Preview

Willy's Flashbacks In Death Of A Salesman

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
315 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Willy's Flashbacks In Death Of A Salesman
Willy Loman was a 63 year-old salesman who has dedicated his life to his job. Willy was a success and popular across New England. He had a loving wife and two successful sons, Happy and Biff. At least that what he thought he was.
Willy was incapable of accepting his reality. Willy built his life around his illusions and his illusions replaced his reality. For him, it was a difficult concept to accept. Whenever reality slipped through, Willy ran to his flashbacks; his flashbacks indicated how he was losing his grip on reality. The worse Willy’s reality got, the faster he ran to his flashbacks and the tighter his grip on his illusions became.
Willy’s main problem in the play was his blindness of his reality. Consequently, his life was going

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Willy had a few problems of his own. First he let himself get caught with his mistress by his son, which devastated him. He also acted like his sons were perfect, which they weren't. He should have made sure his son passed math so he could have graduated, but he put that into the hands of their next-door…

    • 630 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Willy’s extreme arrogance disguises his true faults, such as his anxiety. In excerpt A, Willy quotes by saying, “how can he find himself on a farm? A farmhand?” Willy describes the disappointment he…

    • 323 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Willy often retreats to the past, because he does not want to deal with his failures in the present. Once Willy finally owns up to his mistakes he fixes the problem by committing suicide, because his family can get insurance money from his death.…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Willy dreams of the future in which he will be well-liked and achieve his goals of being rich and maintain his job. However, his mind is so involved in the past and longing for the future that he does not focus on the present reality. This causes his life to no longer be prosperous, leading to his hamartia. This consequently leads to Willy Lomans tragic death after the realization of the reality he has been avoiding. Willy’s enduring of the hamartia and anagnorisis due to his hubris leads him to be characterized as a tragic…

    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Willy Loman had set forth expectations for Biff to live the American Dream; however the dream he had for his son was not the dream that Biff wanted to pursue. As stated by Irving Jacobson “Biff, on the other hand, is quite the polar opposite in comparison to his father. Biff’s character is an antithesis of what an ideal candidate for the American dream is- he has realized that it is just an illusion, and a futile dream-and accepted that reality.” This statement summarizes Biff Loman as compared to Willy Loman to perfection. The division the father and son had on realization led to the demise of their…

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I am Willy Loman, and you are Biff Loman!” By using this motto Willy is displaying how much he believes in being a vital, successful, and persuasive man. Willy has this idea of the kind of man he should be well established into her head and his heart. Since Willy was not able to be achieve the perfect man he strived to be, he tries to get his son Biff to believe in his fantasy of being a vital, successful, and persuasive man, However, Biff realizes that this is merely just Willy’s dream more than what real life is actually like.…

    • 576 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Who Is Willy Flawless

    • 870 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Willy has been a salesman all his life; promoting and deals are all he knows, and it has extended from his business into his own life. For quite a long time he has attempted to shape and shape his life into one that is the most engaging; from his children, Biff and Happy, being upbeat, effective representatives like him, to his marriage to his wife Linda, and particularly his vocation. Willy is an extremely defective man who has committed numerous errors, however over the long run he has decided to overlook the parts of his life where he was at flaw and turn them to make himself the exploited person. He has done this for so long, and lied so well to himself and everybody, that he really starts to accept his own particular lies and declines to assume liability for anything he has done. Albeit extremely clashed and now and again the antagonist he could call his own life, Willy is substantially more relatable in his blemishes than he would be on the off chance that he were a completely flawless character.…

    • 870 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Willy started out as a lower middle-class workingman, and in the end, he ended up that same way. He believed wholeheartedly in the American dream of success and wealth, but he never achieved it. Neither one of his sons fulfilled his hope and dream that they would succeed where he had failed miserably. When his illusions of himself began to fail under the pressing reality of his actual conditions, Willy's mental health began to fall apart. The mental struggle with himself proved to be too much and…

    • 613 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Willy Loman is 63 he had. a chance to reach his American Dream once when he was invited to go to Alaska with his brother, Ben who turned out to be…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • 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
  • Good Essays

    Willy was to blame but not completely on his own. He needed help. He just did not realize this nor could he with his mental status. His family is to blame for not getting him the help he needed. I think his neighbor tried to help him more than anyone else.…

    • 458 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Oedipus Tragic Hero Essay

    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Willy Loman was an average citizen trying to make a successful living. Willy’s ego of his son Biff caused him to develop a mental problem. I view Willy as the superior tragic hero due to his mental problem that many people can relate to today. Almost anyone knows somebody fighting for their life due to a mental illness. Willy Loman is in the same position as his family watches and tries to help all they can. “The man is exhausted” (Linda, Pg. 59). Linda knows what is happening to Willy, and the audience sees that from her which makes things tragic. Willy also never even realizes that he is losing everything because of his stubbornness to accept the truth. Many times Biff has tried to tell him that he is living in dream, but his mental state won’t let him accept it. Towards the end of the play Willy loses his job and everything falls apart in the family which causes his tragic downfall. Willy took his own life over the same thing people take their life over today, mental illness. I view Willy Loman as the superior tragic hero because today’s society can relate to his struggles and the result of him taking his own…

    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • 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
  • Good 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
  • Better Essays

    Willy Loman is the main character in Miller’s, Death of Salesman. Throughout the play, he struggles with his work ethic and well-being. In the story, Willy Loman is a sales man that is unable to accept him and society. In his older years gets fired from his job. His son is unable to receive a loan from the bank to start his own business. Willy affected by guilt kills himself, that way his son Biff is then able to collect his insurance money and become an entrepreneur. Willy does have flaws in his character that make him partially responsible for his own misfortune. Willy’s ultimate down fall is a result of social pressure, family and friend influences, and his psychological and emotional state of mind.…

    • 860 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays