Self-Misadversity Through Adversity In Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman

Self-Misperception through Adversity in Death of a Salesman
Everyone will encounter several times of adversity through his or her life. Different people react in distinct ways to overcome the difficulties. Some people can act in a positive and brave manner to deal with difficulties. On the other hand, some individuals might blindly follow their goals despite of the hardship in reality. In the modern play, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman is a character who tries to ensure his independence, but create a lot of adversity for himself and his family. When this individual blindly struggles to be become a well-loved salesman to ensure his independence, his misperception willingly sacrifice everything in order to feel contented …show more content…
Willy Loman wants to ensure his independence by proving that he can be a well-loved and successful salesman in business, regardless of that he meets a lot of adversities in his career as a salesman. Willy’s biggest dream is to be like Dave Singleman, a successful but rare salesman who can make a living by “picking up his phone and calling the buyers” when he is eighty-four years old. After Willy meeting Dave, Willy feels that he can be a highly respected and valued salesman and ensure his success by hard working. However, since Willy lacks ability, he cannot become a rich and respected salesman, even though he drives to New England every week when he is young. As he gets older, the situation gets worse. According to Linda, Willy “drives seven hundred miles without earning a cent”. Willy suffers between the adversity of low income and unrealistic goal of being successful. In order to ensure Willy’s independence, Willy sacrifices not only his happiness, but also opportunities to be rich. During Willy’s funeral, Charley says that Willy is “a man with a batch of cement”; Linda also recognizes that Willy is “wonderful with his hands”, which shows that Willy is good at fixing and …show more content…
Because Willy blindly tries to pursuing his dream, he does not only create a lot of hardship for his family, but also give a lot of inappropriate education to his sons. Although Willy questions about whether “[he is] teaching them right”, Willy ensures that there is nothing wrong about being well-loved and successful. As the result, Biff and Happy both receive a lot of twisted and inappropriate education. Willy tells Biff not to pay any effort on education since Biff’s good appearance will make him “five times ahead of [Bernard]” who studies really hard in school. Willy also gives Biff the wrong idea of well-liked. When Biff steals a football from school, Willy says it would be okay as long as the coach “congrats his inactive”. Therefore, the education given by Willy is totally wrong because of Willy’s misperception on his independence of becoming a successful man in business. Also, the adversity Willy encounters in career makes him so desperately want his sons to become successful, and ensure that Willy’s independence. However, because of the adversities Willy created and the bad education given by him, Biff refuses to go into business world. Meanwhile, although Happy chooses to work in business, it is easy to tell that he is not as successful as he expected. Therefore, Happy tries to find the sense of success by holding affair