Willy Loman's Tragedy
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Willy Loman's tragedy in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is partly the result of his being out of place in a business world that has passed him by, but it is mainly the result of the fact that he never had a secure place within his own family. Willy was abandoned by his father and unable to find an adequate replacement in his older brother Ben. The result was that he looked for love in the wider world and failed to do anything that would enable him to find love in his own wife and two sons. Willy believed that all he would need in terms of respect, admiration, and love could be found in the world of business where the men he admired had flourished. But, when events gradually prove to him that this has been an illusion, he turns back to his own family and discovers that he cannot find these things with them either. Willy Loman abandoned his own family--even while being present--in a variation on the abandonment by his own father whose behavior simply seems to have been passed down a generation. Without understanding what he was doing, Willy encouraged his sons to follow the same path in the search for respect and love that ultimately failed him. By the end of his life the only thing he feels he has left to give anyone is his death. The importance of Willy's abandonment by his father, and his lack of a real family life in his youth, is stressed from the very beginning of the play by the sound of the flute. This connection is understood when it is revealed that his
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if I'd gone with him to Alaska that time, everything would have been totally different" (45). He is both right and wrong about this. His decision not to follow the adventurous Ben was "a choice rooted in an ethic oriented to the family" and, while his life might have been very different had he gone, Willy clearly was looking for something different from what Ben sought (Jacobson 46). Ben was more at ease in the world because did not expect or hope to find love there. But Willy's need was so strong that it would continue to blind him throughout his life and, in the end, he would be as deeply confused, and feel his lack as greatly, as at the beginning.
Foster notes that the model of fulfillment and success that Willy looked up to was consistent and was always an illusion. His "vision of fulfillment is made up of characters who stand alone," his father, brother, "Biff as a public hero," and Dave Singleman (Foster 85). They are characters who stand, in various ways, above the rest of humanity, and they "do not give love but receive it, and at an impersonal distance" (Foster 85). Dave, for example, can simply reach out and receive love with a phone call, while Biff is adored by the anonymous crowd for his sports' prowess and B
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1933
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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