There is, however, much more conclusive proof of Willy's failure as a husband, but this is again a failure which is linked to Willy's lack of understanding of who he is. It becomes apparent through episodes of mobile concurrency that Willy has had an affair and that he regards this as one of his chief failings. The Woman first appears just after Linda has complimented Willy, calling him “the handsomest man in the world”. This hyperbolic, and yet immeasurably tender, phrase is the catalyst for The Woman's appearance which, it must be emphasised, occurs in Willy's own mind. It therefore appears that Willy mentally links the two women, most probably driven by feelings of guilt: his first line after the Woman appears on the stage is “'Cause I get so lonely – especially when business is bad and there's nobody to talk to.” Although this is a continuation of what he was saying before, it also appears to be an attempt to excuse his behaviour, further emphasising his guilt. His guilt is also heavily suggested in the fact that he cannot bear to even see Linda mending stockings (he repeatedly tells her that he “won't have... [her] mending stockings in this house!”), an item which appear to consciously symbolise the affair for Willy. However, their symbolism stretches further than this: they are an example of Willy's foolhardy pursuit of false appearance (by definition this is what stockings give) and status. Stockings are, as Linda says in her defence “expensive”, further implying that Willy has neglected his marriage in order to pursue the capitalist dream, which is largely concerned with both wealth and appearance. Willy Loman is pursuing a dream which is destructive in its very nature, just as Willy's affair with The Woman destroys his relationship with Biff and overhangs his relationship with Linda. It is a dream that he cannot let go of, just as he sees his relationship with The Woman again in his mind, and it is his failure to let go, his failure to realise that he already has what he needs to be happy – a loving wife, children, his own house and car – that, in Linda's words, he's “doing well enough”, which underpins his failure as a husband, just as it underpins the failure of his life itself.
This too, is the real cause of his failure as a father, particularly in regards to Biff. In this case, he projects his own feelings of insecurity, his own desire for success, on to Biff. One of his first remarks about Biff is that “he has yet to make thirty-five dollars a week!” It is clear here that Willy does not care if Biff is “finding himself” or if “all... [he] really desire[s] is to be outdoors, with... [his] shirt off”: Biff is not making a success of himself in the business world, he is not earning real money, and therefore he is a “lazy bum” and a “disgrace”. However, Willy's declaration that “not finding yourself at the edge of thirty-four is a disgrace!” seems to ring false: the vehemence in this statement, emphasised by the exclamation mark, suggests that Willy is drawing attention away from the fact that he hasn't found himself either. Willy's refusal to accept reality, that Biff isn't going to be a businessman or a salesman and has no desire to be one either, is further emphasised in his mythologisation of the past. When talking to Linda, Willy describes how, when Biff came out onto the football field on “the greatest day of his life” he looked “like a young god. Hercules.” This romanticised image suggests that Willy is deluding himself as to what the past was actually like, just as he is deluding himself in regards to Biff's career. It also, with its classical associations, reminds the audience that Death of a Salesman is a tragedy and that this is one of the more tragic aspects of the play: Willy's self-delusion and how, through his failure to recognise the reality of Biff’s life, this sours their relationship. It should also be noted that when mobile concurrency reveals that Biff discovered Willy’s affair with The Woman, this occurs after Biff and Happy have left Willy alone in the restaurant. This link, between Biff’s lack of respect for his father and Willy’s affair, seems to suggest that the relationship is causal: Biff regards Willy as a “phony” and a “fake” because of this event. Willy has undermined his own authority as a father by refusing to settle for life with his family and by always seeking more. Yet while Biff heeds the warning of his father's life, recognising that Willy “had the wrong dreams”, Happy believes that Willy “had a good dream” and that it is his duty to “win it for him”. This blind conviction, emphasised by the stark simplicity of the language that Happy uses, demonstrates that while Willy failed Biff by never accepting his dreams, he has failed Happy in a completely different way: he has passed on his own distorted view of the world, his own self-delusion which led to his demise, to Happy. It is therefore Willy's failure to know himself, and to understand the world around him, which ultimately lead to his failure as a father.
So how exactly is Willy a failure to himself? As Biff states in the Requiem, “the man didn't know who he was”. This is effectively demonstrated through the regular appearances of Ben, Willy's brother. These episodes occur whenever Willy is insecure or uncertain about things: Ben's first appearance in the play occurs just after Charley offers Willy a job, a suggestion Willy reacts violently to, asking Charley, “What the hell are you offering me a job for?” This suggests that Ben functions as a coping mechanism for Willy; this, and the fact that Ben “is utterly certain of his destiny”, suggests that Willy is equally uncertain of his own. This would not be such a flaw if Willy was able to recognise that he does not know how to cope with tension in his life, just as he is unsure of where he is going with his life, but he does not. Instead he seeks validation from Ben, who is probably a figment of his imagination (during the aforementioned episode, when Ben is present on the stage Willy addresses him by name. In response, Charley asks, “Did you call me Ben?”: it is clear that Ben does not exist for him), confessing that he is “sometimes... afraid that I'm not teaching them [his sons] the right kind of – Ben, how should I teach them?” This heartfelt plea reveals both Willy's deep insecurities and his refusal to recognise that he holds them: he is confessing not to Linda, not to Biff or Happy or Charley, but to Ben, Ben who in all likelihood is merely a part of Willy himself. This is confirmed by Ben's facile repetition of the mantra: “I walked into the jungle... When I walked out... I was rich!” This mantra embodies everything that Willy seeks and is always given in response to questions from Willy concerning his life, suggesting that it is merely Willy validating his own thoughts. Willy fails to know himself: in classical tragedy the tragic hero always achieves anagnorisis before dying. This inversion of classical conventions draws the audience's attention to this flaw of Willy's and therefore appears to suggest that it is this, his failure to achieve anagnorisis, which is his chief failure and his tragic flaw.
It is clear, therefore, that Willy's Loman is not chiefly a failure as a husband. His failure to treat Linda as a husband should derives from his failure to understand himself and the world around him: he is too preoccupied with his own concerns, his own failings, to focus upon Linda. His affair with The Woman also stems from this, as it is a clear representation of his pursuit of status and appearance at the expense of his familial relationships, the things in his life which really matter. His assertion that Linda is his “foundation and... support” is painfully accurate: he appears to see her only in terms of what she can do for him. This obsession with himself and his desires, driven by his failure to understand who he is, also causes him to be a failure as a father: he cannot detach his own dreams from those of his children and cannot see them as truly separate entities. Their future, he believes, should be governed by the way in which he sees the world: this not only alienates him from Biff but leads Happy on the same disastrous course as his own life. Underpinning this is the fact that Willy Loman is unsure of his actions and destiny and that he deludes himself in order to disguise this. The construct of Ben, who is never confirmed as existing except through Willy's eyes, emphasises just how removed from reality Willy has become and how he is determined to see the world as he imagines it, not as it really is. He is, as Biff says a man who “had the wrong dreams” and it his failure to see that his dreams are wrong, his failure to fully understand why they are wrong and to therefore achieve anagnorisis, that is the chief failure of Willy Loman's life.
