Internal Conflict In Death Of A Salesman

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 …show more content…
His complexity comes from his unmoving characteristics with the opinions of others, the stubbornness and desperate nature that contradicts itself in his life. This can be seen with his interactions with Howard and his internal conflict of losing his job. As Willy attempts to reason with Howard his desperate nature emerges to simply, “set [his] table [with] fifty dollars a week,” which was a dramatic change from the sixty-five he was asking for a few lines before and more than the forty he asks for in later lines (Miller). As the lines continue Willy’s scene cues even come with notes such as, “desperately” and “desperation is on him now” (Miller). More of the stubborn side of his nature is revealed after Howard fires him and tells him to take, “a good long rest” (Miller). Willy instils into his mind that, because he must earn money he still has a job with Howard and he’ll “go to Boston tomorrow” (Miller). His conscience refuses to accept the fact he no longer has a job believing that he deserves the world for all that he believed he did in the past for the sales firm, “I averaged a hundred and seventy dollars a week” (Miller). Willy continues to live in his own mind in which he provides for his own image and …show more content…
Ben was the more successful and adventurous brother that appears from Willy’s mind as a troubled conscious. This character of Ben brings out the internal conflicts that Willy experiences by playing the role of an older brother even beyond the grave. Ben gives poor advice to Willy though Willy continues to listen to messages such as, “screw[ing] on [his] fists and [he] can fight for a fortune up there” (Miller). Created by the idea that Ben was always a person who has every quality that Willy lack, Loman is constantly trying to please his older brother who he does not comprehend as being only a figment of his own imagination. Associating the prosperity of Ben with his own life Willy begins to look to that as proof that his own big dreams will become a reality. Even Ben the highly taught of brother took what could be assumed as dirty means to achieve a higher outcome seeming to justify the corrupt nature with the phrase, “the jungle is dark but full of diamonds, Willy” (Miller). The internal conflict between Willy and the figment of his imagination is that all Willy wants to do is be as successful as his father. Willy has a similar occupation to his parental figure, but his brother Ben who, “when I was seventeen I walked into [the] jungle and when I was twenty-one I walked out” becoming rich off the labor and means he used while there (Miller). No matter how