Willy Is Suffering From Crippling Self Pity

        Willy is like an impetuous youngster with high ideals and high hopes.  Children always have high hopes for their

Willy foolishly pursues the wrong dream and constantly lives in an unreal world blinded from reality. Despite his dream Willy constantly attempts to live in an artificial world and claims “If old Wagner was alive I’d be in charge of New York by now” (Miller 14). As a result, Willy often ignores his troubles and denies any financial trouble when he says “business is bad, it’s murderous. But not for me of course” (Miller 51). Another false segment of Willy’s dream includes the success of his two sons Happy and Biff. Biff was a high school football star who never cared about academics and now that he needs a job says “screw the business world” (Miller 61). Ironically, Willy suggests that Biff go west an “be a carpenter, or a cowboy, enjoy yourself!”, an idea that perhaps Willy should have pursued. Constantly advising his boys of the importance of being well liked, Willy fails to stress academics as an important part of life (Miller 40). Furthermore, Willy dies an unexpected death that reveals important causes of the failure to achieve the American dream. At the funeral Linda cries “I made the last payment on the house today... and there’ll be nobody home” to say that she misses Willy but in essence his death freed the Lomans from debt and the hopes and expectations Willy placed on his family (Miller 139). Very few people attend

The struggle for financial security and success has always been part society. I found this play is a little confusing sometimes. It gets confusing between Willy's imagination and his reality. Money and success seem like the most important things to Willy. Biff is conflicted with himself whether he should allow himself to love his father or hating him for cheating on his mother. Biff is further positioned in a confliction with his future and his goals in life, whether he should live life to please himself or his father. Willy is out chasing the American dream (Miller 72-75). Despite the fact that Willy was an adulterer, Linda stayed by his side as he lost his mind, Willy being delusional is part of his guilt, for being the cause of his son

For Willy Loman, the salesman, the American Dream is more than a passing phrase. The salesman does not merely subscribe to the American dream; he is its personification. Indeed, only a capitalistic society obsessed with commercialism can spawn his profession, for the salesman does not produce anything; rather, his job, like gilded metal, often places a premium on appearance instead of value, a principle that Willy tries to embrace in both his professional and personal life, as reflected in his choice of the refrigerator that is perpetually breaking down but has “the biggest ads of any of them!” (Miller 35). That inability to distinguish between his sales pitches and personal life leads to the point later when he is no longer able to separate his illusions of an idyllic past from reality. Even in those flashbacks, he is literally trying to sell himself to his sons, regaling them with his supposed exploits as a way to convince them of his worth. Willy tries to reinforce that worth as a parent, according to Thomas Adler, through material objects, seeking to prove his love with punching bags and

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."

Biff says Willy “never knew who he was” because all of Willy’s life he strived to be a great businessman, but really he wanted to farm and grow a garden. This is shown when Willy told Howard how he was contemplating not going into the sale industry, but then decided to because he wanted to be remembered. Also, Willy starts to plant a garden at the end of the story; he plants many different vegetables and seems content when he is doing this. I agree that Willy never knew who he was. I think Willy understood he was good with his hands, but never understand how much happier he would be if he worked on a farm or did something with hands for a living. I believe the cause of Willy’s downfall was when he lost his job and realized he had not become

The author portrays him as a person who wanted all, comprising a nice car, house, and a successful life like his brother Ben. Above all, he desires the appreciation of other people. He gets angered by the reality of life. For instance, the success of his brother Ben seems to affect him, a situation that forces him to create flashbacks. In act two, Willy says, “Oh, Ben, how did you do it? What is the answer? Did you wind up the Alaska deal already?” (Miller 66). Additionally, Willy is angry with Ben for getting what was Loman’s for being rich at twenty-one. Ben’s success, at this age, piles more pressure on him to succeed. It is arguably right that Willy’s delusions are his defense mechanisms against the stresses of life. Miller shows his sad reality arising from his self-denial. Willy discards his ambitions to follow dreams of people he has heard of and aspires to succeed like them. In act 2, Willy says “Nothing’s planted; I don’t have a thing in the ground” to mean that his ambitions never bore any fruits (Miller 93). Consequently, Willy fails to shape his basis of purpose, but rather creates false dreams, failing to provide for his family. From this observation, Willy Loman has nothing left, apart from his long-time dreams, which explains his numerous

The tragedy of the Willy is a result of his own mistakes. Willy’s ultimate character faults are that his sense of self-centered forces everyone to fulfill his expectation, and he creates a false image of himself for his family and even for himself, which invisibly ruin the relationship with the ones he loves. The truth about his current life frustrates him. Willy denies Biff’s claim that they are both in common that they are just ordinary people.

Willy believes education is not important for his son's future. Although Biff is failing his math course and Bernard is passing Willy still accepts the fact that his son will achieve success. Being handsome, popular, and excellent in sports adds to this belief. Willy does not realize that an individual must work hard to accomplish success. He also feels he is higher in status than Bernard's father Charley because "Charley is not-liked. He's liked, but he's not-well liked." (1257) Even though he feels this way he is also jealous of Charley's business success. Willy felt too proud to even accept a paying job from Charley after his boss, Howard Wagner, fired him. The audience can see Willy's definition of success defined in the conversation he holds with Charley in Act II:

But the truth is, there are very few people with the potential to be successful, and Willy and his sons are not of this rare breed. Because, “there’s more people,” the pressure of the rat race has only increased as time passes. By the end of the play, Willy has completely folded under the pressure he feels. His boss says that he, “needs a good long rest.” Linda says that, “a small man can be just as exhausted as a big man.” Willy is definitely a small man, and he is definitely exhausted after so many years of fighting for a future he does not have the intelligence or skill to achieve. Willy is, “like a boy,” a man-child who doesn’t want any responsibility or work. He has regressed back to childish behaviour because he is unable to handle the stresses of adult life. This immaturity makes him unfit for the rat race, and unfit to succeed in the real world. “When the hell are you going to grow up,” indeed. Willy’s pathetic identity crises, denials of reality, and failures in the rat race demonstrate the nature of our sivilization

Most of the setting takes in the Loman house which is in Brooklyn. The house was once close to nature but now apartments have surrounded the Loman Family and are cut off from sunlight and nature. The perspective the readers get to see is from inside Willys own head. We see all the daydreams and the flashbacks that comes to his mind. This play was set in the late 40’s which is the time period when WWII was ending and people in America were ready to bring back companies and businesses that had gone under. Willy along with every other man in the United States were all looking to achieve the American Dream.

Willy’s only ability to not run off the deep end is the hope that Biff and Happy will make something of themselves in the business world. This can be seen in the play when Willy is willing to believe in the crazy “million dollar” plan of Biff of traveling the world with a sports team. This dream is then shatters into millions of pieces when Willy comes to learn the reality that his sons will soon be following down the same path he’s taken. This reality that has enters his fragile mind leads him to suicide. Willy’s dreams were his only life source left and when that was ripped from his hands there was nothing left to grasp. Glass Menagerie that is not unlike the Death of a

Willy was affected when he realized that his own actions brought about the reversal in fortune. "Willy, as misled as he is, to the very end of the play is struggling," Miller said. "It's the opposite of a passive person. He's struggling for some meaning in his life. He seizes upon what we would mostly consider the wrong meaning. But the struggle is exemplary”. Willy’s many attempts at suicide were never successful. In a way, instead of him being able to take the easy way out like he wanted to,

Denial alongside contradiction is how the reader is introduced to Willy’s character. Sometimes his son Biff is a wonderful athlete and sometimes his son is a lazy bum. Sometimes Willy is the most important salesman in New England and sometimes he believes he deserves to die. Willy can’t remember what life is actually like due to this manipulation. This makes the story one we can all relate to; we all change the past to fit how we want to remember it.

Willy’s mind is in a state of pandemonium during a large portion of the play, which is due to the current state of his life. Willy goes to Howard for a promotion, and eventually his awareness of chaos in his mind causes him to become increasingly more angry (Miller 58-60). This is the only time the audience is able to see Willy’s true emotions