Death Of A Salesman, Willy Loman analysis

English Assignment Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

How much sympathy does Willy Loman deserve?

Willy Loman, like millions of others, dreamed of improving himself and his family. Willy’s life and death, I feel are extremely tragic, he has been working as a travelling salesman for the last forty years of his life, never really amounting to anything and not until the very end of his life has he managed to pay off his mortgage.

Willy Loman, is someone who suffers from a mental illness. Therefore, I believe his plight is tragic as he seems unaware of this at times, he lives a delusional life in which he has regular conversations with his deceased brother Ben. To a certain extent his life has been an epic failure, he has not achieved what he had wished, at least not in reality. Therefore, I feel it is hard not to feel sympathy for Willy, as his demise I feel is upsetting and to a certain extent heart-rending.

Willy despite proclaiming he is a great salesman and a successful one at that, in his entire life, it is evident that he is not. He constantly wishes that he had travelled to Alaska alongside his brother, where he could attain a better life for him and his family and this is something that weighs heavily on his mind. It may have been be a contributing factor to mental illness. On numerous occasions he questions his deceased brother for ideas on how to succeed. In addition to this, he idolises Dave Singleman, a salesman that he met a long time ago. How there were many people who attended his funeral and how successful he was as a salesman. Willy talks about how he was able to make sales without even leaving his hotel room, who died the noble “death of a salesman” in which the play is named after. Willy covets this.

Furthermore, I question whether if this story is firstly fallible and secondly if it was true and he was as successful a salesman as Willy believed. Then how come he was working until well after his eightieth birthday, as at that age he would have been very old, especially at that time when the average life expectancy of people would have been lower than it is today. Therefore, I feel it is another heart-rending trait of Willy’s as he idolises this man and this, I think, could further enhance the sorrow that the audience may feel for Willy as he never lives up to this man even if it were true.

I feel that Willy longs for popularity and to be well liked more than that of being a salesman. He feels that a good personality and good appearances are the way to succeed in this world and this alone can help a man achieve his dreams,

"Because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest is the man who gets ahead"

He is fixated with the idea of popularity and how it determines whether someone is successful or not. His ideals of working as a salesman I feel are ultimately incorrect ...

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"Because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest is the man who gets ahead"

He is fixated with the idea of popularity and how it determines whether someone is successful or not. His ideals of working as a salesman I feel are ultimately incorrect and injudicious.

As explained in his essay "Tragedy and the Common Man," Arthur Miller sets out the pattern for his own idea of a tragedy and the tragic hero. This pattern supports the idea that a tragedy can occur in characters of common men as well as those in high places. In his paper, he demonstrates that it should be possible for everyone to be able to identify with the tragic hero. Miller redefines tragedy as more common occurrence that it could happen to any man. Therefore we should feel sympathy for him. You could argue that he is a victim of the times. Willy Loman had a fixation with the ideal of the American dream and the benefits of achieving this dream. Charley unquestionably believes that Willy is a victim and deserves pity from the reader. Charley proclaims “Nobody dast blame this man” and at the funeral adds how hard it is for a salesman to achieve what he wishes, and how much strain it puts upon someone like Willy, he is a victim of a cut throat industry in which his working practices are obsolete and better suited to another time.

Furthermore, as Willy's mental state deteriorates, the boundaries between past and present are destroyed, and the two start to exist in parallel, he has great trouble differentiating between reality and illusion and seems to believe his own lies. For instance when he is talking to his boss Howard “in 1928 I had a big year. I averaged a hundred and seventy dollars a week in commissions”. Coincidentally, this was the year before the Wall Street crash which makes the reader question if Willy is fabricating the actual amount that he did sell or the fact that he actually believed this is further enhanced when Howard dismisses the fact that Willy ever sold that amount. This delusional state of mind that Willy finds himself, I believe, evokes compassion for Willy.

There are numerous parts in the story in which Willy’s profession is discussed by other characters. F irstly Biff states “He never knew who he was” “He had the wrong dreams” moreover Charley also speaks of how “He was a happy man with a batch of cement.” Linda adds to this saying that he “Was so wonderful with his hands”. We are left wondering if possibly things could have been different for Willy if he had been in a different profession other than as a salesman. All four are reminiscing of the good times that they had directly after the burial of Willy and these good memoires that they hold of him involve him working. Biff talks about how “there were a lot of good days... making the stoop, putting on the new porch, finishing the cellar”. Biff continues saying that “There’s more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made” This revelation by Biff further adds to the argument that maybe he was not best suited to his job, it is evident throughout the text that he is not as successful as he makes out to be, nor did he achieve his primary aim which was to be popular and have the kind of funeral that he wanted, Linda says “Why didn’t anybody come? and “Where were all the people he knew”. From this it is apparent that he was not as popular as he made out to be, which I believe is why the reader must feel a great amount of sympathy for Willy. After everything he has ever wished for in his life nothing has come to fruition, neither of his sons have became as successful as he wished especially his youngest son Biff who has never amounted to anything, despite all the promise that Willy felt that he had. There were not hundreds of salesman and buyers at his funeral like that of Dave Singleman, which I believe is disconcerting.

One of the key reasons that you could argue that Willy deserves no sympathy is the treatment of his wife. It is apparent that he is having an affair with a lady whose name is not given, she is referred to only as ‘The Woman’ which I feel is a deliberate ploy used by Miller to dehumanise her and to portray a negative opinion of her. Moreover, we come to understand that Linda has gone through a lot during her marriage with Willy principally when his mental state has deteriorated. The first instance in which Biff brings up his father’s mental state she proclaims, “Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived” Despite all this she does still love him, this leads me to believe that there must have been a time in which they were happy, as she defends him against her sons when they question why she is still with him and make derogatory comments upon the state of his health. In addition to this, Willy’s ‘pride’ that he tries to uphold, prevents him from taking up a job with Charley despite his numerous advances offering him a job. Alas this does not stop him from taking money from Charley to pay bills. What is more is that Linda is fully aware of this despite Willy’s attempts to hide this from her, which gives the impression it has been going on for some time.

I feel you cannot blame him for his treatment of his sons, especially in the case of Biff, whom it appears Willy would like nothing more than to see him succeed. His heart is in the right place so to speak, yet it appears he lacks the parenting skills to realise the detrimental effect he has had upon his sons. He himself never had a father figure when he was younger and his older brother, we come to learn, had also left.

However, Happy is presented as a carbon copy of his father, whom he idolises despite his father’s constant rejection. For instance, when he tells his father about his plans to get married, Billy blames his father for the false hope installed within him with regard to the American Dream and how he could achieve it, even after Biffs’ emotional speech to his father asking him to ‘Forget about him”, and is in tears, Willy proclaims “that boy is going to be magnificent”, his disillusion is unprecedented and leaves the audience feeling bewildered.

In conclusion, I feel a vast amount of sympathy for Willy Loman, and whole heartedly would struggle to believe why the audience would not feel even the slightest bit of empathy for him. This is primarily due to the fact that it is clear that he suffers from some sort of mental illness that clearly affects him a great deal and clouds not only his vision but his judgement as well. He seems to have lost his grip on reality and is somewhat perplexed to say the least. Which is evident none more so in his conversations with his deceased brother. It is apparent that Willy’s ideals are erroneous, his whole working life has been devoted to chasing the American Dream through attaining popularity which he feels is the key to success.

Miller alludes to the fact that the audience should feel a certain degree of sympathy for Willy and firmly believes that he is a tragic hero. He defines tragedy as a situation in which something good could've happened to an ordinary person, but because of their failure to take advantage of it, they succumb to failure and tragedy. (Miller, "Tragedy..."). Willy's "underlying fear of being displaced" is the real tragedy. He added, "the tragic feeling is invoked whenever we are in the presence of a character, any character, who is ready to sacrifice his life, if need be, to secure one thing, his sense of personal dignity." Although ultimately being a failure in his life, when he took his own life, it as a selfless act because in dying he provided financial security for his wife and his family. Furthermore, Arthur Miller added in ‘On Joy in Tragedy’, states "tragedy occurs when a man misses accomplishing his joy" and Willy Loman certainly did not accomplish what he had sought after, his name establishes this from the outset, his name is a play on words Loman – ‘Low-man’ which I feel is a intentional ploy utilised by Miller.

James Coxon