Willy Loman is the salesman around who the play is constructed. He is sixty-three “at the age of sixty three” and he is desperate to achieve even a small amount of the success to which he has always aspired. He cannot face the reality that he has misdirected his energies and talents casing a dream that never had much chance of materialising. Willy has flashbacks and fantasies, which take up a large amount of the play and inform the audience about his past, the histories of other characters in the play, how Willy has become what he is now and also Willy’s ideal self. In scenes that are set in the present Willy seems highly emotional, unstable and seems to be worn down by life however in his flashbacks he seems more loving, capable, cheerful, light-hearted and self-assured.
Willy lives in a world of false hopes and illusions, the firm he works for doesn’t pay him a salary and working on straight commission, Willy cannot bring home enough money to pay the bills. After Willy has worked for the firm for thirty-four years, they have spent his energy and discarded him.
Willy refuses to believe that his sins Biff and Hap are also failures. He wants his sons, especially Biff to succeed where he has not. Willy believes that his boys are great and he cannot understand why they are not a success. This causes a lot of conflict throughout the play.
Willy is unable to see and accept change. He is lost in an era of modern technology, he says, “How can they whip cheese?” and feels he is constantly “in a race with the junk yard”.
Willy Loman is trying to live the “American Dream”, Willy worked all his life in the “machine of democracy and Free Enterprise” and was then spit out like a “piece of fruit”.
Willy feels like the one on control, you can tell this because he keeps interrupting Linda even though her points are, in my opinion, more valid than his. “Motor job on the car…” “That goddamn sucker”. “But Willy - ” “Whoever heard of a Hastings refrigerator?”
Willy says “Id like to buy some seeds” and I think that this represents, to Willy, an opportunity to prove himself good at something. His is desperate, and hardly able to put food on the table for his family and he will have nothing to leave for his children when he dies. Wily has worked hard but he wont be able to leave his offspring anything, which is what his father did to him.
