Willy Loman's Deception

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 Death of a Salesman, the author conveys the reader about how a person lives his life when he or she cannot live the “American Dream.” Willy Loman, the main character in the play is a confused and tragic character. He is a man who is struggling to hold onto what morality he has left in a changing society that no longer values the ideals he grew up to believe in. Even though the society he lives in can be blamed for much of his misfortune, he must also be the blame for his bad judgment, disloyalty and his foolish pride.

Willy Loman was a failure as a family man who never achieved the American Dream. His life is an example of a true downfall, which affects all of those close to him. By living in an illusion, Willy guaranteed that he would be unable to achieve all that he thought he should. As a result, his death is the final confirmation of his failed life. Truly, success could never be achieved in his life, even if he had made plenty of sales. By giving up his dreams and true desires, Willy Loman died long before he crashed his car, and that led him to become every bit the failure that he will

“Death of a Salesman “ by Arthur Miller is interpreted differently by many people.  In the critical review titled “Family Values in Death of a Salesman” by Steve R. Centola, he characterizes Death of the Salesman as am a modern tragedy. He draws more focus on the family core values and self-exert.  In his analysis, he states that as the humans try to be competitive, they have dehumanized the American dream and have turned it into an urban nightmare. He claims that the author simply tells a story of a dying man who wants to justify the purpose of his life before he meets his death. He states that the consequences of his choices are a challenge he has to overcome to attain what he needs. Centola points out that through the realization of what Willy Loman values, it is easy to discover the reason for the conflict between him and Biff. He refers to Death of a Salesman as a tragedy of a human struggle that is rooted in the metaphysical and also based on the social and psychological concerns. He also asserts that by discussing the values of Willy Loman, readers will be able to identify the reasons behind Willy’s agenda to perform suicide.

Willy Loman is a senile salesman who lives a dull life with a depleting career. He has an estranged relationship with his family and believes in the American Dream of effortless success and affluence, but in no way accomplishes it. Feeling like the aim of life is to be favored by others and gaining a materialistic fortune, Willy lives in a world of delusion where

Willy Loman had accomplished the historical American Dream but because of his ambition he did not realize it. When Willy was deciding to go with his brother to look for his father he met Dave Singleman. Dave was an ¨eighty four year old salesman who had drummed merchandise in thirty-one states and who could now simply go into his hotel room, call the buyers, and make his living in his green velvet slippers¨ (Stanton 131).This view of a tranquil and successful career made him reconsider his decision and instead of going to Alaska he chose to be a salesman. It seems that Willy saw a “father figure” in Dave, so he followed the same path, hoping he would have the same future and the same success in the field (Stanton 133). After thirty five years of his career he saw he hasn’t accomplished the success that he wanted. He devoted his life into a career as a salesman knowing that he was good with his hands, but ¨he possessed too much snobbery to admit that his own destiny was in a simple career as a carpenter¨ (“Death of a Salesman”). For Willy the difference between a white collar job and a blue collar job meant a lot, but he didn’t do much to gain a white collar one and he stayed with his old job. His career as a salesman did give him and his family the normal success people would want. Willy wanted more, and since he saw he didn’t accomplished it, he taught his kids into his

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.

Willy Loman was the “breadwinner” of the household but eventually aged and lost his ability to support the family which devastated him mentally. Linda is an anchor in Willy’s life and an enabler, which is a form of codependency, and Willy is mentally invalid due to being a pathological liar. Linda comes to terms that he is not ok mentally or that she allows him to be the way he is when she goes on a tirade and quote from it is “He’s not the finest character that ever lived” (Miller 40). Willy’s pathological lying single-handedly ruined the Loman family from the start and both Linda and Willy are feeling the

For example, in act two, Willy tries using his personality to ask Howard, his boss, for a better job opportunity. Instead of succeeding, Loman ended up losing his job.

Willy Loman lives his life believing that if he can just get “one more thing” he’ll feel satisfied about himself. Willy’s dreams leave him withdrawn from reality and constantly losing sense of reality, this plagues his family with constant distaste in him. The “right way to live” irritates Willy’s conscious into questioning his past and judging himself by others standards.

In the story “Death of a Sales Man,” Willy Loman is a man who wants the best for his family but goes about it in all the wrong ways. The society Loman lives in believes every house hold should have certain luxuries. These luxuries that he craves end up being his reason for all his troubles. Loman is all about success and appearances. He is someone who is concerned with being well-liked as he also wants his sons to share his beliefs that he holds.

Loman had great aspirations for himself and his sons, and in his mind, he had been set up for success from the beginning. However, in reality, he failed on many different levels as a parent. For example, he completely ignored Biff when he was failing math, and that abandonment caused Biff to completely give up his dreams when he couldn’t attend university without his math credit. He also borrows money from Charley to cover up that fact that he doesn’t make enough money on commission to support his family. Instead, he retreats into vivid hallucinations of better times, using his deceased brother Ben as a source of consolation.

Willy Loman was a man who gradually destroyed himself with false hopes and beliefs. Throughout his entire life Willy believed that he would die a rich and successful man. It was inevitable for him to come crumbling down after years of disillusions. We can look at Willy’s life by examining some of his character traits that brought him down.

  In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Willy is depicted as living in his own world. The play centers around the end of Willy’s life, when the real world comes crashing through, ruining the false reality he had created for himself and his family. Throughout the play, Willy Loman uses the concept of being well liked to build a false image of reality, as shown through his teachings to his son, what he considers successful, and his reasoning for committing suicide.

Willy Loman has many traits of a young child. He never really lives outside of his own unrealistic world. When children are young, they think they are able to achieve whatever their imaginations believe. Willy has the same idea as this throughout his whole life. He never lets go of that dream even though he knows its not the smart decision. He knows he would be more successful as a tradesman working with his manly hands but he refuses to follow the wiser choice. Mainly because he is searching for that American Dream that society proclaims to be the best.