Willy Loman Dementia

Toward the end of the story, Willy realizes that his life is falling apart: Biff does not have a stable job or family, is making only commissions for his job, his refrigerator and car are in despair, and he talks to himself. Willy just cannot figure out what has gone wrong, especially with Biff who to him seemed so promising because of his good looks and his charm with others. When Biff comes home again, Willy gets real nervous and starts talking to himself (Act I. Scene I). He is stressed out that Biff has done nothing with his life so he starts seeing visions of the past. When Willy talks out loud while seeing visions, he is trying to discover where he went wrong as a person and father. To find where he went wrong he begins to ask anyone in visions or in person. One character that he frequently asks for advice throughout the drama is his older brother Biff (Gross, 319-321).

A common occurrence in the play is Willy constantly alternating between past and present, shown by the numerous times where he is living his past and believes it is happening in the present. This mental condition pertains to bipolar II disorder, where Willy suffers from delusions and hallucinations in extreme forms causing racing thoughts (An EMS Guide…). Not only does it reflect the complications of his bipolar disorder, it shows that his tangential thinking is out of his control, as he imagines “sounds, faces, voices, [that] seem to be swarming upon him” (Miller 136). This indicates that Willy as a character cannot differentiate his own thoughts from reality, which concerns his family to a point of guilt, shown when Happy says “[s]omething’s happening to [Willy]… [h]e talks to himself” (Miller 21). Not to mention, hallucinations are similar to conditions for posttraumatic stress disorder, specifically when the victim experiences a vivid recall to an event (Gurevich). In particular, at one point Willy constructs Ben’s persona indicating the madness dwelling in Willy’s mind. He then tries to relate the idea of success with Ben’s achievements when explaining “[Ben] was rich… [t]hat’s just the spirit I want to imbue [my children with]” (Miller 52). In doing so, Willy feeds false hope from his past into his children since he fails to

Willy received consequences that the characters who changed didn’t received. Willy was a man who lived by values and morals that were they were lies to himself. Whenever Willy was questioned about his morals he didn’t want to change, he was stuck in his own l world. Willy says things that can often contradict themselves. On page 16 Willy says “Willy: Biff is a lazy bum.”

You have shown Willy Loman as an irritated old man who is suffering from dementia and is always afraid to tell the truth because he is scared of “failure, loneliness and personal success” (page 29). Throughout the play you have displayed were Willy has lied to his family, just so he can feel successful and not a failure that he is. He reverses everything he says starting with the ideal and then coming to the truth of a situation but he does not act upon the truth, in the past, he made himself appear a very successful salesman but the reality is he was not as successful as he would have his family believe but no one could challenge him on his perceptions. Willy lied to Linda saying that he made thousands and thousands of dollars on a business

Willy is unable to accept reality. In his eyes he is living a horrible life with a dead-end job that is going nowhere. He perceives himself as a failure as a father because he cannot provide for his family and therefore he sees himself as a loser. Throughout the play, you can easily sense Willy’s unstable relationship with his family especially his eldest son, Biff. This constant tension with Biff is noticeable within the first act of the play and it is not until later on in a flashback, the audience learns that Willy once cheated on his wife and Biff found out about it. This family conflict, and Willy’s personal concepts on what makes a man successful, adds to his strive to be great and make up for his past. It is not his intentions that are weak, but the way he approaches

Willy’s transition to mental frailty is exhibited when he repeatedly spoke to characters who were not there, including the woman he was having an affair with and his deceased brother. In act II, pgs. 125-127, Willy speaks to his deceased brother, Ben, as Willy builds a garden to sustain his family; this is a pre-suicidal act to ensure the family’s sustainability once Willy is gone. It was through gradual acts like these, influenced by different contributing factors, that Willy attempted to suppress his negative internal struggles. Unable to attain his dream of becoming a successful businessman, Willy remained too proud to accept a job opportunity and monetary aid from his neighbour, immediately claiming that Charley was insulting him (p.43). Slipping into a state of delusion, Willy only feels at ease when he is fabricating his life, rather than living it. By suppressing negative thoughts, Willy’s mental state slowly begins to break as he begins to show his lack of control externally. When Willy can no longer mask his own insecurities, he begins to question his purpose and says, “Does it take more guts to stand here the rest of my life ringing up zero?” (Miller, p. 126). Many of his suicidal tendencies were brought on by his disconnected relationship with his sons, as Linda says to them, “I tell you he’s put his whole life into you and you’ve turned your backs on him.” (Miller, p.43). Like aforementioned, the most

Throughout the play Death of a Salesman the members of the Loman family cope with Willy Loman’s decline of mental health, and his distortion of reality. All of the characters develop different mechanisms on how to deal with their individual situations. Some live in denial that there is a problem, some try to make others act differently towards Willy, but unfortunately some are unable to manage Willy’s condition due to pre-existing problems or feeling. Regardless of any efforts being made there is little to no progress to helping Willy and this would duly lead to his suicide. Willy’s wife Linda has methods of dealing with Willy’s condition are somewhat productive and helpful.

Willy Loman is a suicidal man, whom searches for reasoning within the world. In Arthur Miller’s play Willy Loman often has hallucinations about life when he was a young man. Along with his hallucinations, Willy is very paranoid, constantly feeling that life is very unfair and that someone is out to get him. Some see these symptoms and believe that Willy has a mental disorder. Within this time period mental illness was not to be spoken about or acknowledged.

His contradicting attitude prevents people for liking him; for example, when Willy and his neighbor, Charley, play cards. As they were playing their classic game of cards, Charley pulled a move that caused him to win, and Willy was frustrated from the loss and called Charley a cheater, when they say, ”Charley: I put the ace--, Willy: If you don’t know how to play the game I’m not gonna throw my money away on you! Charley: It was my ace, for God’s sake!” (Miller 46). This shows that Willy never wants to be wrong and is a sore-loser. Not only does he treat adults unfairly, but younger people too. Another example would be when Charley’s son, Bernard, came running to Willy to tell him that Biff failed his math class. Willy was at first mad at Bernard, which is wrong because it shouldn’t be Biff’s friend’s fault that he failed. He immediately questioned Bernard, confirming that he gave Biff the answers for the final exam, which is wrong because he’s having Biff’s friend cheat for

In contrast, when Willy Loman, in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, finally let’s go of his delusions he finds death. All throughout the play, there are incidents that highlight Willy does not have a firm grasp on reality. He is seen constantly retreating back into her mind when cannot – does not – want to deal with want is going on in front of him. Additionally, the audience also discovers that he has been in a series of accidents over the last year. Accidents that are not so accidently as Linda, Willy’s wife, explains to their boys, Biff and

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller is a play depicting the tragedy experienced by an array of characters living in a low income, struggling household. This play highlights the conflict between father and son; despite attempting to do the most a father could do for a son, Willy Loman produces strife and grievance from his high expectations, dogmatic beliefs, and idolized views. The latent meaning of the play depicts how detrimental family issues can arise from a lack of communication, economical failures, and declining health and sanity. Willy, a traveling salesman and father, deals with declining health and a strong sense of denial about his current position and his family’s economic status, causing complications between him and his son Biff.

In the Death of a Salesman the importance and meaning of the story goes beyond “salesmen dies in car crash.” The overall tone of the play, as well as the tone of each character in the play, is crucial in helping us understand who and why these people did what they did. Willy Loman's ramblings and hallucinations have a wild and disjoint tone that serves to inform us of his mental state, fears, feelings, regrets, and emotions. If the content of his hallucinations were presented directly as background information, or as a coherent dream sequence, we would not understand Willy in the same way. It is not just what Willy says, but how he says it that gives us such a clear picture of how far down he has fallen and just how bad things are for him. The contrasting tone of Willy's wife helps to make Willy stand out even more. Similarly, the tones taken on by Biff and Happy reveal that they represent the two sides of Willy – a realization not easily determined by the

Willy's loss of reality resulted from his mistakes. He caused himself to go insane because the effects of his decisions went askew. Further defining tragic flaw, Aristotle wrote, “The protagonist will mistakenly bring about his own downfall.” (3) Willy chose wrongly when he refused to go to Alaska with his brother Ben. He talked about his brother often in his flashbacks and how he, himself, could have went and made his fortune if he had followed Ben. He chose instead to be a salesman like the old popular salesman he once saw. He described the man to his boss, Howard, as a man who lived and died a salesman. Willy told him, “When he died, hundreds of salesmen and buyers were at his funeral” (2164). Therefore, Willy mistakenly continued to chase after his shallow dreams.

Willy’s sons Biff and Happy are visiting and as they are in their room they can hear their father talking to himself. Biff and Happy are both worried about their father. When Willy is having these spells of daydreaming he is often bad mouthing his sons. Willy is down in the kitchen

Willy goes in and out of daydreams, causing his children to treat him like a child, thus angering the independent minded man. It causes further tension in their relationships. Yet Willy is not merely losing his grip on reality- he is choosing to let it go. Still racked with guilt over his adulterous affair, Willy- in the back of his troubled mind- knows that occurrence is the root of his difficulties with Biff. He pathetically claims over and over again, “…don’t you