Willy Loman

In the story of “Death of a Salesman,” the main character, Willy Loman, almost refuses to place himself in the realities of life. He does not want to face that he is a small cog in the machine of life. In other words, self-awareness is not our main character’s strong suit. He does not recognize that, within his profession, he is just another on-the-road salesman who is at the top of his game one week and in the cellar the next. Additionally, he does not recognize that his family (which consists of a loving wife and two sons) is just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill family. Willy’s sons grew up to be regular people; they did not become the super successful sons he envisioned while raising them. Furthermore, he set himself up for failure in the eyes of his family because he portrayed himself as being the loving and devoted husband when truly he was cheating on his wife which was later discovered by his oldest son, Biff. (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012). This is not to mention the fact that Will gave a false bravado to his sons about his successes in his chosen profession which set his sons up for failure; they would never feel that they could reach the high expectations their father had shown in his life and …show more content…
Part of the reason of this is because Biff was very successful in high school and was well known within the community. With Biff’s fame also came the bragging rights of his father when dealing with his clients in furthering his own career. This can be seen throughout the play when Happy makes statements in the middle of conversations between the father and Biff with statements such as “I’m losing weight” and towards the end of the play where he continues to repeat “I’m getting married.” (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012). These interruptions are a repeated attempt by Happy to gain approval from his