Femininity In Death Of A Salesman

When Linda refers to Willy as a "little boat looking for a harbor," another wind blows against Linda, pushing her to act with pity (1247). To her, he is nothing more than a small, helpless old man. She blames the business for forgetting Willy in his old age, and passing him over like an orange peel. Toward the end of Act I, Linda presents a sorry image of Willy, describing his past greatness as a salesman and ending with a sad description of treachery. She tells her sons that Willy is "exhausted" from driving 1400 miles without earning a penny, and that his reward from the ones he loved the most, his sons, is spite and rejection (1237). The picture she paints of her husband is on filled with pity and sorrow.

In Death of a Salesman, although Linda never finds out about the Woman, her relationship with Willy is still affected by the Woman. For example, Willy says, "Will you stop mending stockings? At least while I'm in the house. It gets me nervous. I can't tell you" (1745).

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.

Ultimately, the two main female characters in the play Death of a Salesman were the victims of constantly being silenced and treated as objects instead of human beings, thus allowing the men to succumb to the false ideology of male superiority.

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)

Biff does not want what he wants. Now that Biff is back from the West,

How can two people watch or read the same story and yet, interpret it completely differently? Does it have to do with the author’s intentions, or maybe it has to do with the viewers’ own backgrounds and ideologies? Whatever the case may be, viewing one piece of work can lead to a wide array of opinions and critiques. It is through the diversity of such lenses that Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller has become one of the most well-known plays in modern history. There are many different ways in which a play can be criticized, however, criticisms from the approaches of a Marxist and reader-response will be utilized to further dissect Death of a Salesman. Marxist criticism sees pieces of works as a struggle between different socioeconomic classes; what better way to see Miller’s play than for what it is at face value, the struggle of a middle-class man trying to achieve the American dream (1750). On the other hand, a reader-response criticism comes from either an objective or subjective view; in this case Death of a Salesman will be viewed with a subjective lens based on Willy’s deteriorating mental health (1746).

The first instance where Linda Loman serves as the family destroyer is in Act when Willy Loman comes home and tells her, "I suddenly couldn't drive any more. The car kept going off onto the shoulder, y'know?" (1402). Linda replies, "Oh. Maybe it was the steering again. I don't think Angelo knows the Studebaker" (1402). Willy says, "No, it's me, it's me. Suddenly I realize I'm going sixty miles an hour and I don't remember the last five minutes. I'm--I can't seem to--

The most prominent woman figure in this play is Linda, but the male characters in this play also give us insight into women’s roles and help feed the feminist analyses

he is now no longer able to experience and enjoy that freedom with Linda. It is immensely tragic that at the time when Willy and Linda should be happy, Willy chooses to kill himself. Willy spent his entire life trying to be successful, but he always viewed himself as a failure. However, at the end of the play, they had all of their house payments paid off. He actually was successful and did not know it.After working for so many years in a job that he was never suited for, Willy has finally paid of his mortgage. The irony is that now that he and Linda

She always tries to keeps everything on its way. But the problem is that Willy is acting angrily and he loses his control easily. This is shown when he saw her stockings “I won’t have you mending stockings in this house! Now throw them out!” Then she puts her stockings in her pocket. This also shows how Linda climbs down and how she makes it positively.

Through the play Willy is striving to live the American Dream; to have a better, richer and happier life. He is obsessed with materialism thinking that acquiring possessions will make him and his family happy. When Linda tries to mend her stockings, Willy tells her “I won’t

In his play Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller uses “the common man as a fit subject for tragedy in the highest sense” (Lawrence, Trudeau and Ross Vol. 1) and failure in the accomplishment of the American. The play tends to recline more in the direction of masculinity where men’s sole role is to get a job and support the family and the woman be seen and ordered which brings out the idea of traditional gender roles at its best. Though this is the case, it is very evident that women played an important role in this play. Although every character in the served and had a main purpose, women served a major role not only as subjects of submission and satisfaction who helped define who the men really were in the 1940’s but also as elements of support and wisdom.

Willy also obtains an idea that image is equal to success. This is known to be his hubris; excessive pride. He takes pride in material objects “Riding on a smile and a shoe shine… personality wins the day” shows how he puts his faith into his personal appearance, and how he appears to smile on the outside but fails to admit that he isn’t on the inside. He thinks personality can be judged on what he says, but forgets that it ‘shines’ through when he speaks. “I won’t have you mending stockings in this house! Now throw them out”. The stockings can be seen as a representative of Loman’s unfaithfulness as a husband as the sight of them brings back memories of when Biff caught him cheating on Linda and found out the Willy had given ‘the woman’ the expensive stockings he was supposed to give his wife as a gift. Willy Loman’s reasoning behind doing this may be because he didn’t want to come across as ‘low’ to his mistress, so by giving her expensive stockings out of the blue it

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