Names In Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman

In the first act, Miller introduces Willy Loman (salesman), and Linda Loman (Willy’s wife) first. In this scene, Willy comes home early from the road and claims he wasn’t feeling. Linda fixes him something to eat but when he sits to eat he ends up talking to his flashbacks. In the flashbacks, He is in a hotelroom with another women. The women is revealed to be his mistress when they kiss and he hands her a pair of stockings. Willy uses this mistress to become “well-liked”with the buyers connected to the mistress. Then Willy comes back to reality and finds his wife mending old stockings back together. This makes him mad and begs Linda to stop mending them in front of him. After he cleans up his meal, he daydreams about his sons, Biff and Happy, who had just finished washing their father’s car after Willy has just returned from a sales trip. When Biff tells Willy that he “borrowed” a football from the locker room to practice, Willy laughs at him and whispers that “he will soon open a bigger business than his successful neighbor Uncle Charley because Charley is not as “well liked” as he is.” Willy is very happy in the flashback because he believes that his son is “well-liked” and will do well in the

At one point in the play, Willy says, “Biff is a lazy bum”(16). Moments later in the same conversation with Linda, Willy adds, “There’s one thing about Biff, he’s not lazy”(16). Even when confronted by his boys, Willy is unable to deal with the truth, that his sons won’t amount to very much at all. He ignores reality very well, and instead of pointing out that Biff hasn’t established himself yet, Willy tells Biff, “You’re well liked, Biff….And I’m telling you, Biff, and babe you want…”(26). The boys are clearly aware of their status and the status of their father, and Happy is found putting Willy’s personality in a nutshell, “Well, let’s face it: he’s [Willy] no hot-shot selling man. Except that sometimes, you have to admit he’s a sweet personality”(66). Obviously, Willie’s failure to bring up his children effectively, and his delusional thinking including denial of reality helps fortify his depleting condition and confusion.

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.

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.

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

Willy’s difficulty with change in his life can be seen when Linda tries to help him. Linda tells Willy outside their bedroom, “...life is a casting off. It’s always been that way.”. (Miller, p.15) She states the truth that life is about change and not knowing the future ahead. She attempts to get Willy to see that he needs to take chances to be successful but he does not want to accept that. Willy wants

Willy lies to his sons, Biff and Happy, to seem like the perfect man, when in reality, his lies hurt him in the end.

This is what Willy has been trying to emulate his entire life. Willy's need to feel well-liked is so strong that he often makes up lies about his popularity and success. At times, Willy even believes these lies himself. At one point in the play, Willy tells his family of how well-liked he is in all of his towns and how vital he is to New England. Later, however, he tells Linda that no one remembers him and that the people laugh at him behind his back. As this demonstrates, Willy's need to feel well-liked also causes him to become intensely paranoid. When his son, Biff, for example, is trying to explain why he cannot become successful, Willy believes that Biff is just trying to spite him. Unfortunately, Willy never realizes that his values are flawed. As Biff points out at the end of the play, "he had the wrong dreams."

The climactic moment of the play is when Biff walks in on Willy and The Woman at the hotel in Boston and discovers that his father is having an affair. This is where the relationship between Biff and Willy begins to disintegrate even more than it has already, over the course of the play. Although Willy is clearly at fault, it is clear that Miller wants the blame to be placed on The Woman. When talking Willy makes a point to ask The Woman how they ended up together. Willy asks “You picked me, huh?”

            Willy is the aging salesman whose imagination is much larger than his sales ability. Willy's wife, Linda, stands by her husband even in his absence of realism. Biff and Happy follow in their father's fallacy of life. Willy's brother, Ben is the only member of the Loman family with the clear vision necessary to succeed. Charlie and his son Benard, on the other hand, enjoy better success in life compared

All Willy really wants is to be a part of his son’s lives and, Miller shows this by the example of when in the play Biff comes home to recollect himself, Willy seems to think this as a failure because he would rather see his eldest son be likely more successful rather than his youngest, Happy. Hereafter, Willy tries to take matter into his own hands, ‘I’ll get him a job selling, he could be big in no time’, he says to Linda (1215). Partially due to Willy’s consistency in Biff’s life conflicts start to erupt more partially to do with the fact being that they had different ideas of what the ‘American Dream” really is. With Biff believing that the most inspiring job to a man is working outdoors, his father disregarded by saying that working on the road selling was the greatest job a man could possibly have (1276).

To begin with, Loman experiences two particular memories of his brother Ben that affect his present. In both moments, Ben is depicted as a successful man. Ben tells Willy’s boys that, “when I was seventeen I walked into jungle and when I was twenty-one I walked out. and by God I was rich!” It is evident that Willy admires and envies his brother’s prosperity and wealth. In Willy’s mind, he is defined by how much money he makes and how capable he is of providing for his family. The memory of his brother going to Africa leaves Willy feeling ashamed, regretful, and inadequate because of his brother’s subsequent financial success. His

This technique helps to develop characters in the novel so we put an association with that character, whether it is the feeling of warmth such as Linda, power and arrogance from Ben, or strictness and overdramatic for Willy. Arthur Miller created Willy and Happy so they were completely different personality types. Willy was created to be all over the place mentally as shown when he jumps from stories and reality throughout the play, he is also arrogant as observed when he denies and help or advice from anyone, and he is dramatic with his emotions which is evident in the way he can go from severely depressed to happy and bouncing around. Happy however is created to be much more relaxed and less all over the place. Happy is often overpowered by other characters such as Biff; this is evident in the way that Willy has more ambitions and plans set for Biff and doesn’t take much notice of Happy.

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.

Willy’s brother Ben seems to symbolize all of Willy's dreams that have not borne fruit. Ben provides an example of the type of success that Willy desires. Ben went into the “jungle” with nothing and became extremely wealthy. Ben achieved in a few years what Willy has dreamed about his entire life. Ben also provides additional evidence on the foolish behavior and poor decisions made by Willy. Ben offers to take Willy with him and make him rich – an offer that Willy declines.