Death Of A Salesman Internal Conflict

Improved Essays
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, is a play about a senior salesman named Willy Loman who values strong work ethics, money, and recognition. He is the kind of man who believes at the end of the day, “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it” (Miller 48) and it is extremely important to be liked. The play solely revolves around Willy’s actions as he experiences frequent flashbacks and hallucinations. There are times that suggests Willy is experiencing internal conflict. As a husband and father of two sons, he is just like any normal figure that struggles with accepting the reality of his life and achieving self-realization. His eldest and more favored son, Biff, plays is the main antagonist in this play as he is estranged towards his father

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    When we are challenged by the dark, sombre facets of reality, we cringe, only to entangle ourselves back into the labyrinth of our trivial illusions. This idea is epitomized in the film, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller by the character of Willy Loman, who constantly denies the harsh, objective reality is blinded by his own irrational, superficial desires that he believes will take him to the highest happiness. Ostentatious and ambitious as he is, Willy uses his sons, Biff and Happy, as tools to bring him success in society by compelling them to take on ‘big’ businesses despite their disinterest. Willy Loman is portrayed to take extraordinary measures to any extent in order to quench his burning desire of becoming the ‘greatest’, ‘biggest’ man in history. His inner contempt and inability to accept his identity, forces him to take on such an ambitious and delusional character that is often so, looked down upon by his fellows.…

    • 761 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    He’s an obvious failure, he can’t afford to pay his household bills and even worst he refuse to come clean to his family about his shortcomings. In Act I, Willy’s son Biff comes to visit. Biff is an apparent disappointment to Willy because he does not contain the optimism and enthusiasm fit for a…

    • 1462 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Jace Moezinia Professor Israel English 120 15 December 2015 Arthur Miller is the playwright of Death of a Salesman. Miller uses the text as a means to convey a message: success in society is based off of materialistic values such as money. Willy Loman, a salesman, bases his view of success off what society deems is successful. According to Willy, society believes, success is based off the amount of money a person has and being “well liked.” He is constantly judging the people around him and denies his reality, which is that he is neither “well liked” nor has a lot of money.…

    • 1127 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Death Of A Salesman

    • 2198 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Unwittingly, Linda and Happy Loman enable Willy and allow him to continue living in his fantasy world everyday, which eventually pushes him into a delusional state of mind where he commits suicide. Just as Willy’s life ends tragically, so does the rest of his relationships as they all seem to collapse from his disrespectful, guilt ridden, and prideful character throughout the play. In the end, the one factor that stands out as the most responsible for Willy’s failures in life is his ignorant and misconstrued approach towards achieving success based only on attaining the most amount of money, fame, and power as possible. In today’s standards, success consists of direct links to money, power, popularity, and luxuries, similar in the way that Willy views success in his own life and for his children throughout the story. Taking note of the hardships and struggles Willy faced in living out his philosophy towards success is important because Death of a Salesman truly reveals that success is a lot more than wealth, power, and fame.…

    • 2198 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This play is considered to be one of the greatest fictional tragedies of the modern day. The main character in Death of a Salesman is Willy Loman. Willy Loman is an older man that in some parts of the story seems to be mentally unstable and obviously delusional. He is often seen talking to himself and having day dreams about an alternate life that he wishes he would’ve lived. One night driving home from work he realized that he shouldn’t be driving,…

    • 1061 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Puc 1 Arthur Miller: Research Paper Arthur Miller was your average boy growing up in New York in the 1930s mid the Great Depression. Many things were against Miller while he was developing, striving to be a successful dramatist; but even with all of the factors that were stacked against him, Arthur Miller rose above it all and is remembered today as a world renowned playwright whose beliefs, his honesty and true perspective of man, allowed him to produce many works, like “All my Sons” and “Death of a Salesman” that are revered as classics. Arthur Miller’s parents, two Jewish Polish immigrants journeyed to America with the American Dream in mind. The two were very assiduous and tried their best during this during the time of the Great Depression.…

    • 1490 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Arthur Millar’s tragic play Death of a Salesman, Willy expresses himself as a character that struggles with internal conflicts. Willy often has confrontations with his oldest son Biff throughout the play, but most of this character’s toil comes from his own inner conscious. Through Willy’s experiences in the plot of the work an inner turmoil is created and consequently lead to his demise by the end of the play. When analyzing the play, the reader can see Willy shapes the drama with the internal conflicts that he faces despite being an overall flat and unchanging character. The nature of internal conflict is explored throughout the play though Willy’s ideals, his memories controlling his everyday life, and the ghost of his dead brother haunting…

    • 1159 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Willy Loman

    • 628 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Death of a Salesman is a play by Arthur Miller following the life of a man named Willy, who is seemingly living the American dream. Later in the play it is revealed that he is only moderately successful with his wife, and that he is having an affair. Willy also has many struggles with his children. At the end of the play, Willy kills himself due to his failures in life. This ending marks the play as a tragedy, despite the fact that the main character was not successful or well liked.…

    • 628 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” depicts an aspirant named Willy Loman whose over exaggerated, and rather impractical, goals for his future fill his mind…

    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Howard is at fault in firing him but in response to Willy’s desperation he points a finger at Willy’s sons saying, “Where are your sons? ... You go to your sons and you tell them that you’re tired” (Miller 63). Howard feels it is Willy’s son’s responsibility to provide for their father, and feels he himself does not hold any duty to Willy. Be that as it may, Biff does not feel he can help Willy. He succumbs himself to believe he is unable to discipline himself according his father’s ways of success.…

    • 1414 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Death of a Salesman” is one of the most important plays in Twentieth Century American Theatre. Arthur Miller creates tragedies that are easily relatable for Americans. For instance, his play “Death of a Salesman” uses the idea of a dysfunctional family through out to support its plot. The play is centered around its protagonist, Willy Loman. Willy is a salesman, but also an old man, and from the title of the play the readers of the play can easily conclude what happens to him by the end of the play.…

    • 787 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Application It is believed by many critics that this is Willy’s shortcomings and his own flaw that causes him to end up in such a tragic ending. In this case, J. I. Guijarro-Gonzalez and R. Espejo assert that: Although Death of a Salesman, after a superficial or cursory reading, would indeed look like a savage indictment of the system that victimizes Willy Loman, the more one thinks about it, the less plausible does that initial reading seem granted by the text. It is true that in a way, the system swallows Willy Loman, as the sharp focus on the apartments surrounding the Lomans’s place, symbolizing the modern world, seems to suggest, but the system is not to blame for it. Willy is on the brink of ruin.…

    • 911 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Arthur Miller emphasizes the importance of family relationships in his play “Death of a Salesman.” Through the characters, and their actions, Miller demonstrates to his audience how drastically one person’s actions can affect the rest of the family since everyone 's actions affected each other to some degree. Willy’s actions and attitude greatly distressed himself, his wife, Linda, and son Biff, resulting for all three characters to have realizations in the end. Willy learned that Biff had always loved and cared for him even when Willy felt otherwise; Linda learned that she was never able to live a happy life until Willy died; and Biff, who underwent the greatest epiphany, finally accepted the fact that he should have lived his life for…

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Death of Sales is about a family in pursuit of the American dream. The characters Willy, Linda, and both of their sons, Happy and Biff try to accomplish this goal, and they come across struggles. The course of action the characters take to handle their internal and external conflict aid to reveal their personality. Willy Loman is very concern for the achievements of his family. He wishes for his family to live the American dream but struggles to achieve it, for example, Biff to become a successful salesman and Biff to get married.…

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    A cursory reading of the play might mislead a reader into thinking that the play is written to give us insights into the psychology of Willy Loman on the last day of his life. However, on a close reading we find that the play not only mirrors the American society of the 1940’s but also talks about man in relation with the society of his times. We soon realize that the reasons behind Willy’s current disturbed state of the mind are linked to the beliefs that the American society has always fostered in its citizens since its inception. The play was no less than a grim warning by Miller. Since a good work of literature has a perennial beauty, Death of a Salesman can also be very relevant and meaningful even in the present context where the common man is caught in an upheaval over which he has no control and which is sure to spell his…

    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays