bkla

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.

Willy life is a mess; it is filled with delusions and guilt. He wants what’s best for his family which through his eyes is money and being successful. Biff announces to his father that he had a fake interview with a big fancy man; Happy had told Biff to lie about the interview to make their father happy. Willy gets overwhelmed with joy and thinks his illusions are becoming reality for his sons. In the end, Willy realizes that he will never have a successful life and gives up; he loses his faith and gives up his fight, he gives up his own life in order for his family to get money from his insurance. In his mind he felt like that was the only worthy thing he could do to help his

Charles Darwin once said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent but the most responsive to change.” (University of Cambridge, 1). In the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman is a 63 year old travelling who has been slowly deteriorating due to his age and mental health problems. The play takes place in New England where Willy often travels to several locations around the United States of America selling his goods with little to no success. In the play Willy is the primary cause of his own demise due to his perception of the American Dream, along with flawed morals and unethical values. Four examples that show that Willy is the primary cause of his own

Reality conflicts with Willy’s hopes. Throughout his life, Willy has held himself to such high standards that he refuses to accept denial and or failure. By the time the play opens, Willy is suffering from crippling self-pity. He is so focused on succeeding that he can’t maintain a constant fantasy. At one point Willy calls Biff (Willy’s son) a lazy bum and just days later proceeds to tell him that he’s anything but lazy. In another instance, he calls the family car a piece of trash one day and “It’s the finest car every Built.” Denying Biff’s laziness allows Willy to hold on to the notion that someday Biff will eventually exceed his fathers expectations. Willy is constantly changing his interpretation of reality based on his psychological needs at the moment. When Willy was much younger

In novels or plays, many tragic heroes act as a conduit that leads suffering to the people who surround them. In “Death of a Salesman,” we see how the main character, Willie Loman, brings affliction to his family through his actions thus, applying a desolate edge and making the entire play tragic as a whole.

Willy has a series of delusions throughout the book, a memorable one being when he imagines his dead friend Ben and talks to him about his dreams of doing it big in business. This shows how delusional he is because not only is he talking about making it big when he’s already past his prime, but the very person he’s talking to died years ago and is not even listening to him. Furthermore, he lives his life telling lies to himself and those around him. For example, he lies to his wife about how much money he makes when everyone knows it’s not much. When Biff refuses to go to college, Willy tells people he has no idea why. This is a lie because he knows Biff didn’t go out of spite for his father’s affair. He believes Biff to be a top salesman, when he knows he was only a shipping clerk. As the play goes on, it seems life Willy’s life is going through a downward spiral. He loses his grip on time and reality, essentially coming face to face with the reality of his sad life. At this point, a lot of the questionable things that Willy does are just to escape. His mistress gives him a new world to explore and an ego boost that he desperately needs. Of course, his final escape is the ultimate one - suicide. At his funeral, his friend Charley says that part of being a salesman is having a dream, and another part is selling yourself. Willy essentially sold himself because one of the

Willy started to become delusional. He started to merge the past and the present together. He couldn't distinguish reality from past life. He believed this was lowering his self-worth. Linda even told the boys “attention, attention must finally be made to such a person. You call him crazy- you don't have to very smart to know what the trouble is. This man is exhausted. I tell you there’s more good in him than other people.” His wife knew he was a good man but had a lot of pressures on top of everything that they were going through. Biff even told Miss Forsythe that his father was “a fine, troubled prince. A hard working unappreciated prince.” Willy had many redeeming qualities but his fatal flaw ended up killing him in the end and that is a true

He was a man who had visions of grandeur and who longed for the love and acceptance he never got from his occupation, so he created this false vision of himself. Willy wants “success, but the meaning of that need extends beyond the accumulation of wealth, security, goods and status” and he merely “yearns toward them more than he lives by them” (Jacobson 1). He ultimately becomes the source of his own depression, and it was his individual actions that lead to his downfall which made him blind to everything else in his life. Willy often lapses into a flashback and appears to be reliving conversations from the time in his life where he was at his best too. This is his inability to face reality and the flashbacks are the structure and unique understanding of the play, and Willy’s life leading up the present. Most flashbacks provide important knowledge to the reader that demonstrate why the present-day problems are occurring. Every now and then he’ll be thinking about Biff’s senior year of high school, or the affair, or even have conversations with his dead brother, Ben, who inspired him as a

The abandonment by Willy’s father causes him wanting to be liked through his job, making Willy become unstable. When Willy was fired he felt unsuccessful and he looked for love and likeability through his affair and Biff’s football game which caused Willy to struggle throughout his life. Willy imagines the people at his funeral, but is disappointed when Biff says that he need to give up on his american dream but Willy won’t give up on his dream. You shouldn’t be stuck in a cycle of wanting to please yourself always and acting on a decision in order to satisfy yourself. Sometimes you have to accept the outcomes of life no matter how big or how small that they really

Firstly, Willy constantly dwells on the past, which leads to a dysfunctional fantasy that contributes to his misfortune. The dysfunctional fantasy that Willy Loman has developed is essentially the great American dream, where he is successful, well-liked, and has the perfect family. Throughout the play Willy frequently reminisces on the possible outcomes, trying to figure out what went wrong in his life. An example is when Willy thinks back to the time his brother asked him to go to Alaska saying,

Willy does something that he wasn’t good at, placing all his faith in something that could never happen in life.

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,

In act two, Biff says to Willy, “I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can like the rest of them! I’m one-dollar an hour, Willy! I tried seven states and couldn’t raise it. A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning? I’m not bringing home any prizes anymore and you’re going to stop waiting for me to bring them home!” (Find page number). Biff insists he be left alone to live his life. He's begging his father to let him succeed in his own way. Biff no longer wants any part of Willy's delusions. Willy has deceived himself his entire life and tries to live vicariously through his unwilling son, Biff. But Biff uncovers Willy's lies when he finds out that Willy has been cheating on Linda. Choosing to alienate his son rather than face reality, and tormented by his failures, Willy spirals

Willy chooses to escape from reality altogether by committing suicide. He thinks his life has no value and no meaning, and that his only worth is his insurance policy. His death allows for his family to receive the insurance money and to pay off the mortgage. However, in reality, he simply ran away from his issues, that he could have solved another way than by abandoning his family. His wife lost her husband, while his sons lost their father.

When the play first begins, Willy returns home from work from a trip that he really never takes. Instead of telling his wife the truth, Willy informs her that he returns home because he constantly was running off the road, when in fact, he doesn’t want to admit he is getting older and having difficulty driving. Linda knows Willy wants to die throughout the play. Furthermore, Willy lives in the past and the present. Willy always blames his misfortunes on someone or something. Throughout the play, Linda, Willie’s wife, tries to get him to talk to his boss, Howard Wagner, to work closer to home. Needless to say, Willie does eventually talk to Wagner, but gets fired. Willy has an attitude problem throughout the play, especially with his mouth. When Biff and Happy, Linda and Willy’s sons, come home for a visit, they find out that their father’s mind is failing. The mental status of Willy becomes apparent to his neighbor, Charley, because he can hear him next to door. Charley goes over to Willy’s house, and they play cards. During the course of the game, Willy steadily talks to his brother, Ben, who found fortunes in the diamond business. Charley and Willy get into an argument. Biff and Happy overhear their father talking with nobody present. Willy goes as far back in his mind that he still thinks of his sons as children, and he places a lot of emphasis on Biff. Willy constantly thinks of Biff’s success as a football player, his tennis shoes, and the football he stole from a locker at school. There is a lot of tension with Willy and Biff, and Willy even tells Biff that he’s going to get his math teacher to change his grade so he can graduate. Willy constantly harps on Biff’s misfortunates in his career. Linda has such a deep love for Willy that she will do anything