Thematic Statement: Biff, Willy, and Happy’s senses of identity in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman portrays the idea that immoral actions taken with doubt and the fear of not being able to attain financial success, results in an inability to achieve their hopes and dreams.
Under the frivolous American dream Willy has built, Biff’s idea of success manifests as a man who achieves great financial value on the basis that one is superficially attractive instead of attaining personal prosperity through hard work and dedication to the truth. By choosing to not act with the intent of individual success, Biff is uncertain why the accumulation of his choices in life have led to dissatisfaction and a sense of futility when he tries to achieve materialistic …show more content…
Overall, Biff’s actions done without certainty accumulate into a person that is unable to conceive success as anything but materialistic value. Soon after that, Biff is told of his grandfather’s success as a salesman and fails to understands that great financial prosperity is because the grandfather had faith in his career choices. Ben describes that Biff’s grandfather was a “[g]reat inventor…With one gadget he’d make more in a week than a man like [Willy] could make in a lifetime” (Miller 49). These two sentences that come in opposing lengths describe an idea of success that Willy, and now Biff, cannot understand. With the first short, declarative sentence, “Great inventor, Father” Ben reveals that a successful salesman is not someone how aims to make large amounts of money, instead it is the person that connects to products they are selling. In addition, Biff’s grandfather was a man who man skilled enough to work with his hands and independent enough to thrive in the industry as an individual. For this reason, the reader understands that if Biff wishes to achieve his dreams, he needs to work hard in his field of passion, not
Under the frivolous American dream Willy has built, Biff’s idea of success manifests as a man who achieves great financial value on the basis that one is superficially attractive instead of attaining personal prosperity through hard work and dedication to the truth. By choosing to not act with the intent of individual success, Biff is uncertain why the accumulation of his choices in life have led to dissatisfaction and a sense of futility when he tries to achieve materialistic …show more content…
Overall, Biff’s actions done without certainty accumulate into a person that is unable to conceive success as anything but materialistic value. Soon after that, Biff is told of his grandfather’s success as a salesman and fails to understands that great financial prosperity is because the grandfather had faith in his career choices. Ben describes that Biff’s grandfather was a “[g]reat inventor…With one gadget he’d make more in a week than a man like [Willy] could make in a lifetime” (Miller 49). These two sentences that come in opposing lengths describe an idea of success that Willy, and now Biff, cannot understand. With the first short, declarative sentence, “Great inventor, Father” Ben reveals that a successful salesman is not someone how aims to make large amounts of money, instead it is the person that connects to products they are selling. In addition, Biff’s grandfather was a man who man skilled enough to work with his hands and independent enough to thrive in the industry as an individual. For this reason, the reader understands that if Biff wishes to achieve his dreams, he needs to work hard in his field of passion, not