Death of a Salesman: Failure

Death of a Salesman: Failure and betrayal Despite its title, the climax of Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman does not occur with the death of Willy Loman, the title character who has been betrayed by the company he has worked so hard to serve as a salesman. It occurs when his adult son Biff confronts Willy about the lies that have existed within their relationship for so long.

The play is a story about failure and betrayal, the failure to achieve the American dream of success on the part of the Loman family, and the betrayals that take place within greater American society as well as within the family. At the beginning of the play, it is revealed that the salesman Willy Loman is being forced to work on commission, a humiliating status for an older man at his company. Willy gradually comes to believe he is worth more dead than alive.

But before he kills himself, Willy is finally told the truth by his eldest son, Biff, about the nature of their relationship. Willy's first and greatest betrayal in life, in his eyes, occurred when Biff refused to go to college and play football, refusing to make up a failed math class in high school. Biff felt betrayed by his father because his father was unfaithful to his mother Linda, so he gave up his scholarship out of spite.

Despite the image of the happy family the Lomans try to project to the world, this shows they are far from the perfect nuclear unit -- Happy is openly deceitful in his work and has a shifty character, and Willy and Biff have a strained dynamic for most of the play. All the while, Linda functions as an enabler, trying to keep the peace, and refusing to see her husband and sons as they really are.

The plight of the Loman family, riddled by failure and betrayal, illustrates the failure of the American dream of financial success and the Loman family's inability to truly understand the real meaning of the dream about working hard to gain a secure foothold in society. "I'm nothing, pop, there's no spite in it anymore" says Biff. Biff regards himself as "nothing" because he has not reached the heights of success like his cousin Bernard, and fulfilled his early promise (Miller 123).

Willy regards himself as nothing, because of his failed attempts to 'get rich quick' like his brother Ben. 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 Biff, Willy is dreaming once again of diamond mines, and easy money. Willy is incapable, unlike his son, of truly deep self-awareness. Willy, Biff, and Happy seem ignorant of the American dream's demand that people work hard to move ahead.

Willy and Linda blame Biff's math teacher, not Biff, for their son's failure in school, while brainy, hard-working Bernard grows up to argue a case before the Supreme Court (Miller 111). Biff and Happy never concoct honest schemes to earn money, and Willy's dream is of discovering diamonds, not using his brains and sweat to make a profit. However, Miller, despite his criticism of the Loman family, clearly views their corrupt values and malfunctioning social dynamic as produced, at least in part, by an American system that equates wealth with self-worth.

The idea that a human being is worth more dead than alive, and that Willy can give his family material prosperity and the ultimate dream of a mortgage-free home through killing himself is shown to be grotesque. The.