolically embodies the play's ultimate value: love. In her innocent love of Willy, Linda accepts her husband's falsehood, his dream, but, in her admiration of his dream, she is lethal. Linda encourages Willy and, in doing so, allows her sons, Biff and Happy, to follow their father's fallacious direction in life.(Griffin, 1996)

Willy also lies to Linda. We find out in the play that Willy is having

The negative impact was always there in the way of chasing the goals. Linda regarded Willy as the best person but ignored sometimes she was treated rudely. She said, ”Willy, darling, you’re the handsomest man in the world”(Arthur Miller Act1 P26). As when Biff complained about his father’s unstable behaviour, Linda proved her devotion to her husband

Along with her motives, Linda attempts to keep any voice of reason away from Willy, showing that her selfish desire of her well-being is more important than his. In a discussion with her boys in Act I, Linda says, "I'm- I'm ashamed to. How can I mention it to him? Every day I go down and take away that little rubber pipe. But, when he comes home, I put it back where it was. How can I insult him like that?"(1184) Linda claims that acknowledging the truth about Willy's possible attempt to kill himself is an insult. But, in order to develop a solution to any preoblem, one must start with the truth. Linda merely wants to accommodate Willy's mental problems rather than get rid of them, causing him to stay in his troubled state of mind. In another conversation in Act II, Linda tries to push Biff away from speaking with his father:

The next instance where Linda serves as the family's destroyer is in Act 1. Linda justifies Biff's desultory life by saying, "He's finding himself, Willy" (1404). Willy replies, "Not finding yourself at the age of thirty-four is a disgrace!" (1404). Linda says, "Shh!" (1404). Willy says, "The trouble is he's lazy, goddammit!" (1404). Linda says, "Willy, please!" (1404). Willy says, "Biff is a lazy bum!" (1404). Linda knows that Willy is right about Biff being lazy. But Linda is trying to protect her son from the truth. Linda is making excuses about him being lazy, just as she made excuses about Willy trying to kill himself. Linda should have let Willy tell Biff the truth about him being lazy. Maybe if Biff had heard the truth earlier in life, he wouldn't be thirty-four years old finding himself.

Linda Loman is often the metaphorical glue holding her family together through support and encouragement yet, when unable to get her children to assist their father is willing to force her children to leave in order to protect her husband from further harm. For Example, “Either he's your father and you pay him that respect, or else you're not to come here.” (Miller Act 1: 1579) this is important as it depicts the love she has for her husband as she will not continue to tolerate the amount of stress her children continue to bring to Willy. Through her encouragement her family attempted to progress which gave Willy the courage to ask Howard if he can work in New York and Biff to ask for a job which resulted in Willy getting fired and Biff feeling

But in the beautiful, ironic complexity of her creation, she is also Willy's and their sons' destroyer. In her love Linda has accepted Willy's Greatness and his dream, but while in her admiration for Willy her love is powerful and moving, in her admiration for his dreams, it is lethal. She encourages Willy's dream, yet she will not let him leave her for the New Continent, the only realm where the dream can be fulfilled. She want to reconcile father and son, but she attempts this in the context of Willy's false values. She cannot allow her sons to achieve that selfhood that involves denial of these values" (Gordon p. 316). Linda is also caught up in Willy's lies and therefore does nothing but help fuel the fire in the inferno of their dreams and ambitions. She lets this whole masquerade continue right in front of her instead of doing something to stop their out of control lies.

Linda speaks these lines to Biff and, not only do they prove that she loves this man an enormous amount, but also that she would sacrifice not seeing her son again just to keep Willy happy. She is wiling to sacrifice her family for the man that she loves, who appears to not treat her as well as a husband could. Linda's last comment shows that she is not treated with a great deal of respect from Willy. Nevertheless, she puts his needs before her own because of the profound love she has for him. Her love for him drives her do whatever is necessary to keep him happy, and binds her to him no matter what the consequence.