Citation Type. Has PDF. Publication Type. More Filters. Capitalism versus narcissism: Death of a salesmans psychoanalytic critique. Arthur Miller's, Death of a Salesman seems to have lost some ground to its once established position as many critics of late downplayed the demise of its protagonist Willy Loman by inscribing the … Expand. View 1 excerpt, cites background. In King Oedipus B. E by Sophocles and Death of a Salesman A.
D by Arthur Miller, the central characters Oedipus and Willy Loman take extreme pride in their professions; their pride … Expand.
The purpose is to demonstrate that a close reading of the main protagonist, Willy Lo … Expand. The Cambridge companion to Arthur Miller. In fact, he never was. In all likelihood, he never will be. Now an older man, Willy can no longer drive competently, pay his bills, or sell anything.
Despite Willy's evident failure to meet his poorly chosen life goals, he clings to a fierce belief in the American Dream and the promise that anyone attractive and well-liked can make it big.
He has deceived himself his entire life and tries to live vicariously through his unwilling son, Biff. But Biff uncovers Willy's lies when he finds out that Willy has been cheating on Linda. Choosing to alienate his son rather than face reality, and tormented by his failures, Willy spirals downward. So let's talk about all these flashbacks.
Part of this "downward spiral" we keep talking about has to do with Willy losing a grip on reality and on time. Because his life, by his standards, sucks, Willy escapes into the past and also conveniently gives us, the reader or audience, the background information we need.
All this escape business brings us to Willy's mistress. Miller makes sure we are able to understand these reasons for why Willy has the affair. But we don't hate Willy. We don't even call him a cheater. Because we understand the psychology behind his affair. He is simply trying to escape. Which brings us, right on schedule, to the end of the play. As we all know, Willy kills himself.
But why? Well, he was clearly still harboring misguided hopes about success for Biff. It seems Willy would rather kill himself than accept the fact that really, honestly, all his son wants is some shirtless sweaty time in Midwestern haystacks.
The point is, Willy is still deluded when he kills himself. We all know the money isn't going to be used to start a business. What's sad is that Willy doesn't. That final delusion is almost worse than his death itself. Speaking of this death, let's talk about the title of the play. Willy was always in pursuit of being the perfect salesman, and before he kills himself he expresses a wish to die "the death of a salesman.
To answer that, we have to ask ourselves just what does it mean to be a salesman in this play? We know what it means in Willy's mind if we say "well-liked" one more time… , but Charley brings up an interesting point at the funeral: part of being a salesman is having a dream.
Part of being a salesman is about selling yourself. We'll let you take it from there. Furthermore, Willy was unable to admit his faults. His pride was so great that he even lied to his own family, borrowing money weekly from his neighbor, Charley, and then saying it was his salary. He tried to justify his affair with a strange woman when caught by Biff. Constantly, each character escapes their problems with deceit. Even Biff remains in this state of falsehood, until he reaches his epiphany.
The main character Willy Loman, is constantly fooling himself into believing that he is a huge success. He often lies to his family about how well he is doing, when truthfully his salary was taken away, and he has to borrow money from his neighbor, Charlie. Willy knows that Biff is a bum who has not amounted to anything, but he refuses to take responsibility for what happened in Boston, so he changes the story of Biff's success.
Throughout Willy's life he continued to lie. It might have stopped if Linda did not act the way as she did. Linda is afraid to confront Willy, so she goes along with his outlandish lies. Willy was a horrible salesman who never was able to sell anything and deserved what was coming to him.
Another prime example of Willy not being able to face reality involved his oldest son Biff. If Willy had faced reality he could have quit his job with Howard and the company and gotten a job with Charlie. If Willy was a little more aware of his son's situation, his true character, Biff may have realized sooner that he was not "a leader of men. I never got anywher Everything that Willy taught him was destroyed on that one night. Every rule, every piece of advice, was nulled by that one act of adultery.
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