Examples Of Dichotomy In Death Of A Salesman

In the play, “The Death of a Salesman,” by Arthur Miller, the characters exhibit a dichotomy to one another through their morals, actions, and ethics. An example would be Biff and Happy Loman, two brothers who are nearly opposites of one another. As the story progresses, we can perceive the numerous differences— rather than similarities—between the two brothers through their aspirations, relationship with Willy, and their perspective of life. First of all, their aspirations for their future both differ throughout the book. Biff, on page 10-11, states,” Shipping clerk, salesman, business of one kind or another. And it’s a measly manner of existence… To suffer fifty weeks of the year for the sake of a two-week vacation, when all you really …show more content…
On page 28, when Willy starts talking to himself and Happy comes down, Willy exclaims,”You’ll retire me for life on seventy goddam dollars a week? And you women and your car and your apartment, and you'll retire me for life! Christ’s sake, I couldn’t get past Yonkers today!” Although Willy is shown always unsatisfied with Biff, we can also see that he is unsatisfied with Happy as well. Happy follows Willy’s tracks, which is essentially a given that he will fail, but the fact that Happy does not create his own path reveals his lack of individuality. On page 50, after the argument between Biff and Willy, Willy professes,”Because you got a greatness in you, Biff, remember that. You got all kinds of greatness….” This quote essentially shows how much Willy believes in Biff despite the numerous amounts of faults that he committed. Although Willy is not satisfied with both of his sons, it is obvious that Willy pushes Biff more than Happy. Logically speaking, the more you push somebody, the more you care about that person as you would want the best out of that person. We can relate that to how much Willy pushes Biff, showing that he believes that Biff has potential and could achieve