Biff Loman and Tom Wingfield Analysis

Growing up is a major part of human life. For males, a strong father figure is imperative during childhood and adolescence. This is needed for the child to develop their father's characteristics by learning from them and following in their father's footsteps. However, two characters, lack a strong father figure and it affects them negatively. These two characters are Biff Loman, from Death of a Salesman and Tom Wingfield, from The Glass Menagerie. Both are affected differently by the deficiency of a father whom has favorable traits that would be salutary to both characters development. Instead they form the same unfavorable characteristics as their father. These traits cause them to begin to live in a fantasy world that their fathers also had lived in. For both characters, the lack of a strong father figure leads them to develop detrimental personality traits that ultimately distance them from their families and the ones that they love.

In Death of a Salesman, the main character, Willy Loman is consumed by his false pretenses of what a real man should be. These illusions include how he believes that a real man is measured by how big his bank account is and how popular he is. Willy feeds these falsities into the mind of his eldest son, Biff, who believes them to be true since he looks up to his father so much. Biff would do anything to appease his father, but his whole world comes crumbling down when he realizes that his father has been unfaithful and has cheated on his wife. At this time Biff realizes that he has been living a fantasy due to all the hot air that his father has been feeding him, but it is too late and the damage has already been done. Biff has developed all of the same unwanted traits that his father had. Biff cannot work for anyone as he feels it makes him unsuccessful as his father had been. Also the confinement that his father has caused him leads him to want to escape from it all and he deserts his family to go out West. During the play he