The Ups And Downs Of The Loman Family

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”.

    In Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman, a major theme and source of conflict is the Loman family's lack of morality.  This is particularly evident in the father, Willy Loman.  Willy has created a world of questionable morality 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 competitive world of business.  In reality, Willy’s son Biff is a drifter and a thief, his son Hap is continually seducing women with lies, while Willy does not treat his wife with respect and lies to everyone.

Author Miller's Death of a Salesman is plain and simply a call for everyday American's to wake up and take a glimpse at the reality that could befall them, with the wrong ideals. It is not difficult to decipher the type of character Willy Loman is, nor is the play analytically or rhetorically written, for that very reason. Aside from the plain text Miller further goes on to evoke a call to action to his audience through his saturation of symbolism. Everyday items, such as gardening seeds, stockings, sneakers and a rubber hose that would normally mean nothing, become symbols that further the development of Willy Loman's character, and provide us with knowledge of his past, his present, and his impending downfall in the near future.

Individuals explore their responses to conditions of internal and external conflicts throughout literature. Going in depth to a character allows the reader to better understand that character’s internal and external conflicts. Arthur Miller uses this technique in several of his plays, including Death of a Salesman. Miller portrays the character of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman through his internal and external conflicts.

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.

Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman follows protagonist Willy Loman in his search to better his and his family’s lives. Throughout Willy Loman’s career, his mind starts to wear down, causing predicaments between his wife, two sons and close friends. Willy’s descent into insanity is slowly but surely is taking its toll on him, his job and his family. They cannot understand why the man they have trusted for support all these years is suddenly losing his mind. Along with his slope into insanity, Willy’s actions become more aggressive and odd as the play goes on. Despite Willy and Biff’s “family feud”, his two sons Happy and Biff truly worry about their father’s transformation, Happy saying: “He just wants you to make good, that’s all. I

The play Death of a Salesman, by playwright Arthur Miller, portrays the arrival of a salesman by the name of Willy Loman (Miller, 1949). Willy Loman is getting older, and after another unsuccessful sale, he is starting to show his age (Miller, 1949). Willy begins to encounter the inability to remember events and setting apart past memories from present ones. Willy throughout the play talks out loud to himself, reliving some scenes from his past; memories of his two sons growing up and conversations with his wife about his job (Miller, 1949). Willy Loman is in constant constant conflict with his sons as they each have a different take on what it means to have lived a successful life. After getting fired, Willy now is at a loss and he begins to plummet into past memories. By the end of the play, Willy Loman commits suicide in hopes his life insurance can provide some relief for his family.

“Death of a Salesman”, a play written by Arthur Miller, is about an old salesman who decides to take his own life after his life falls apart. Willy Loman, the salesman, stubbornly believes in a skewed American Dream in which people who are well-liked should succeed. When his well-liked children do not succeed in their predetermined professions as salesmen, his mental health and his success in his job starts to decline. Happy Loman, Willy’s younger son, shares similar ideologies with Willy whereas Biff, Willy’s older son, wants to live on a farm in the West. Willy’s two sons’ different personalities affect him along the story. Happy is quite similar to Willy and Biff differs significantly from Happy and Willy.

The lives of the Loman’s from beginning to end seems troubling, the play is centered on trying to be successful or trying to be happy, and the sacrifice which must be made of one to achieve the other. The environment that these characters live in encourages them to pursue the American dream, which can be said to devalue happiness through the pursuit of material success. Death of A Salesman written by Arthur Miller has several themes that run through the play, one of the most obvious is the constant striving for success. Willy Loman put his family through endless torture because of his search for a successful life. Willy, Biff, and Happy are chasing the American dream instead of examining themselves

Death of a salesman is a resemblance to the American society in the forties in which the play’s protagonist, Willy Loman, strongly tries to attain the dream of making a fortune through salesmanship. Miller denotes the artificiality of the American dream, the play’s major theme, which possessed the people at that time. In his play, Miller also signifies the stark difference between the delusive dreams and the actual reality as another vehement theme that leads the characters into anger and disappointment. The death of the salesman, Willy, comes to be shocking and unanticipated as it suddenly occurs at the end of the play. Furthermore, Death of a salesman is an expressionistic tragedy that is mainly characterized by symbolism and flashbacks as the means of establishing the dramatic depth in the play (Murphy and Abbotson

In the Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller uses conversations between characters to reveal the tragic nature of the protagonist, Willy Loman. Throughout the entire play, the hallucinations that Willy has clarify the deeper meaning and importance of key events in the play, the conversations between Linda and her sons about Willy’s deteriorating mental state, in addition to the overall deeper meaning behind the euphemisms and surface level conversations. Arthur Miller uses these key pieces of conversation to show the tragic truth that the small beauties in life aren't appreciated until they are lost. Hallucinations are pivotal in Arthur Miller's writing due to the fact that this allows him to put a sub-plot in the play itself and add backstory without adding an excess amount of dialogue. Willy Loman has multiple lapses in reality throughout the play in which he hallucinates about other moments in his past that infiltrate his filter on reality.

Arthur Miller, stated Willy Loman can be viewed as a tragic hero because he “is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing--his sense of personal dignity” (Foster 1). With Miller thinking of Willy Loman as a tragic hero, makes people think about if this play was written from the beginning as Willy being a tragic hero. With that, throughout the play Miller uses a great deal of emotion corresponding to the tone in play. However, most of the sentimental parts corresponding to the tone are in the big scenes Willy is involved in, either with himself or with others. One part of the play lets out a profusion of passion corresponding with the tone when the readers find out Willy was not being faithful to Linda and in turn wrecked his relationship with his son Biff. In one of the scenes Biff goes to surprise his dad in Boston and is astonished at what he sees. After Willy opens the door Biff says to his dad, “Somebody got in your bathroom”(267). In an instant Biff realizes his dad was having a love affair with another woman. In addition, the close-knit relationship between Willy and Biff has vanished. But how does the emotion in this quote and the rest of the scene correlate with the tone? Throughout The Death of a Salesman, the tone between Willy and Biff has been very rude and dark. When this scene occurs, the audience understands why the emotion and

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.

Willy Loman is a father in the play death of a salesman written by Arthur Miller. Aristotle's definition of a tragic hero is, “A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, a s having magnitude, complete in itself; in appropriate and pleasurable language;... in a dramatic rather than narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish a catharsis of these emotions.” This play is a tragedy because not only is it relatable but it shows many characteristics of a tragic hero. A tragic hero is someone who has excessive pride, intelligence, and is wounded spiritually or emotionally by decisions that either they made or a decision that is out of their control. “I believe that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were.” This is a quote from Arthur Miller's essay. Arthur Miller believes that common man makes the best tragic hero because the common man shares the same struggles with everyone else. Willy loman is a tragic hero because not only is he a common man, he possess the will to make the audience sympathize with him throughout his greatest triumphs and downfalls. Willy is a tragic hero because he has excessive pride, he also makes the audience sympathize with him, and he is wounded spiritually or physically.

He returns home from a business trip and he meets his two adult sons and wife Linda. In the play there are also: Willy’s neighbor with his son and brother Ben. A play tells the story of the last day of Willy’s life: a mosaic of real events, memories and illusions. He has difficulty remembering events, as well as distinguishing the present from the past. In the play viewers relive the most important moments of Loman’s and his two sons live. The central theme of the story is the struggle of each character to pursuit of the American dream. As Wade Bradford argues: “ Each of the Loman men following their own versions of that dream. Willy has a completely different definition than his brother Ben. By the end of the play, Willy's son has dropped his father's viewpoint and redefined his version of the dream.” Biff’s power is his realization of his place in the society. The one of the interpretations of Linda’s final words at her husbands’s funeral (“now we are finally free”) is that Willy’s death freed the Lomans. The death of Willy is the death of a dream which is pictured as a destroying power: as something that tangles, strips away from identity and finally leads to madness. Shakespeare wrote: “we are such stuff as dreams are made on,” and as Willy’s character illustrates: we die when our dreams die. Given these points it is also important to remember that Death of a Salesman is also a