Willy Loman is the main character in this drama. He is 60 years old and has been a salesman for 35 years. He has never really been successful despite his aspirations to be. After 35 years of being a salesman Willy finds himself feeling defeated by his lack of success and his difficult home life. He is married to Linda, a dutiful wife and mother. Together they have two sons, Biff and Happy.
Willy and Linda have a good relationship despite the circumstances. Linda is supportive and docile with Willy. She listens when Willy talks about his unrealistic hopes for the future, but she knows what is really going on in their life. She knows that their life will not be any better than it currently is despite the unrealistic hopes and dreams of Willy’s.
Willy and Biff’s relationship was, to say the least, not an ideal father-son relationship. Biff was a great football player in high school with a college scholarship upon high school graduation. He, however, did not graduate high school after refusing to take a summer math class to make up for the one he flunked during school. Biff says he did this to spite his father for seeing his father with another woman in Boston. Biff is torn between staying at home and becoming a businessman like his father wants or going out west to become a farmhand. Biff is comfortable knowing that he is “a dime a dozen” as long as he can get out of the confines of his father’s delusions.
Happy (Harold) and Willy’s relationship is better than Willy’s and Biff’s as Happy is more supportive of his father and family. He earned the nickname Happy from always trying to bring happiness to things. He has followed in his brother’s footsteps for his whole life, being ignored much of the time. He has hopes that he will one day be more than the assistant to the assistant buyer as he longs for success, even if it means cheating. Always looking for attention from his parents, he sometimes makes up stories. He even told his father once “I’m getting’ married pop” just to get his father’s attention. Sadly, Happy is a womanizer and has no respect the “taken” women he is with.
In the end of the play Willy is overcome with delusions and his failures. He believes that everyone else has been handed success and wealth and he got the short end. He believes that his family would be better off if he were dead; the life insurance money would benefit them more than he does. So he decides to take his own life and crashes his vehicle into a tree leading us to believe “After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive” (Willy, Act II).
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
As a young boy, Biff, Willy’s oldest son showed athletic promise and charming personality that made him proud. Willy instilled in Biff and Happy; that in order to be successful in life all you needed was personality and great looks. He put little emphasis on hard work and repeatedly throughout the play applauds his boys for their popularity. For example, when a neighbor boy, Bernard attempts to get a young Biff to study for his Math regents, Willy…
- 724 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Willy Loman’s obsession with the American Dream and its ideals has strongly affected the people Biff and Happy have become. Due to Willy’s teachings and influences, both his sons lead a different life from what they expected. Willy believed that his sons’ attributes would lead them to a successful lifestyle with no conflicts. Yet, being well-liked and attractive lead both sons to live a lie, nowhere near success. Biff becomes an underachiever who can’t hold a job, and feels dissatisfied with the fact that his life has been based on a lie. Happy lives in his brother’s shadow, becoming his father’s younger self, lying and manipulating reality to his favor.…
- 647 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Although Biff never tells his mom what happened, Willy’s actions, cause Biff to leave home for long periods of time and to never finish his education.…
- 412 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
One major flaw of Willy is his reliance on false hope. This can stem from his son, Biff. As seen in imaginings, adolescent Biff looks up to Willy as a great man, causing him to seek for his approval. In high school, Biff has many athletic achievements and is well liked. His awards cause for Willy to have high hopes in what he can conquer later in life. This developed vastly and became an influence in Willy’s mood. When he has a sense of hope to hold onto, he is liberated of his daily pressures. When Biff and Happy are at the restaurant with…
- 661 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Willy Loman has the confidence of a billionaire. He acts like he is a hero, almost as if he ran the town. Willy’s confident attitude rubbed off onto his kids (Biff and Happy) making them believe that their father was a very successful man and that they were living the high class life. When in reality it was so far from that. Only Willy saw himself as the best. His friends, his bosses all knew he was full of talk, but never mentioned anything to him. “Well, that's the training, the training. I'm telling you, i was selling’ thousands and thousands, but I had to come home.”(34) The reality of Willy Loman's life is quite sad and pathetic, thinking that one is making so much money and is going to be so successful when really none of that is going…
- 148 Words
- 1 Page
Good Essays -
Willy’s inability to recognize the actual reality of his situation is first seen during the scene where Ben is introduced. In this scene, Ben tells of their father’s success as a salesman and his own rapid success with diamonds in Africa. As a result of this “interaction”, Willy believes that either he or his sons will have a similar kind of success. The confused man does not take into account that Ben happened to be extremely lucky…
- 555 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
The setting of Death of a Salesman takes place mostly in Willy Loman's home and backyard, but in the scenes where he is not in the house, we see him get fired in an office building and meeting his sons in a restaurant. Also, a good bit of the play takes place in Willy's mind. The story takes place in the 1940's when we had just ended WWII.…
- 587 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Happy says, “I'm gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It's the only dream you can have - to come out number-one man. He fought it out here, and this is where I'm gonna win it for him”. This quote shows that Happy has vowed to continue in his father’s footsteps, pursuing an American Dream that will leave him empty and alone, just like it did to his father. The tragedy of Willy’s death comes about because of his inability to distinguish between his value as an economic resource and his identity as a human being. Willy is proud of being able to sell himself to the women he is cheating on and not to his wife, Linda. This sabotages his role as a financial provider for his family. Willy sacrifices himself in order to get his family the money from his life insurance policy. This is the abandonment and betrayal of Willy towards his family because of his vision to pursue the American…
- 765 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
There are many parallels that can be drawn between August Wilson’s and Arthur Miller’s main characters in both of their respective plays. While some may not be immediately obvious, I plan to connect many of the dots to illuminate the similar characteristics exhibited by the characters in question. Wilson and Miller both present main characters that have similarities such as having strained relationships with their children. Other comparable traits between these two characters are their unfaithfulness to their wife, and not being able to face reality.…
- 1087 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
Willy Loman had many blessings in his life: he had a supportive wife, two healthy children, and talent as a carpenter, yet despite possessing what many would consider to be happiness, Willy was filled with anger, resentment, and sadness at his existence, for the road he traversed was a bitter one. Willy Loman was abandoned during his childhood, stating to Ben during a flashback when asked how much he remembered about his father, “Well, I was just a baby, of course, only three or four years old” and “all I remember is a man with a big beard, and I was in Mamma’s lap, sitting around a fire, and some kind of high music.” Because of his abandonment, Willy was void of any affection or acknowledgement growing up, so he yearned to fulfill…
- 788 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
An excellent father will make every effort to constantly do what is best for his family. He will put his needs last, ensuring that his family is well cared for and not lacking for any necessities. And, most significantly, a first-class father will make his family his main concern, coming before his job, his friends, or even himself. In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman is a prime example of a horrific father in every way mentioned previously. Not only is Willy Loman not a good father and spouse, but he furthers his failure by being a typical anti-hero and by failing to accomplish the American Dream. There for I believe the play is not necessarily what Miller and Kazan perceive it to be. Here I will be discussing Willy Lomans discraceful actions towards his family and finally expose the actual theme of the play.…
- 820 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
When most people think of a hero they think of superheroes, a famous celebrity, a great sports player, or their parents. Would someone call a forgetful and stubborn person a hero? Chances are they would not. In Arthur Miller’s play “Death of a Salesman,” Willy Loman is not a tragic hero because he does not fit Aristotle’s assertions that a tragic hero must arouse pity in the reader, feature a hero that is good, and feature a hero whose downfall is “brought upon him not by vice and depravity but by some error in judgment.”…
- 769 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
“The ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every American” (Dictionary.com). The American Dream is “a life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by individuals in the U.S” (Dictionary.com). The image of America is presented negatively in the novel The Great Gatsby and the play Death of A Salesman because it is depicted as a materialistic lonely place.…
- 1439 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays -
As stated above women, as depicted in the play, were not treated with equality. Linda, who is Willy’s wife, is not treated with the equality she deserves. She is a loving wife that cares so much about Willy and her two sons, Biff and Happy. She slaves over a hot stove to keep the family nourished, waxes the tile floor, does the financial papers, and so much more. Linda is a strong minded individual. This may not be agreeable to most readers, but she looks out after her family, provides anything they would like, and keeps the peace between the family members. This is normal for women of this time period. Make the man happy while the wife stays home and works till her hands are cracked with blisters. She is also strong minded in the sense that she does not want confrontation in her family. She does not tell Biff or Happy about how Willy is trying to kill himself. Rather than speak up…
- 749 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
During the play the main focus point is Willy’s volcanic relationship with his eldest son Biff, in which he is on the same path as his father. “WILLY: Sure. Certain men just don’t get started till later in life. Like Thomas Edison, I think. Or B.F. Goodrich. One of them was deaf. [He starts for the bedroom doorway.] I’ll put my money on Biff. (Act 1)” Willy sticks to his gut and hopes that Biff will be the greatest major business entrepreneur. He’s desperate for Biff to follow in his foot steps even though his advice is not the reality of the new world they live…
- 860 Words
- 4 Pages
Better Essays