Willy Loman's Failure

Paper Summary:

Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman (1949), depicts the slow disintegration of an ordinary man, a traveling salesman named Willy Loman. Willy is past his prime, and unpleasant realities are beginning to close in on him in a deeply personal way. Willy has by now lost most of his grip on reality. In this essay, the writer discusses how Willy's illusions, deceptions, lies, and blindness about himself and his children contribute to his failures as a husband, an employee and a father.

From the Paper:

"Once a relatively successful salesman, Willy Loman now feels that the key ingredients of the "American Dream": financial success, self-sufficiency, family happiness, and a feeling that his children will surpass him, are slipping away. Willy's carefully manufactured illusions collapse, sending him spiraling into despair. Willy Loman is "past sixty years of age" (Miller, Act One, stage directions), and a man of "mercurial nature . . . temper . . . massive dreams, and little cruelties" (stage directions). In the opening lines of Act One, Linda, Willy's long-suffering, loyal-to-a-fault wife, inquires of him, "You didn't smash the car, did you?", which foreshadows the play's tragic end. As a husband, Willy has long been in the habit of deceiving his wife. Although Linda never learns of Willy's hotel room affair (discovered by accident by their son Biff, then a high school senior) she recognizes his other lies. Linda never confronts Willy directly, though, about how she knows he plans to commit suicide. Willy is not honest, but neither is Linda. Intent on protecting Willy's ego, Linda never contradicts him, questions him too harshly, or allows their now grown son Biff to tell Willy what he really thinks of him as a son and father. In these respects, although Willy is a bad husband, Linda is not a good wife."

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