Jennifer Luong
Block 4
April 4, 2010
Death of a Salesman: Willy Loman Analysis

Willy Loman a traveling salesman who has worked for the Wagner firm for thirty-four years. He is now sixty-one years old and has been cruelly taken off salary and put on commission. He has a wife, Linda, and two sons, Biff and Happy. Willy Loman is a open and hardworking man with a great desire to succeed. However, after thirty-five years working as a traveling salesman throughout New England, Willy Loman feels defeated by his lack of success and difficult family life. Although he has a supportive wife and two loyal sons. Willy instills his beliefs into his sons. His relationship with his oldest son, Biff, is strained by Biff's constant failures and his youngest son Happy isn't much better off and following down the same path as his father.
As a salesman, Willy Loman focuses on personal details and believes that it is personality and not education that will lead to success in the business world. His controversial philosophy of success lead to his life's many contradicts. He says “the key to success is being good looking”. He states how himself and Biff have that attribute and yet at one point he says that he is fat and ugly. Willy does not live in the present. The majority of the events he talks about are things that happened long ago. He lives in the past and that is why he contradicts himself. Willy does not pay attention to what is happening in the present. It seems as though Willy's misplaced priorities shortens his life. Willy is a victim of "The American Dream" . He is depressed and tries to kill himself throughout the play and succeeded in the end. An insecure, self-deluded man, Willy truly believes in the American Dream of quick success and wealth, but he never achieves his goal.