Death of Salesman - Essay Example

?Death of Salesman Willy Loman The Death of the Salesman is the story about the “low man” who wasted his life and proved to have been impotent to bear any responsibility for his deeds. The protagonist – Willy Loman – seems to conceal his vices behind his misery. He permanently flees from reality seeking for consolation in reminiscences of the past. Nevertheless, even the past he is daydreaming of, appears to be not actual but imaginary. Willy likes to meditate upon what his and his kids’ lives would be. Nevertheless when it is up to him to take the course of action he fails to do anything to improve his condition. The very name of the protagonist seems to be the pun. The author presents Willy Loman being somehow predestined to be a “low man”. However the protagonist is likely to have had an alternative. Loman believes whole-heartedly in what he regards as the earnest of the American Dream – that a personally “attractive” and a “well-liked” person in business would surely and deservedly obtain the material comfort proposed by the contemporary American life. Oddly enough, his obsession with such superficial qualities as likeability and attractiveness is at odds with a more rewarding and a more gritty understanding of the American Dream. Contrary to Willy’s delusions, however American Dream identifies with working hard without complaint and passing the buck, as the key to success. Loman’s understanding of attractiveness is superficial. He childishly envies and hates his nephew Bernard because he believes the latter to be a nerd. Willy Loman’s blind faith in such a stunted version of the American Dream leads to prompt psychological decline as soon as eh finds himself unable to accept the discrepancy between the real life and his dreams (Martin 236). Willy Loman’s life is in fact a course from one abandonment to another, making him desperate each time. Willy’s father leaves his brother Ben and him when they are young, leaving the brothers neither money nor any intangible legacy. Ben ultimately leaves for Alaska, leaving his brother to lose himself in his warped version of American Dream. As a result of that early experience, Willy develops his fear of solitude that makes him desire his family to his view of American Dream (Cullen 190) His efforts to bring perfect sons up though reflect his impotence to understand reality. Willy’s elder son Biff, who embodies the promise for Willy, drops his father as well as his fervent ambitions for him as soon as he becomes aware of Willy’s infidelity. Biff’s ongoing impotence to be success in business increases his estrangement from Willy. When at Frank’s Chop House, Willy Loman after all believes that his elder son is on the turning point of greatness; Biff breaks his father’s illusions and eventually abandons babbling and deluded Willy in the lavatory. Throughout the whole play Willy’s primary obsession is what he supposes to be Biff’s betrayal of his ambition for him. Willy thinks that he is entitled to expect Biff to carry out the promise inherent to him. When Biff refuses to fulfill his father’s ambitions for him, Willy takes that rejection as a personal insult, associating Biff’s refusal with “spite”. Furthermore, Willy is a salesman so Biff’s rebuff ultimately crushes his ego for Willy founds himself unable to sell him American dream – the product to which Willy believes himself to be the most faithful. Willy supposes that his son’s betrayal derives from Biff’s discovery of Willy’s betrayal of Linda’s, his wife’s love – an affair with The Woman. Whereas Willy perceives that has betrayed him, Biff becomes aware of his father’s being a “phony little fake”, that has betrayed him with his endless flow of his ego stroking lies (Hurell 74). He often dreams about his late elder brother Ben visiting him. Long ago in his seventeen Ben had left parents’ home for Alaska and eventually found a diamond vein somewhere in Africa and thus became rich. Since then Ben has been an embodiment of American dream for his brother so Willy has always wished his sons Biff and Happy be at least as prosperous as their uncle. Nevertheless they both failed and have grown up being the Lomans – the “low men”. Willy’s elder son Biff promised well while learning at school where he used to be a football star. Yet some day for the reasons unclear to his father Biff lost his heart and fell despondent. Being in his thirties he still lives together with his parents having no stable job and being farther from being success than he used to be in his youth. Willy’s striving to mythologize people also contributes to his perverted world view. Loman speaks of Dave Singleman as a legend and supposes the death of the latter to have been noble and beautiful. Willy compares both of his sons to such mythic ancient Greek characters as Hercules and Adonis because he believes his sons to be the pinnacles of power through well likedness and personal attractiveness. His sons served him for embodiment of American Dream. Nevertheless, Willy’s mythologizing appears to be absolutely nearsighted. He fails to realize how desperate was on-the-job, on-the-road, lonely death. Striving for obtaining that he considers to heroic status of Singleman, Willy Loman commits himself to senseless death as well as to the meaningless legacy. Even if his father’s life insurance policy ends paying off, Biff wishes nothing to do with hopes Willy pinned on him. Furthermore, either Happy or Biff does not end up leading a godlike, ideal life. While Happy continues to believe in the American Dream, it looks like he is not going to end up no better of than his definitely ungodlike father. The reasons of Biff’s present condition lay as far back as in the time of his being a football star. His father inspired him with an idea that it is enough to have a charming smile to be success. Nevertheless neither Biff’s sport achievements nor his charm could help him to pass his school exams. Willy has not taught his children to work to make efforts for the sake of achieving their goals. Furthermore Biff accidentally catches his father with another woman whom the latter dates when being on a business trip. Decades later that woman visits Loman. They both are young and nice and Willy presents that Woman new stockings. Nevertheless his dreaming is interrupted by his real old wife Linda asking him something. Instead of working hard enough to make career Willy used to escape the reality dating a mistress presenting her new stockings. By the end of life his wife has to mend hers putting her husband out. Willy yells at his misfortunate wife as though it is her fault that he no more needed by neither women (even for the stockings) nor for his boss, for the children of his own. They are leaving him at the restaurant as though loosing some accessory and it is a waiter who renders Willy help when the latter feels sick. As any coward Willy Loman is jealous of other people’s successes. Being younger he used to dream to open some business of his own bigger than the Charley’s. He calls Charley’s son Bernard dropping into the Lomans’ for Biff who is to have concentrated math studies to avoid failing exam. It is significantly that instead of making Biff doing his studies Willy says his sons that Bernard would hardly be success in the long run because that boy “is not well liked” however admits that Bernard is smart. Furthermore Willy appears to be unwilling to do anything to improve his live. When being offered a job by his neighbor Charley whom he dreamed to exceed Willy gets insulted, rejects an offered help and yells at Charley taking him for his late prosperous brother. To Willy Loman, diamonds are an embodiment of tangible wealthб therefore both validation of one’s work and life as well as the ability to pass material goods to the offspring, namely two things that Willy Loman desperately needs. Furthermore, the diamonds, the discovery of which has made Ben his fortune, symbolize Willy Loman’s failure as a professional salesman. In spite of Willy’s belief in the American Dream, strong to the extent that he missed the chance to follow his brother Ben to Alaska, the promise of American Dream has definitely eluded Willy Loman. At the end of the play, Willy’s successful brother encourages him to enter after all, the jungle and to retrieve the diamond, namely to commit suicide for the sake of insurance money and thus to make if not his life but to the death meaningful. Throughout all his life Willy Loman escapes all the hardships encountered. Either way he finally flees the life itself. When his late brother Bend comes into Willy’s dream he discusses with his late brother whether his family would get $20 000 insurance money for his death. He is worried whether the insurance company would refuse to pay if the fact of suicide be proved. Willy knows for sure that it would be cowardly but speeds up his car and perishes in a car accident. It is significant that Willy’s widow being unable to cry at the funeral informs her sons that the last payment on the mortgage was made that very day. She says “We are free…” Finally the man which was successful in causing troubles only relieves his family from them having left this world he was unfit for living in. Although Willy Loman has made his relatives free it was not a kind of freedom the Founding Fathers of that dreamed the other day. American Dream was initially a dream of opportunities to work to strive for success and to be success due to nothing else but to one’s personaд efforts. America as we know her by now has been built by people who unlike Willy Loman did not wait for any bounties from anywhere and were able to be responsible for their deeds (Ownby 214) Neither Willy nor his sons proved to be not smart enough to be success. Willy does not endeavor to open the business of his own and goes on working being less and less regarded by his boss. He even dares not to ask for letting him work in New York where he lives at. His sons however have grown up not as shy as their father. They appear to be reported for stealing lumbers and being rough with the girls of their neighborhood. Nevertheless, at bottom of fact they have grown up the same losers as the father of theirs. Works Cited Cullen, Jim. The American dream: a short history of an idea that shaped a nation, Oxford University Press US, 2004 Hurell, J. D. Two Modern American Tragedies: Reviews and Criticism of Death of a Salesman And a streetcar Named Desire. New York: Scribner.1961. Print Martin, ed., R.A. The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller. Viking, 1978. Print Miller, A. Death of a Salesman. Longman, 2007. Print Ownby, T. American Dreams in Mississippi: Consumers, Poverty, and Culture 1830-1998 University of North Carolina Press, 1999 Read More