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Willy treats Linda carefully, because he is always afraid she will find out about the affair. He lies to her, which is extremely harmful to any relationship, and because he lies to her, he ends up lying to himself. He will not admit, even to himself, that anything is wrong, and he cannot ask for help from his wife or his family. Linda has had to take control of the family because Willy is incapable of that kind of control, and so, she has lost touch with everything, including Willy and his problems. Willy will not tell her the truth because he does not want to "worry"...
By leaving her in the dark, she has no way to understand his motives for suicide. She also has no way to help him, and giving up the support of your loved ones when you need it the most is a purely selfish and self-centered act. Ultimately, Linda and Willy were married, but they were strangers, too, and that is terribly sad in any marriage.
References
Miller, Arthur. "Death of a Salesman." Masters of Modern Drama. Haskell M. Block and Robert G. Shedd, ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1962.
Death of a Salesman Willy Loman is the main character in Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman. However, there are other important characters in the story. One of them is Willy's wife, Linda. In fact, Linda is one of the central characters in Death of a Salesman for several reasons. First, Linda is the real head of the household. Willy is too mentally disturbed to handle his life and she
" Though critics such as Sheila Huftel characterize Willy Loman's "fall" as only a fall from "an imagined height," it is nevertheless still a fall, which makes Willy Loman, like Oedipus, a tragic figure. Willy has created very powerful ideas about what he wants his life to be and what he wants his sons lives to be. But these ideas are part of what make Willy who he is. He cannot
Willy's "psychopathy," he explained, is a manifestation of his being "other-directed" -- or possessing a value system entirely determined by external norms…evidence that goes beyond normal human inconsistency into the realm of severe internal division" (3). The author's analysis illustrates that Willy's "psychopathy" is an inevitable and consistent result of his constant dreaming about success and wealth using the wrong approach. Knowing that he has failed himself and his
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Willy Loman finally realized, to an extent, that he had been living a life of illusion and self-deception. Towards the end of the play he concludes that would be worth more to the family dead then alive, "After all the highways, and the trains, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive." His son Biff has seen the truth about
Throughout the play, Willy longs for the wealth, privilege, and equality the America was alleged to have been built upon until he can no longer deny that the promises of the American dream are just an illusion. While this is without a doubt a scathing critique of capitalism, at the same time, the play seems to be trying to show that nothing is truly real and once you remove
He cannot provide for his family financially, and emotionally he feels bankrupt. That is why the brief, transient sense that Biff likes him provides him with so much joy -- it is the proof, however small, that he has succeeded at something in life. However, even his language of 'liking' echoes the language he uses when speaking of being 'liked' at the office, and almost immediately after speaking to