Explore Linda Loman’s Treatment of Willy Loman Throughout Pages 8-10 of Death of a Salesman and Discuss to What Extent This Aids Willy’s Deterioration Throughout the Rest of the Play. 

In Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman’s life seems to be slowly deteriorating. It is clear that Willy’s predicament is of his own doing, and that his own foolish pride and ignorance lead to his downfall. Willy’s self-destruction involved the uniting of several aspects of his life and his lack of grasping reality in each, consisting of, his relationship with his wife, his relationship and manner in which he brought up his children, Biff and Happy, and lastly his inability to productively earn a living and in doing so, failure to achieve his “American Dream”.

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.

In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is an example of a failure as a good father. He did not discipline his sons well by not punishing them. He did not set a good example to his sons by not admitting his faults. He did not make his family his number one priority. Instead, it was his work, coming before his family, his friends, and even himself. Not only is Willy Loman not a good father and husband, but he was a failure by not becoming successful, not achieving the American Dream.

  Charley says something in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman that sums up Willy’s whole life. He asks him, "When the hell are you going to grow up” (Miller 97)?  Willy spends his entire life in an illusion, seeing himself as a great man who is popular and successful.  Willy exhibits many childlike qualities and his two sons Biff and Happy pattern their behavior after their father.  Many of these qualities, such as idealism, stubbornness, and a false sense of self-importance in the world have a negative impact on Willy’s family,

Willy Loman, the central character in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, is a man whose fall from the top of the capitalistic totem pole results in a resounding crash, both literally and metaphorically. As a man immersed in the memories of the past and controlled by his fears of the future, Willy Loman views himself as a victim of bad luck, bearing little blame for his interminable pitfalls. However, it was not an ill-fated destiny that drove Willy to devastate his own life as well as the lives of those he loved; it was his distorted set of values.

The play begins with Willy as the antagonist, fighting with his wife Linda and a generally mean person. He insults his sons and scolds Linda for buying the wrong cheese. Willy shows his biggest personality flaws early on in the story; contradicting his own thoughts, being verbally abusive, and showing his over developed sense of pride. Willy loses

Sexual objectification is the act of treating a person as an instrument of sexual pleasure. Miller elucidates this by using milieu of the time period. This sexual objectification of women is mainly used by Willy with his mistress and also with the philandering Happy when he talks about women. This ideology that women are only good for the pleasure of men something that has been prevalent for centuries, stemming from the stereotype that women are objects and/or possessions for a man to exploit. Willy shows no respect to either his wife or his mistress. On his way back to Brooklyn, Willy tells his mistress to “keep [her] pores open” (1.39). This degrading statement gives insight on how Willy views women. He does not view women as people who have identities of their own, but objects that he can use for his own pleasure. Not only does this statement give insight on Willy’s views on women, but also how the mistress views herself. Her response to this statement was “Oh, Willy (1.39)”, and starts to burst out laughing. This depicts how in this time men treated women with no respect, and there were no repercussions. Linda never stood up to Willy in Brooklyn, and neither did his mistress in New England. Willy’s insolence towards women definitely rubbed off onto Happy. Happy, a philanderer, had an “If I want it, then I will get it” attitude towards women. This attitude is demonstrated when he states that, “...I don’t want the girl, and still I take it and- I love it” (1.25). This statement is the epitome of sexual objectification towards women. Happy doesn’t view women as people, but instead just as things that he can “take”.

Miller amalgamates the archetypal tragic hero with the mundane American citizen. The result is the anti-hero, Willy Loman. He is a simple salesman who constantly aspires to become 'great'. Nevertheless, Willy has a waning career as a salesman and is an aging man who considers himself to be a failure but is incapable of consciously admitting it. As a result, the drama of the play lies not so much in

Linda is given nothing but motive for wanting her husband, Willy, to die because of the ways he mistreats her. For example, during a family conversation in Act I, Linda, trying to put in a few words, says, "Maybe things are beginning to change-," with Willy coming in right after her, "(wildly enthused, to Linda)Stop interrupting!..."(1187) Linda, trying desperately to be a part of the conversation, is constantly denied her voice. Always under Willy's control,

To what extent can Willy Loman be considered a tragic hero according to Aristotle’s rules?

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, for all her warmth and goodness, goes along with her husband and sons in the best success-manual tradition.  She tries to protect them from the forces outside and fails.  The memory of her suffering and her fidelity does not keep Willy and Happy from sex or Biff from wandering.  Miller's irony goes still deeper.  While Linda is a mirror of goodness and the source of the family's sense of identity, she is not protection - by her silence and her support, she unwittingly cooperates

Throughout this play Miller portrays his main character, Willy Loman, as senile, unsuccessful and slightly insane. Willy’s deranged personality is in part because his father abandoned him at a young age. Willy also feels abandoned by his cherished brother Ben. Ben went off to become a big success and rich. Willy sees this and it helps lead him to feel inadequate as a man

The Presentation of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Willy Loman is presented as both a tragic hero and an unconscious victim in "Death of a Salesman". "Death of a Salesman" is very much based upon the American Dream, and whether we are slaves or conquerors of this dream. This is an idea that the playwright Arthur Miller has very passionately pursued both through Willy's own eyes, and through his interaction with the different characters in the play. Firstly, the definitions of a hero and a victim very much influence the way that Willy is viewed by the audience.

Sadly, his overzealous attempts serve only to reinforce his son's inadequacy and lack of identity. Willy realizes toward the end of the play that he doesn't need to sell himself to his family, who loves him despite his failings. His suicide, an act of defiance of the system, which until now has defeated him, is also a tragic attempt to salvage something of his dream. Willys readiness to lay down his life to secure his dream that makes Willy a tragic yet heroic figure and one to whom in Linda's words, "attention must be paid finally." According to Miller, "the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready t put his life aside, if necessary, to secure one thing, his sense of personal dignity" (Para 3, Miller). He is saying in this quotation that even the common man can even be tragic because occasionally the one thing that he prizes the most, his sense of self dignity can be so jaded that he would rather die than except his failure. "I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life" (Para 4, Miller). Perhaps Miller is correct, the reader sympathisizes with Willy because he is so passionate about his self preservation and pride. Willy was ready to throw his life away to be a well -liked man and successful being. He did not want to accept the fact that he failed in his occupation, so he refused to ever acknowledge his dying career. In the end his fate was that