His pathological visions of being successful and his ungrateful acceptance of his own American Dream push him to cause arguments within his family, envision suicidal thoughts and ultimately take his own life. Willie envisions his son, Biff, as this successful salesman that was a great football player, but Biff returns from the west as a confused bum. Willy becomes irritated by Biffs visit because of how he pictured Biffs’ life and the reality that he’s not a salesman. Charley and his son, Bernard, both become successful throughout the play and Willie troubles himself on what went wrong with his two boys. Why didn’t his sons become successful?
As an old man, Willy is currently having a nervous breakdown that he frequently daydreams the past and often idealizes it. He is at his best condition when he hears Biff is coming home, but he becomes worst when Biff arrives the house. This contradictory shows Willy’s uncertain feeling toward Biff: he is afraid that if Biff hates him. Willy daydreams not just because he wants to escape from the unhappy present, he also regrets about the past; he refuses to knowledge that he had destroyed Biff’s future by letting him failed math in high school so that Biff couldn’t graduate. Willy always loves Biff and wants him to have a better life.
Willy's criticism of his son likely stems from criticisms of his own self. Happy continually seeks similar accomplishments and big dreams like his father. Willy's antics finally push Happy to deny his own father saying to his female companions "No, that’s not my father. He’s just a
There he wrote for the Michigan Daily, the student paper, and completed his first play, No Villain. Arthur Miller was inspired to create much of the conflict in his play, Death of a Salesman, on his relationship with his uncle, Manny Newman. Miller had actually written a short story about an unsuccessful salesman in his youth but discarded it. After meeting with his uncle in 1947 in Boston, Arthur Miller reworked his play to include the conflicted relationship among he and his uncle into his characters and the plot of the play. Newman was a man who refused to accept failure, and demanded the appearance of great confidence in his family.
45-58 Annotation: Biff Lowman looks to his father for moral support and guidance, but instead finds his father cheating. Willy Loman refuses to admit he was wrong, and Biff is left with out a solid foundation for moral values. Weales, Gerald Clifford, ed. Arthur Miller Death of a salesman, text and criticism. New York: Penguin Books, 1977.
Amir frequently doesn’t succeed to live up to Babas values. The failure relies on Babas disregard of love towards his own son. Instead he would give his attention and appreciation to his servant’s son Hassan when he would be extraordinary or successful. Babas idea and understanding of being strict holds to be true of looking after number one. Coming close isn’t winning, so when Hassan outperformed Amir in many things such as kite flying, shows Babas prejudicious views on Amir.
One play in which a character challenges the beliefs of others is Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman”. In the play main character Willy Loman challenges the beliefs of his son Biff and friend Charley. Miller effectively uses dramatic techniques such as symbolism and foreshadowing to portray these differences in beliefs. Willy believes in the ‘American Dream’ and believes that you have to be successful in life to be happy. Throughout the play Miller has Willy boast about his life to his family telling them how he is “vital in New England” and that “if old man Wagner were alive” he’d be in “charge of New York by now”.
Decline of a Family Although it is evident that Willy and Biff Loman are related, there are also many characteristics that set them apart. They are both misplaced and seem to embellish the facts on a regular basis. However, they differ in their accountability for their action and the way they think. Willy’s misplacement can be defined by the fact that he is a truly unsuccessful salesman who is convinced happiness comes from the wrong things in life. Instead of following his true talent of building and becoming a carpenter, he went down the wrong path in life for himself.
Dreams play a vital role to the development of plot and character within Death of a Salesman; it drives the main characters with their need to obtain their aspirations to a point of obsession that dominates their lives. This never ending pursuit of a non-existent perfection is what leads Willy, Biff and Happy and those around them into a false idea of happiness. They believe that wealth and reputation are the path to success, unfortunately this road leads to only poor and selfish choices leaving everyone unsatisfied and full of regret. Willy’s dreams for himself and his sons set the stage for the novel’s sequence of events. They are the reason that Willy cannot seem to find success, and when he cannot meet his high expectations for himself, he lies and cheats in order to keep the unachievable ideal alive instead of being satisfied with less than perfect.
Thus I do not think that Death of Salesman is a true tragedy as defined by Aristotle. “3 years and 11 months…”(Ben ACT 1) that is how old Willy was when he was abandoned by both his brother, Ben, and his father. Willy grew up without a solid background as he grew up without questions asked and no help both emotional and physical help from his father and Ben. Without this significant help, Willy never had the chance to really become the great and successful man he wanted to become. Willy, even as an adult, still struggles to become the “virtuous” and “great” man that a tragic character is defined by.