Lies In Death Of A Salesman

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”.

While Biff is in some ways desperate to impress his father, he is also conscious about the fact that Willy has failed his attempt to be successful in his career. He considers his dad’s dreams materialistic and unreachable. As a matter of fact, in the Requiem, even after his father’s death, Biff says: “He had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong.” Unlike Happy and Willy, Biff is self-aware and values facts; Willy never was a successful salesman and he never wanted to face the truth. On the other hand, Biff is conscious about his failures and the weaknesses of his personality. During an argument with his father, Biff admits that his dad made him “so arrogant as a boy” that now he just can’t handle taking

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

Death of a Salesman is a play written by Arthur Miller and is about the tumultuous life of Willy Loman. Willy is a salesman that lives in New York who travels all over the eastern half of the country selling his products. Though it seems Mr. Loman is in a great position in life, he faces many problems in the play that ultimately result in his demise. Throughout the play it’s evident that despite all that has transpired in his life, happiness eludes him which bombards him into a deteriorated state of mind. Even though play made by Miller is fiction, it manages to stay realistic and shine a light on real issues that many people face today. This play is detailed and accurately pinpoints the struggles that some of the characters have to endure

Willy’s clear-cut expectations of his son can be evidently seen even in the early stages Biff’s life, which end up creating a lot of tension between Willy and Biff when Biff doesn’t meet his father’s expectations. Even when Biff is an adult and still hasn’t become successful in his father’s eyes, Willy’s expectations persist, as in a heated argument between the two Willy tells grown-up Biff that “the door of [Biff’s] life is wide open!” (132). Even though Biff will clearly never become successful in his father’s eyes, Willy still forces his unreasonable expectations on Biff, creating hostility between the two. Although Biff initially attempts to fulfill his father’s definition of success by working as a shipping clerk, Biff realizes that he will never fulfill his father’s unrealistic expectations: “Pop, I’m nothing!

Abbey Hai Mod: 4 “Death Of A Salesman” is an example of how some people struggle with their jobs, and how lying about their success doesn’t make it much easier for them. This is shown through characterization. The author uses this literary device to show how some lie about their problems and how the also lie when facing them. In “Death Of A Salesman” by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman is a man who lies quite often to hide the real struggles he faces with his job and life, shown to us through characterization by the author in many ways.

In the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Willy is both sympathized with and looked down upon throughout the story. Willy is a very complex character with problems and faults that gain both sympathy and also turn the reader off to him. Willy Loman is both the protagonist and the antagonist, gaining sympathy from the reader only to lose it moments later.

Author Miller’s play, “Death of a Salesman” depicts an extreme midlife crisis. The Lowman’s: Willy, Linda, Biff, and Happy are the main characters in 24 hours of Willy Lowman’s life. You see Willy felt that if you were liked, you were successful. If you did something disrespectable, you simply denied that it happened and “faked it ‘til you made it.”

A major theme and source of conflict throughout Miller's play, Death of a Salesman, is the Loman family's inability to distinguish between reality and illusion.  This is particularly evident in the father, Willy Loman.  Willy has created a fantasy world for himself and his family.  In this world, he and his sons are men of greatness that "have what it takes" to make it in the business environment.  In reality, none of them can achieve greatness until they confront and deal with this illusion.

The character, Willy Loman, from the play The Death Of A Salesman can be considered in some cases as a tragic character. Throughout the play, Loman expresses multiple traits and factors that present his failures. He tends to obsess with the thought of him being a flourishing salesman and running a successful company. Willy thought about the concept frequently that he was too blind to see anything else that had happened. While he believed that he could achieve success, Willy Loman ultimately fails largely due to his pride, his betrayal, and issues with his and his family’s reputation.

Infidelity is one of the reasons in which Willy believes that he has fallen from his position in society because of the guilt which came from being discovered by his. Willy Loman does not cheat on his wife because of her actions, instead Willy cheats on his wife because he is not content with his position in society. His son Biff, whom he believes to have the most potential, catches his father in this love affair. Willy has hope that his son will grow up to be something big: Willy speaks to his brother Ben about his son Biff, "Without a penny to his name, three great universities are begging for him, and from there the sky’s the limit, because it’s not what you do, Ben. It’s who you know and the smile on your face!

Willy’s immense pride and his lack of honesty cause him to become a lousy father. Being unable to accept his mistakes, he makes it seem as though he has lived the perfect life and

Death of a Salesman Honesty is always the best policy as many people would say, but not to the Loman family. Throughout the novel, Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, they lie or exaggerate to themselves or to others, when telling the truth would have been a whole lot easier. Willy would lie about his accomplishments on his work trips to his wife, Linda. He would tell her, “Well, I- I did-about a hundred and eighty gross in Providence. Well, no-it came to roughly two hundred gross on the whole trip.”

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.

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman tells the tale of Willy Loman, a man who falls from the top of the capitalism system in a resonant crash. Being controlled by his fears of the future, and stuck in his memories of the past, Willy fully contributes to his self-victimization by putting little blame on his own mistakes. Although Willy is perceived as selfish, it is important to see that he is misguided. His character is one of a common man, he has never been anything special, but he chose to follow the American Dream and continue the “destiny” it gave him. However, in my reading of the play, I feel it was not an unlucky destiny that pushed Willy to damage his own life and the lives of his family,