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Willy, a 60 year old man who views himself as the greatest salesman of all time, sees himself as a hero and the man who provides for his family at all times. He goes on long roadtrips trying to bring in money for the household so they can achieve “The American Dream”, risking his mental health. As a result, others viewed him as a successful, and ambitious man that will risk any and everything to get to the top. Therefore, Willy tries to bring in as much money as be can, and he even tries to persuade his boss to give him better work, instead of traveling. Willy states, “I averaged a hundred and seventy dollars a week in the year of 1928!.” In other words, Willy is insisting a salary raise, and a non-traveling schedule so he continue providing for his family.

In “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman is the well-developed protagonist of the story. Willy struggles throughout the story with daydreams and delusions that he confuses with reality. These delusions have a huge effect on the story and greatly impact Willy’s life. Willy has a difficult time keeping his bills paid with his job as a traveling salesman. He works long hours and drives long distances for very little success. His delusions cause him to believe that his work is successful when it is far from it. “Willy is self-deluded, believing wholeheartedly in the American Dream of success and wealth. When he fails to achieve this, he commits suicide—yet until the end he never stopped believing in this American Dream” (Sickels).

Willy admires Ben as his older brother and tries to be everything like him, however he lacks some of the characteristics like self-esteem. Ben’s success creates an illusion for Willy to be connected to him somehow. Most importantly ben represents all the fantasies of success that Willy desires for himself and his sons. Ben eventually leads willy into committing suicide to receive the insurance money because by making him believe money is

Miller uses Death of a Salesman to shed light on the American Dream “for the sham it is” claims Raine. Willy has bought into this

Willy aspires to be like Ben and Ben is really just an embodiment of the idea of hard working, and successful and how WIlly uses him as a model to try to achieve the same level of salesmanship.

His preoccupation with success has made him “ ...[lie] to both himself and to others out of a desire to believe that he is a success” (Brockett, 98). Willy dreams of being successful and leaving behind the legacy of a great businessman, but this unhealthy obsession actually causes the demise of his mental state and lack of success in fulfilling his dream. Right before he dies, Biff, Willy’s son, talks about “...what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been” (Miller, 81). Willy finally realizes that Biff has been trying to achieve actual happiness with his own life. Willy has always believed financial success is tied to happiness, but Biff finally breaks through to him that he could have been happy this whole time if he would have focused on his family life instead of his work. Willy becomes aware that he has been the only thing stopping his success because he has developed this illusion about his life, instead of accepting the reality of his failure in his business and his family.

In essence, Willy is constantly trying to find himself in his success, and since he has none, he degrades into his troubled psychological state. Eventually he deludes himself into thinking that by committing suicide, Willy can provide his son with life insurance money so Biff can become successful instead of him. Willy is like his father in the sense that in the end, they both fail their sons

Willy Loman is a troubled and misguided man - a salesman and a dreamer with an extreme preoccupation with his own definition of success. Willy feels that physical impact is greater than the elements of his self-defined success. However, it is apparent that Willy Loman is no successful man, even by the audience's standards. He is still a travelling salesman in his sixties with no stable location or occupation, but clings on to his dreams and ideals. He compares his sons with Bernard, using him as a gauge of success. Nonetheless, he stays in the belief that his sons are better than Bernard. Willy recollects the neighbourhood years ago, and reminisces working for Frank Wagner, although he was also in the same condition then as now. He feels that the older Wagner appreciated him more, yet it was himself who voted Howard in. Arthur Miller presents Willy as a man with great bravado but little energy left to support it. He is always tired and has dementia, contradicting himself in his conversations and showing some memory loss, living in his world of illusions and delusions. He argues with Biff, both men without knowing why. The two sons of Willy display the physical appearance of adulthood, but their talk and attitude displays immaturity. Billy finds that he is a failure because of his lack of `success', while Happy thinks he is unfulfilled because he lacks failure.

Eventually Willy gets erratic and starts talking about the past which agitates his boss since it was about his father. In the end Willy gets fired and Linda manages to scrummage some money to finally pay off the last dues of the house. This shows when Willy gets frustrated, he had not been able to handle himself properly which eventually led to his own downfall. Similarly the speaker has the same crisis for food and survival. However when “[he] went to the WPA”, that employer said he has to stay in that town for “a year and a day, Lawd” (Hughes).

An additional person that has been affected by Willy’s infatuation with the American Dream was Charley. To show by example, “Charley: You want a job?... in here for?” (Miller 43). Charley recognizes that Willy isn’t generating as much money as he desires in his salesman job. Since Charley has been successful in his business, he resolves to offer Willy a job so he can make more money. Not wanting to admit defeat, Willy gets offended, even though he says he’s not, and yells at Charley defending that he has a job and doesn’t need a new one. Charley tries to penetrate Willy’s thoughts and pleading with him that he doesn’t have to go on how he is now, but Willy brushes the comment off and asks Charley why he keeps coming to his house. Willy prides himself on his job above anything

At this point, however, relations are strained. Although Willy shies away from remembering so painful an episode, he knows in his heart that the Boston affair left the boy bitterly disillusioned. Feeling some sense of guilt, Willy fears that all of Biff's later difficulties may have been really attempts to get revenge. Biff has failed, in other words, mainly to "spite"Willy. Although outwardly resenting such alleged vindictiveness. Willy still wants to get back the old comradeship, even if he has to buy it dearly. "Why can't I give him something," he asks the spectral Ben, "and not have him hate me?" And his great final moment of joy and triumph occurs when he can exclaim,"Isn't that remarkable? Biff - he likes me!"

So Biff decides to stay home and get a job that Willy will approve of. “Well I spent six or seven years after high schools trying to work myself up. Shipping clerk, salesman, business of one kind or another. And it’s a measly manner of existence.” (Miller 22) It seems that Biff is longing for a simpler lifestyle, but its one that Willy doesn't want to accept for him. “He knows something about it! You know sporting goods better than Scalding for God’s sake! How much is he giving?” (Miller 62) Willy makes himself believe that Biff has already sealed a deal that Biff has not even acted on. This eventually leads Biff to lash out on Willy. “I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can like the rest of them! I’m one-dollar an hour, Willy! I tried seven states and couldn’t raise it. A buck a hour! I’m not bringing home any prizes anymore and you’re going to stop waiting for me to bring them home!” (Miller 132) Biff is begging his father to allow him out. His doesn’t wanna be a part of Willys delusions anymore. He wants to be left alone to live his

Willy believes that wealth is the key to your happiness, and the extent of your wealth is exposed by the amount of materialistic items one has. Miller explains Willy’s thoughts in Timebends, “The publicity apparatus tells Willy that if he works hard like Edison, that if he perseveres like Goodrich, that, if he is “well-liked” like Dave Singleman, then he will rise like Charley and become rich and powerful.” Willy’s thought process is foolish, and his belief that failure cannot be tolerated in his family causes him to lie about his success. This is evident when Biff says “We never told the truth for ten minutes in this house! [130]” The American Dream is to blame for imprinting wealth is all you need to be happy, into Willy’s mind.

“Biff: [Crying, broken] Will you let me go, for christs sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?” (Miller Act II:17) All Biff wanted from Willy was for him to understand that his destiny wasn't to be successful.

Later during the play Willy is demoted at his jobs. Now he is not making the money he needs in order to support his family. After the stress of being demoted and not being able to