Death of a Salesman

McKade Huntsman

May 12, 2008

Ms. Powers class XI

Death of a Salesman

In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman, father of Happ and Biff Loman and husband of Linda Loman, is living a very difficult life. He creates problems within his family, and is constantly making them worse by attempting to make them better. He wants his son Biff to be as successful as he can, but he wants to live through him, and this creates problems between them that are unsolvable. Willy Loman, largely because of his society, slowly picks apart and ruins his family by alienating his Sons, Wife, and trying to live his dreams through Biff.

In Death of a Salesman, Willy thinks he knows exactly what it takes to be successful in the world. Unfortunately, he has several misconceptions of the society that he is living in. He thinks that simply being well liked will take Biff places that Willy never could have imagined going to. And because of these beliefs, he destroys Biff. He tries to tell him how to live exactly, and what kind of person he should be, and that ruins not only their relationship as father and son, but it ruins Biff’s entire life as well. It makes both of them miserable, and it disconnects them even more that they already are because of what Biff saw in Boston.

When Willy was in Boston, he was sleeping with another woman, cheating on his wife. Biff came to Boston, and saw this happening. When Biff saw this, it was a major turning point in his life, and completely threw his life off of the track that Willy had so carefully laid for him. For the first time, Biff saw Willy as a fake. He no longer looked up to him like he did, he was now just a phony, he was unreal, and Biff started here, to see what he really was, and what Willy really was as well. He witnessed his own father betray his mother, himself, and his entire family. Doing this was one of the major reasons that Biff did not become successful.

After Biff failed his Math class, and left home, and became somewhat less