English 30-1
Mr. Grisnich
October 20
Mariah Muis
How did Willy Loman’s flawed ideas of success and how to achieve it negatively impact his life
and that of his sons?
Everyone wants to be well-liked. No matter who you are or where you live, no-one wants
to be someone that is not liked. In The Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller shows how dangerous
this idea can be if taken too far. Willy Loman viewed success in life as being well-liked by
everyone, no matter what he did to become popular, and taught his sons the same.
Willy Loman based his whole life on doing things that would cause him to be popular. His
father was a flute maker and he “was a happy man with a batch of cement” (81) but he decided
to become a salesman. His only reason for this was meeting Dave Singleman, who became Willy’s
role model for how he wanted his life to go. Willy thought that nothing would be “more satisfying
than to be able to go, at the age of eighty-four, … and be remembered and loved and helped by
so many different people”(46). This opposes the Biblical view stated in Proverbs 22:4 “By humility
and the fear of the Lord are riches, and honour, and life”(KJV Bible). The only way Willy can truly
ever be happy in life is by fearing the Lord, not by pursuing honour by himself. We can see, due
to the lack of religion in the entire play, that neither Willy nor Linda are religious and how it
affects their daily life. If Willy went to church and read the Bible he would have been able to see
that the entire theory of the American Dream is just false. Living in a country with more freedoms
than most does not necessarily give one happiness. Willy attempts to hide the fact that he is not
making as much money as he would like by borrowing money from Charley. Charley even offers
him a job but Willy refuses because he is jealous of Charley since he was more successful than
Willy. Willy did not keep his ideas to himself, but taught his sons what he thought which was very
detrimental to their life.
Willy taught his sons that the only thing that mattered in life was to get far in life, get rich
quickly, and be well-liked. He tells his sons “Be liked and you will never want” (17) which is not
true. Being well-liked does not mean that you will have money or happiness. Willy does not teach
his sons the importance of working hard and being honest like one should. When the boys were
young they stole lumber from a lumber yard across the street, and he praised them for being
“fearless characters” (30). As a result of this Biff steals himself out of every job. He does not excel
fast enough for his liking, and since stealing was never condoned when he was a child, that is his
automatic first response instead of being patient and hard-working. Due to Willy having an affair
Biff begins not caring about school or anything. Biff was so close to having a scholarship for
college and making something of himself when he found out that Willy was having an affair.
When he learns that Willy, who he thought was in a healthy, happy relationship with his mother,
is having an affair his perception of Willy as the perfect father is crushed and he does not want
to do anything his father told him. Happy is an exact copy of Willy: unrealistic, over-confident,
and unsure of his real identity. When Willy dies in the end of the play Happy decides to follow his
path and become a salesman to create Willy’s legacies, not learning from his father’s mistakes.
Happy says he will “show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain” (89) but
“had the only dream you could have” (89). Biff sees why his father was unsuccessful in life, but
Happy does not and will continue the cycle of pursuing the American Dream as much as he can,
and teaching his children the same, but failing because the American Dream is not real.
Willy thought that success was defined as being well-liked and being able to make lots of
money. He worked as a salesman which he did not really like just because he thought that that
was the most successful job one could have. This fails and in the play Willy is not happy and
instead kills himself because he does not see anything else he can do. Willy teaches his sons the
same, but when he dies Biff learns that his father was wrong. Happy continues to follow in his
father’s footsteps of living the American Dream. This play shows others how dangerous it can be
to follow other’s ideals, and what life without religion and God can look like.