Death Of A Salesman
Caylin Hubble
AP Literature
Literary Analysis Essay
Revisiting the Past The past is complex; it cannot be repeated, nor altered, so why do so many people try to relive it? In Death of a Salesman, Willy tries on multiple occasions to relive his past through his memories. The whole Loman family did not want to face their situations, most of them wanted to stay in the past as long as they could. In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller described how not just one character, but four characters struggled to let go of the past. As Willy, a salesman, struggled with his past mistakes. Willy had taken pride in himself, but when the industry changed, he didn’t want to change with it. He started his career during the roarin’ twenties, when salesman had a better chance to be successful than in the thirties or fourties. Willy had hoped that his “success” would be passed down to his sons, but he was always disappointed in them. “Biff Loman is lost. In the greatest country in the world ayoung man with such — personal attractiveness, gets lost. And such a hard worker. There’s one thing about Biff — he’s not lazy.” If the past is so hard to accept, then why would people want to relive it? Willy couldn’t accept that he had cheated on Linda, and that he had somehow failed in raising his sons that he relied on his memories of his brother, and his imagination to keep him sane, or so he thought. Throughout the book we realize that Willy is not the Loman family member that is stuck in the past, his wife, Linda had a submissive way about how she would let the men of the family talk to her. Every time that Willy would yell at Linda to stop talking, she would be calm and ask him to calm down which would enrage him more. “I don’t like you yelling at her all the time, and I’m tellin’you, that’s all.” Linda had her mind set in the past as well, because she would mend her stockings, even though she didn’t have to. She would also give Willy compliments no matter how he treated her, and she
AP Literature
Literary Analysis Essay
Revisiting the Past The past is complex; it cannot be repeated, nor altered, so why do so many people try to relive it? In Death of a Salesman, Willy tries on multiple occasions to relive his past through his memories. The whole Loman family did not want to face their situations, most of them wanted to stay in the past as long as they could. In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller described how not just one character, but four characters struggled to let go of the past. As Willy, a salesman, struggled with his past mistakes. Willy had taken pride in himself, but when the industry changed, he didn’t want to change with it. He started his career during the roarin’ twenties, when salesman had a better chance to be successful than in the thirties or fourties. Willy had hoped that his “success” would be passed down to his sons, but he was always disappointed in them. “Biff Loman is lost. In the greatest country in the world ayoung man with such — personal attractiveness, gets lost. And such a hard worker. There’s one thing about Biff — he’s not lazy.” If the past is so hard to accept, then why would people want to relive it? Willy couldn’t accept that he had cheated on Linda, and that he had somehow failed in raising his sons that he relied on his memories of his brother, and his imagination to keep him sane, or so he thought. Throughout the book we realize that Willy is not the Loman family member that is stuck in the past, his wife, Linda had a submissive way about how she would let the men of the family talk to her. Every time that Willy would yell at Linda to stop talking, she would be calm and ask him to calm down which would enrage him more. “I don’t like you yelling at her all the time, and I’m tellin’you, that’s all.” Linda had her mind set in the past as well, because she would mend her stockings, even though she didn’t have to. She would also give Willy compliments no matter how he treated her, and she