Introduction
The play, Death of a salesman is one of the plays authored by Miller. It gives a concept that is gathered from the exploration of the world as from the America after the war. It tries to assess the result of this war to the American new found prosperity on men. Ideally, men in the 1950s commence having a feeling of pressure that resulted from their family responsibilities. Besides the pressure to provide basic necessities but also to deliver the members of one’s family with luxurious items that are believed to be essential to the families. The idea here was that the American dream was in the mind of every man. The most disadvantageous idea is that the strenuous effort to achieve this was way beyond the reach of most men. This paper aims at discussing a character in the play Death of a salesman, Willy Loman, and how this idea lead to mass destruction of his life as well as that of his family.
Willy Loman is one of the renowned characters in the play Death of a salesman. He is among the most insecure as well as the most self deceived salesmen involved in travelling. It the play, he is identified as one who has strong belief in the American Dream (Schlondorff 64). This American dream of wealth as well success that is full of illusion in that it has never been optimally achieved is what this salesman believes in. the most annoying part of this is that he has never achieved this dream despite the fact that he has strongly believed in it for so long. As a result of the failure to achieve this dream leads to the final mental depression that are resultant from the effect of reality and that make him feel his mind in an unraveling situation. This essential theme of conflict in the play death of a salesman is well portrayed by the overwhelming tensions that are significant in the life of Willy Loman.
Willy in his dreams had the intentions of giving his family a descent life. He used to tell his son that the right dimension to take in order to succeed in life was just through being well liked. He insisted that the fact that one became popular lend to ones possibility of succeeding in life becoming a better position to become successful. Besides popularity, he also believed in the concept of luck. Relating to the source of riches of his brother who was lucky to collect a diamond in South Africa, he believed that luck was part of the equation of love. The combination of luck and popularity were the concepts of success according to Loman.
Willy had a wife as well as children. These children include Linda Loman, Biff Loman and Happy Loman. His dream with reference to the play was to buy his wife expensive house appliances. These appliances included the refrigerators, a car in the garage as well as a vacuum cleaner. These dreams are considered as sound and well effective. However, instead of having the patience to earn and buy them, he took the sole risk of buying these items with massive debts. It is obvious that the cost of buying these items was very high compared to the rate at which he was in a position to pay for them. In connection to that, he decided to take away his life. When doing this, he intends to save his family from agony. His idea is that the family members benefit from the compensation of the insurance company to pay for the items under loan. Owing to the fact that he has his children and wife to leave with a consumer loan is one of the most embarrassing things that he causes to his only family. The use of debt only triggers and acts as a catalyst for a man as hopeless as Willy to take death as an option.
As the play moves develops on and on, Willy is seen to show signs of retreating into the past. Ideally, he commences to remember his past experiences with his family and the happy times he had. For instance, he figures out the times when he had sweet times relating with his sons who loved him deeply. Besides, he tries to commemorate the times when he was very successful in his work (Miller 46). In the strenuous event of trying to move in to the past, he makes unnecessary efforts to find out where he lost his way. It is very unfortunate to find out that he can only date his happy moments with his wife from the past. Precisely, he dates them back in high school days when he made efforts to make her happy. The only thing that he does is to deeply live in the past.
Unfortunately, besides his efforts to make his wife and sons happier, he was identified to have unfaithfulness contexts in his life. When he was in his trip towards Boston, he commenced having affairs with a certain character in the play that is generally considered as woman. It becomes so unfortunate that his son called Bill gets him red-handed practicing adultery. His son is so annoyed that he considers asking his father the reason behind him expensing on the woman instead of the woman he stated to love. This woman is the mother to Bill. In the play, Loman had bought the ‘woman’ stockings. He portrayed a very strange behavior than what his son expected. Ideally, the son thought of the issue in the perspective that his father, Willy Loman, had the guts to serve a stranger woman better than he served his family. This was a sign of betrayal. This kind of behavior of betrayal leads to his sons’ change of conduct. According to the play, Bill changes in terms of academic performance since he loses interest in school. This sets up the path towards the negative attitude towards him by his entire family. He commences a journey of solitude where the entire family loosened the knots.
These events come as an unending shock to Willy Loman. He is faced by a feeling of need to deny himself. This plays the greatest part of his downfall. After the betrayal, he forces his sons to deceive him in order to evade the truth. As a result, he makes a poor choice of taking away his life. He compares himself with the insurance policy and finds that he can die and leave the family with the advantage of the benefits of the compensation of the policy (Miller 46). Despite the fact that he accepts to sacrifice himself, he leaves his wife as well as the children without a husband and wife simultaneously. This is against his tight believes of having a successful family.
In spite of his intensive search for a better and successful future, Willy is unfortunate not to achieve his dreams. His efforts to attain his levels of being a catastrophic hero are ruined. The quasi- declaration that his decision of taking away his life evolves, grants him an incomplete discovery of the reality for Loman. In this context of the play, our character Willy tries to acquire a professional comprehension of his profession as a salesman. However, he tremendously fails to understand and appreciate his situation as a man from a humble beginning and that he needs to comprehend his abilities (Koon 26). It is quite clear from throughout the play that he fails to understand his true self. His actions of running away from problems, unfaithfulness in marriage, living in the past and relating his success to popularity and luck are the reasons why he ends up losing.
However, despite the fact that Willy is identified as a failure in many aspects, he is identified to have made a very important sacrifice of leaving behind tangible inheritance that acts as a catalyst towards Bill’s achievements. Willy’s suicide is ideally transformed into a heroic gesture that is considered as important as far as his intentions are. It is quite unfortunate that Willy does not fully realize himself as he commits suicide trying to hide from the reality. However, he leaves a mark that drives his son become ambitious to achieve the American dream.
Work Cited
Miller, Arthur, Lee J. Cobb, Mildred Dunnock, Dustin Hoffman, Ulu Grosbard, and Alex North. Death of a Salesman. New York: Harper Audio, 2011.
Schlondorff, Volker, Dustin Hoffman, Charles Durning, John Malkovich, Kate Reid, Stephen Lang, Christian Blackwood, and Arthur Miller. Death of a Salesman. Chatsworth, CA: Image Entertainment, 2002.
Koon, Helene. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Death of a Salesman: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 2003.
